Vista Registry Editor is one of the most important tools available in Windows Vista, which allows you to view and manually edit the contents of Windows Registry. The Windows Registry or simply registry is a hierarchical database of settings that is used by Vista to store the information relevant to its configuration, application, hardware and software files. Whenever an application is opened in your system, the registry adds information to it and this process follows for every application that is opened in your system.



To execute or open the Vista Registry Editor, you need to type regedit.exe in the run dialog box of the start menu and the press the OK button or the Enter key. This opens the window of the Registry Editor, which is divided into two pans. The pan in the left side contains a tree with keys that are represented by folders, while the pan in the right side shows the values contained in a specific key when you select the key. Generally, you can add keys or modify values using the Registry Editor to edit Vista registry. This process of editing and modifying the registry is known as registry tweaking or registry hacking.

The registry editing generally starts with navigating down the folders of the Vista Registry Editor to select a particular key. It is followed by modifying the key with a new key or assigning a new value. For adding a new key or value, you need to select New from the Edit menu of the Vista Registry Editor. This allows you to select the option that you want to add and thereafter you can type the name of the key or value. In addition, if you think, there is no use of a key or value, and discarding it will cause no harm, then you can delete it by simple selecting it and pressing the Del key on the Registry Editor. One important thing to remember while tweaking with the Vista registry is that you need to reboot your system so that the changes in the registry can take effect.