After so many giveaways this month, Today I will be talking about something too complicated  for most of you. I will try to talk about what is Windows registry, why its is required, what happens when it gets corrupted or how it can be used to restore if something goes wrong with your system.

What is Windows Registry

In simple terms Windows registry’s is like hierarchical database that stores all the configuration settings and options of your Computer like Windows programs including windows operating system, all other installed  programs , Hardware, users, your license keys etc. In short each setting associated with all the programs, operation of your computer is being handled by Windows registry.

I would be avoiding technical terms here. If you browse through the registry editor, you will find thousands of entries all being categorized using different categories like hardware, user, software, software application etc.

You can run registry editor by navigating to Start >> Run and typing regedit.exe . As I have said above, registry contains all the information of your system and hence you should not play with it until you know what you are doing.

You should keep registry backups so that if anything goes wrong with your system, You can just restore your system from the last registry backup you have.You can simply make a backup using the registry editor and even restore it instantly using the same.

For backing up registry, Just navigate to Registry editor menu, File >> Export and just save the backup. Similarly, for restoring use the Import function.

I have avoided all the technical details here so that even a layman can have some understanding of what a windows registry is. If someone wants technical details or discussion on them, just open a new thread  at the Forum.