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Understanding the Windows 2003 Registry

In this article we?ll dive into the Windows 2003 Registry and take a quick look at what it is, how you can configure it remotely and how to backup and restore it. This document is intended to be a reference that will help you to understand the core of Microsoft?s later generation operating system.

Introduced with Windows 95, the Registry is a central repository for unique user and machine configuration data. In basic terms, it is a big database that holds all of the Windows 2003 configuration information ? settings relative to user accounts, machine hardware and applications. Everything from user preferences (such as the background colour, screensaver, etc), to encrypted local account passwords are in there.

The registry was brought about to replace the old .INI files (that stored configuration settings in editable txt files). INI files were good because they were short and easy to edit. They did however have some restrictions such as size limitations and no support for multiple users. In came the registry to rid us of these restrictions and make it easier to recover settings after a crash, control access to and track system changes. The Registry is fault tolerant, in that, if you are installing an application that is writing a new bunch of keys to the registry and there is a power failure, everything remains intact and you can start a fresh when the system is back up and running again. Understanding the Windows 2003 Registry

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