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\Users\\Start Menu Same as 2000/XP.

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EXAM TIP Be very careful here. Some of the folder name differences between 2000/XP and Vista/7 are subtle. Make sure you know the difference.

Any good tech knows the name and function of all the folders just listed. As a tech, you will find yourself manually drilling into these folders for a number of reasons. Users rarely go directly into any of these folders with Windows Explorer. That’s a good thing since, as a technician, you need to appreciate how dangerous it is for them to do so. Imagine a user going into a \Users\\Desktop folder and wiping out someone’s desktop folders. Luckily, Windows protects these folders by using NTFS permissions, making it very difficult for users to destroy anything other than their own work.

Registry

The Registry is a huge database that stores everything about your PC, including information on all of the hardware in the PC, network information, user preferences, file types, and virtually anything else you might run into with Windows. Almost any form of configuration you do to a Windows system involves editing the Registry. Every version of Windows stores the numerous Registry files (called hives) in the \%SystemRoot%\System32\config folder. Fortunately, you rarely have to access these massive files directly. Instead, you can use a set of relatively tech-friendly applications to edit the Registry.

The CompTIA A+ certification exams do not expect you to memorize every aspect of the Windows Registry. You should, however, understand the basic components of the Registry, know how to edit the Registry manually, and know the best way to locate a particular setting.

Accessing the Registry

Before you look in the Registry, let’s look at how you access the Registry directly by using a Registry editor. Once you know that, you can open the Registry on your machine and compare what you see to the examples in this chapter.

Windows 2000 comes with two Registry editors: REGEDT32.EXE, shown in Figure 4-44, and the much older REGEDIT.EXE (Figure 4-45). You start either of these programs by going to a command prompt and typing its filename.

The reason for having two different Registry editors is long and boring, and explaining it would require a very dull 15-minute monologue (preferably with an angelic chorus singing in the background) about how the Registry worked in Windows 9x and Windows NT. Suffice it to say that in Windows 2000, only REGEDT32 is safe to use for actual editing, but you can use the older REGEDIT to perform searches, because REGEDT32’s search capabilities are not very good.

Figure 4-44 REGEDT32 in Windows 2000

Figure 4-45 REGEDIT in Windows 2000

Starting with Windows XP, Microsoft eliminated the entire two-Registry-editor nonsense by creating a new REGEDT32 that includes strong search functions. No longer are there two separate programs, but interestingly, entering either REGEDIT or REGEDT32 at a command prompt brings up the same program, so feel free to use either program name. We can also dispense with calling the Registry Editor by its filename and use its proper title.

Registry Components

The Registry is organized in a tree structure similar to the folders in the PC. Once you open the Registry Editor in Windows, you will see five main subgroups, or root keys:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT

HKEY_CURRENT_USER

HKEY_USERS

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG

Try opening one of these root keys by clicking on the plus sign to its left; note that more subkeys are listed underneath. A subkey also has other subkeys, or values. Figure 4-46 shows an example of a subkey with some values. Notice that the Registry Editor shows keys on the left and values on the right, just as Windows Explorer shows directories on the left and files on the right.

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NOTE When writing about keys and values, I’ll use the expression key = value.

Figure 4-46 Typical Registry keys and values

The secret to understanding the Registry is to understand the function of the five root keys first. Each