Where Is The Registry In Windows 10

The Windows Registry is a database where Windows and many programs store their configuration settings. You can edit the registry yourself to enable hidden features and tweak specific options. These tweaks are often called "registry hacks."

What is the Windows Registry, and How Does Information technology Work?

The Windows registry is a collection of several databases. There are arrangement-wide registry settings that use to all users, and each Windows user account besides has its ain user-specific settings.

On Windows 10 and Windows 7, the system-broad registry settings are stored in files under C:\Windows\System32\Config\ , while each Windows user account has its own NTUSER.dat file containing its user-specific keys in its C:\Windows\Users\Proper name directory. You can't edit these files directly.

But it doesn't thing where these files are stored, because you lot'll never need to touch them. When you sign in to Windows, it loads the settings from these files into memory. When y'all launch a program, information technology tin check the registry stored in memory to find its configuration settings. When you lot change a program's settings, it tin change the settings in the registry. When you sign out of your PC and shut downwards, it saves the state of the registry to the disk.

The registry contains folder-like "keys" and "values" inside those keys that tin can incorporate numbers, text, or other information. The registry is made up of multiple groups of keys and values like HKEY_CURRENT_USER and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. These groups are called "hives" because of ane of the original developers of Windows NT hated bees. Yep, seriously.

Microsoft introduced the registry back in Windows 3.1, but information technology was initially used merely for certain types of software. In the Windows 3.ane era, Windows applications oftentimes stored settings in .INI configuration files that were scattered across the Os. The registry tin now be used by all programs, and it helps join the settings that would otherwise exist scattered in many unlike locations across the deejay.

Non all programs shop all their settings in the Windows registry. Each program developer tin can determine to employ the registry for every setting, just a few settings, or no settings. Some programs shop all (or but some) of their settings in configuration files—for example, nether your Awarding Information folder. But Windows itself makes extensive use of the registry.

Why You Might Want to Edit the Registry

Near Windows users volition never need to touch the registry. Windows itself and many programs use the registry, and you normally don't have to worry about it.

Nonetheless, yous can edit the registry yourself with the Registry Editor, included with Windows. It lets you click through the registry and alter private registry settings.

The registry itself is a large mess of a database, and you won't notice much by clicking through it yourself, of form. But you can often find "registry hacks" online that tell y'all what settings you lot need to change to accomplish a particular job.

This is especially useful when you're looking for options that aren't ordinarily exposed in Windows. Some things y'all can only achieve past hacking the registry. Other settings are available in Group Policy on Professional person editions of Windows, but you can usually change them in a Home edition of Windows past tweaking the registry.

Is Information technology Safe?

Editing the registry isn't dangerous if you know what yous're doing. Only follow the instructions and but change the settings you're instructed to change.

Simply, if you lot become into the registry and showtime haphazardly deleting or changing things, you could mess upward your system'southward configuration—and potentially fifty-fifty render Windows unbootable.

We more often than not recommend backing up the registry (and your computer, which you should always have backups of!) earlier editing the registry, just in case. But if you lot follow legitimate instructions properly, you will not take a problem.

How to Edit the Registry

Editing the registry is pretty simple. All of our registry-editing articles show off the entire process, and it's easy to follow. But here'south a basic await at the process.

To get started, you'll open the Registry Editor awarding. To do so, press Windows+R to open the Run dialog. Type "regedit" and then printing Enter. You lot can likewise open the Start card, type "regedit.exe" into the search box, and press then Enter.

You lot'll be asked to agree to a User Account Command prompt before continuing. This gives the Registry Editor the ability to modify arrangement settings.

Navigate to whatsoever key you need to modify in the left pane. You'll know where y'all need to exist because the instructions for the registry hack you're trying to apply will tell yous.

On Windows 10, you can also just copy-paste an address into the Registry Editor'southward address bar and press Enter.

To change a value, double-click it in the right pane and enter the new value. Sometimes, you'll demand to create a new value—right-click in the right pane, select the blazon of value you need to create, and so enter the advisable name for it. In other cases, you may demand to create new keys (folders). The registry hack will tell you what you need to do.

Yous're done. You lot can click "OK" to save your alter and close the Registry Editor. You'll erstwhile need to reboot your PC or sign out and sign back in for your alter to take effect, but that's it.

That's all performing a registry hack involves—y'all've at present opened the Registry Editor, located the value yous want to change, and changed it.

You tin also edit the registry by downloading and running .reg files, which contain a change that's applied when you run them. You should only download and run .reg files from sources you trust, merely they're text files, so you can right-click them and open them in Notepad.

Ameliorate yet, you can brand your own registry hack files. A .reg file can contain multiple different settings, then you lot could create a .reg file that automatically applies all your favorite registry hacks and configuration tweaks to a Windows PC when you lot run it.

Some Cool Registry Hacks For You to Try

We've written about a ton of registry hacks. Here are some of our favorites:

Display a Bulletin at Sign In: You lot can make Windows always show a message whenever someone signs into your PC.
Enable Windows Defender's Clandestine Crapware Blocker: On Windows 10, Windows Defender automatically scans for malware in the background. It can protect you from "potentially unwanted programs" (PUPs) too if you alter a registry setting.
Clean Upwardly Your Messy Context Menu: You can manually remove entries from the chaotic context menu on your desktop or in the file manager via the registry.
Add Any Application to Your Desktop's Context Card: Y'all can add whatever application to your desktop's context carte du jour. Right-click your desktop and select the entry to launch it quickly.
Add together "Open With Notepad" to the Context Carte for All Files: If you regularly find yourself looking at various types of text files in Notepad, add an "Open With Notepad" option to every file to make this faster.
End Other User Accounts From Shutting Down Your PC: You can foreclose specific user accounts on your PC from shutting it downwardly by applying this registry hack.
Block User Accounts From Running Specific Apps: Using the registry, you tin can prevent other Windows user accounts from running specific applications on your organization.

Brand Your Taskbar Buttons Always Switch to the Last Active Window: This is my personal favorite. On Windows vii and Windows x, clicking your taskbar buttons commonly shows you a thumbnail listing of all your open windows for that application, if information technology has multiple windows open. The LastActiveClick hack makes a unmarried click open your last active window for that awarding, saving yous a click when switching windows. You can withal hover over a taskbar icon to run across previews of its open windows.
Disable Windows 10'southward Lock Screen: If you don't like swiping away the tablet-style lock screen and want to meet a traditional sign-in screen every fourth dimension you boot, sign out of, or lock your PC, this registry hack is for yous. Information technology was created for Windows eight but still works on the latest versions of Windows ten.
Add together "Take Ownership" to the Context Menu: On Windows, files are "endemic" by users. If you're an advanced user who changes file ownership frequently, you can add a "Accept Ownership" control to the context menu to speed this up.
Disable Aero Milk shake Minimizing of Windows: You can end Windows 7 or Windows 10 from minimizing all your open up windows whenever you milkshake a window's championship bar with this setting.
Get the Onetime Volume Control Back on Windows x: If y'all miss the Windows seven-style volume control, this registry hack will bring information technology back on Windows 10.

Change the Manufacturer Name of Your PC: You can put your own proper noun in the manufacturer field—which is especially cool if you congenital your own PC. Y'all can even add your own logo.
Remove the "3D Objects" Folder from This PC on Windows ten: Don't like seeing the new "3D Objects" folder nether This PC? This registry hack will remove it.
Remove Folders From This PC on Windows 10: You can also hide the Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures, and Videos folders from the This PC view if you similar.
Remove OneDrive From File Explorer on Windows 10: If you don't want to use OneDrive on Windows 10, this registry hack will remove its folder from File Explorer.
Disable the "Low Disk Infinite" Check: Ill of Windows bugging you almost low disk space on your PC? You can disable the check via the registry. This is especially useful if Windows messes up and keeps warning you about a normally hidden recovery segmentation, for example.
Cease Windows from Adding "- Shortcut" to New Shortcuts: Desire to get rid of "- Shortcut" in the names of new shortcuts? Here you lot go.
Disable SMBv1 on Windows seven for Security: For security reasons, the old SMBv1 file sharing protocol is now disabled by default on Windows 8 and Windows 10. It's all the same enabled by default on Windows seven for compatibility reasons on business networks, but you lot can disable information technology for improved security.

Nosotros've covered many other useful registry hacks in the past. If you desire to tweak something on Windows, just perform a quick spider web search, and there's a expert chance you'll find a registry hack that tells you how to do it.