Working in the Registry Editor Windows

You can use the mouse or commands to manipulate the windows and panes in a Registry editor. For example:

Double-click a folder or key name to expand or collapse that entry. Or, use commands on the View and Tree menus to control the display of a selected key and its data.

Use the mouse or the arrow keys to move the vertical split bar in each window to control the size of the left and right panes.

From the Window menu, click Tile or Cascade to arrange the Registry Editor windows.

From the Options menu in Regedt32 click Auto Refresh to update the display continuously, or update it manually by clicking Refresh All or Refresh Active on the View menu. Regedit does not have an automatic refresh feature. To update the display when you are using Regedit, from the View menu, click Refresh or press F5.

Tip

Turning off Auto Refresh in Regedt32 improves its performance.

To search for keys and subkeys, value entries, and values in Regedit, use the Find command on the Edit menu. You search for a key or subkey by using the Find Key command on the View menu in Regedt32, but you cannot search for value entries or values.

Table 24.1 shows some methods of using the keyboard to display data in each of the Registry Editor windows.

Table 24.1 Keyboard Actions for Viewing Registry Data


Procedure	Keyboard action

Expand one level of a selected Registry key.	Press ENTER.
Expand all of the levels of the predefined handle in the active Registry window.	Press CTRL + *.
Expand a branch of a selected Registry key.	Press the asterisk (*) key on the numeric keypad.
Collapse a branch of a selected Registry key.	Press ENTER or the minus (–) sign on the numeric keypad.

For more information about Regedt32 and Regedit, click Help Topics on the Help menu of either application.