Editing Windows Registry (section)

=== Hives ===
Even though the registry presents itself as an integrated hierarchical database, branches of the registry are actually stored in a number of disk files called ''hives''.<ref>{{cite web | url = http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms724877.aspx | title = Registry hives | access-date= 2007-07-19}}</ref> (The word hive constitutes an [[in-joke]].)<ref>{{cite web|first=Raymond|last=Chen|url=https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20030808-00/?p=42943|title=Why is a registry file called a "hive"? |publisher=The Old New Thing|date=2011-08-08 |access-date=2011-07-29}}</ref>

Some hives are volatile and are not stored on disk at all. An example of this is the hive of the branch starting at {{code|HKLM\HARDWARE}}. This hive records information about system hardware and is created each time the system boots and performs hardware detection.

Individual settings for users on a system are stored in a hive (disk file) per user. During user login, the system loads the user hive under the HKEY_USERS key and sets the HKCU (HKEY_CURRENT_USER) symbolic reference to point to the current user. This allows applications to store/retrieve settings for the current user implicitly under the HKCU key.

Not all hives are loaded at any one time. At boot time, only a minimal set of hives are loaded, and after that, hives are loaded as the operating system initializes and as users log in or whenever a hive is explicitly loaded by an application.