Windows Registry Elaborated

If you donot understand the first paragraph, read about BRIEF HISTORY OF WINDOWS REGISTRY!!

One of the hot new features introduced with Windows 95 was the Windows Registry. The Windows Registry offered a centralized database-like location to store application and system settings. No more plain text .INI files splattered all over your system. Instead, issue a few easy API calls and your application settings are safely nestled away deep inside the registry hive.

Windows stores configuration data in the registry. The registry is a hierarchical database, which can be described as a central repository for configuration data.

The registry contains extended information, settings, and various other values for the the Microsoft Operating Systems. Within the registry you can control, modify and hack a great majority of the operating system features and tools.

Before going into the Registry and changing or deleting anything, we ALWAYS recommend that you backup the registry.

To view the registry of a Windows Operating System, one would use the Registry Editor tool. Type Start>Run>regedit, or just type in regedit in Windows 7's Start Menu search box. There are two versions of Registry Editor.

Regedt32.exe has the most menu items and more choices for the menu items. You can search for keys and subkeys in the registry.

Regedit.exe enables you to search for strings, values, keys, and subkeys and export keys to .reg files. This feature is useful if you want to find specific data.

For ease of use, the Registry is divided into five separate structures that represent the Registry database in its entirety. These five groups are known as KEYS.
Read this Post on Windows Registry Keys to be able to know about how to hack them.