Registry Editor |
The Main Window
This will be mostly self-explanatory to experienced computer maintainers. If this is all new to you, be very cautious that you do not make dangerous changes to your Registry - see the Welcome Page. Here are some brief details.
| Views | The Hives | Key Values | Multi-Display Area |
A more sophisticated systems of Views was introduced with Version 2 of RegCOPA.
A Windows option is available From the Views menu, to display or hide the panes individually, and the Keys and Values panes have small icons at their top right:
| Values pane only. Maximise this pane. It will then occupy the space previously used by the Multi-Display Area , and if the Keys pane is closed or hidden, that area too. | |
| Values pane only. Normalise - return pane to its usual form from being maximised (above). | |
| Hide this pane. It can be temporarily shown again from the Views Windows menu, or by clicking on the orange label that will appear. Moving the mouse outside the pane leads to its being hidden again. | |
| Unhide this pane - it will return to its usual permanently-displayed state. | |
| Close this pane completely. It can be restored from the Views Windows menu. |
These are the five major 'containers' for the data, divided into functional units. The files containing them are not directly user-accessible, except through a suitable Registry Editor like RegCOPA.
Each contains a hierarchy of keys and sub-keys, which can be opened by either double-clicking or clicking on the little + to the left. Right-clicking displays a context menu.
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
Contains information about the file system such as file associations (which software should be used to handle with file types).
HKEY_CURRENT_USER
Contains information related to the current logged-in user, mostly copied from other parts of the registry: this is a dynamic area and changes to it will usually be changed again by user actions, or the logging out of the user.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
The basic information about hardware an software on the machine. Values from here may be copied to other parts of the registry for actual use.
HKEY_USERS
Information about the users configured to use the machine, such as names and individual configuration settings for the machine.
HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG
Information about the current configuration of the computer, which may have been obtained from other parts of the registry, or may be other temporarily held information.
There is also another hive, not normally displayed in registry editors:
New Key - Create a new key under this one
Rename - Rename this key
Delete - Delete this key
Add Bookmark - Add a bookmark to the RegCOPA Bookmarks tab
Copy Key Name - Copy the key name to the clipboard
Create Windows Shortcut - When run this shortcut will open RegCOPA at this key. A quick and easy way to access frequently used keys.
Export Key - Export this key as a .reg file, in which form it can be re-imported.
When a key or subkey is selected in the left-hand pane, the values stored in that key is displayed here. Each key may have any number of values under different names. For instance if you use MailCOPA email client, there is a key called Paths that holds values showing the paths to
Keys can store data in three fields:
Name - Just a name given to this entry
Type - the data format for the information
Data - the actual contents of this information
Comment - A text field used for noting, for instance, the meaning or use of this key. (eg "Fred put this here on 1st March just to see what happens" !). This information is not stored in the registry itself, but forms one of RegCOPA's Registry Extensions.
Key Value Context Menu
Obtained by right-clicking on a key value.
Modify - Modify the contents of this key value
New - Create a new key value. Ensure you use the appropriate data type.
Delete - Delete this key value.
Rename - Rename this key value
Create Windows Quickedit Shortcut - When run, this shortcut will open a small window enabling quick editing of this key value. Very useful if you frequently modify particular values by hand.