Registry has several meanings, all of which relate to its general meaning. A Registry is the 'thing' that holds the 'register' record of the 'ownership' of a 'thing'. For example, HM Land Registry records the proprietorship of land in the UK, Nominet UK is the registry of domain names that end in '.uk', and the 'registry' in an operating system records which hardware uses what part of the memory space and addressing.

Breeding registries

A breed registry for purebred animals records the animal's ancestry and ownership.

Domain name registries

See domain name registry.

Registries in the context of operating systems

The registry is a database used to store settings and options for the operating system, especially for Microsoft Windows 32-bit versions. It contains information and settings for all the hardware, software, users, and preferences of the PC. Whenever a user makes changes to "Control Panel" settings, or file associations, system policies, or installed software, the changes are reflected and stored in the registry.

(Taken from infoAnarchy.org/wiki:)

On Windows 9x computers, an older installation can have a very large registry that slows down the computer's startup and can make the computer unstable.

The registry can be edited in Microsoft Windows by running regedit.exe in the Windows directory. WARNING: editing the registry can cause irreversible damage unless you are sure of what you are doing. Many optimization and "hacking" tools are available to modify this portion of the Windows operating system. It is preferable to use one of the (many) registry cleaners available.

A simple implementation of the current registry tool appeared in Windows 3.x, called the "Registration Info Editor". This was basically just a file extension database used to associate files when double clicked.

Registries in medicine

• Disease registries (e.g., cancer registries) monitor incidence and course of specific diseases
• Intervention registries are used to monitor the state of patients after medical interventions (e.g. immunization or implantation of pacemakers)
• Transplant / donor registries help to organize organ transplantation
• In the USA, a Nurse registry is a type of licensed staffing agency which may provide hospitals and individuals with nursing personnel.

Related

• DNS (Domain Name Service)
• Regedit - a tool that comes with Windows to modify one's registry (select "run" from the Start Menu and type "regedit")
• Regmon - tool for detailed monitoring on who access what registry item (download from sysinternals)

• Regclean - an unsupported, downloadable tool from Microsoft for Windows to clear out old Registry entries.

External links

• Demystifying the Windows Registry