Rating: 

Paul Robichaux, the author, wrote the Windows NT Registry book for O'Reilly, and works as a

systems analyst for an NT shop (but he writes his books on Macs), so he knows his way

around the registry. And Windows being what it is, you learn and master your knowledge

gradually. Robichaux learned only while working on this edition of the book where the term

hives comes from (the registry terms in order are root keys, subkeys, values, hives, and links).

The registry is built using a b-tree database, and bees build hives.

Chapter 1 gives you an introduction to the registry, and traces its history from ini files to the

first registry database in Windows 3.1 to the monster that is the Windows 2000 registry.

How the registry is structured and how to work with it at a basic level is the subject of Chapter

2. Chapter 3 describes how to work with the registry in an emergency - backing up and

restoring either the whole registry or critical parts.

Chapter 4 describes how to use RegEdit to edit the registry, and chapter 5 describes how to

use RegEdt32. RegEdt32 is the more powerful of the two registry editors, giving you access to

security and permission settings for the registry, which RegEdit does not.

Chapters 6 and 7 explain how user and group policies work and how to use them to their full

advantage.

Programming the registry using C++, Visual Basic (or Delphi), or Perl is the topic of Chapter 8.

Some of the registry functions don't work the same way across all versions of Windows.

Although they have the same names they do different things. These features are described

briefly, but not fully documented as Microsoft has done so in both the MSDN and the Win32

SDK.

Chapter 9 describes how to administer the registry, and Chapter 10 describes some of the

registry tweaks you can make to improve performance or usability.

While Chapter 11 is titled 'The Registry Documented' it isn't a complete item by item

reference. Instead, the author has documented only the core parts of the registry specific to

the operating system itself, and only the more interesting or noteworthy registry items. The

reason given is that non-core parts of the registry undergo change too often to be properly

documented, and others are too obscure to be of interest to any but a tiny handful of users.

Appendix A documents the policy settings that already exist (Chapter 7 described how to

create, change, and distribute policies, not which policies already exist and what they do).

Appendix B does the same thing for group policies.

Again, the Managing the Windows 2000 Registry seems to be an authoritative and

trustworthy guide to the Windows 2000 registry. As a power user, programmer, or administrator, you'll be well served by the book.