SubTrees Of Registry

There are five sub-trees of registry

The following five sections of the registry contain a logical grouping of registry information called SubTrees. These are the five main sections of the registry and they each hold a set of sub keys. When making changes, you will most likely do most of the work in the _MACHINE and _USER subtrees.

1. HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT

The HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT subtree contains data that associates file types with applications and configuration for COM objects.

2. HKEY_LOCAL_USER

Also known to have the common abbreviation HKCU, the HKEY_LOCAL_USER subtree contains settings and preferences for the user currently logged on to the system. These settings are dynamic and unique to each user.

3. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

Also known to have the common abbreviation HKLM, the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE subtree contains information about the hardware currently installed, and the settings for systems running on the machine. These are normally static for all users until a change is made.

4. HKEY_USERS

This subtree simply contains a pointer to HKEY_LOCAL_USER and the DEFAULT user profile (a template used when assigning a profile to new users).

5. HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG

This subtree stores configuration data for the current hardware profile and points to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Hardware Profiles