Excel 97 and the Registry

In Microsoft Excel 97, the program preferences are stored in the Windows 95 or Windows NT registry. Microsoft Excel creates a key called Excel under the HKEY_CURRENT_USER key, as shown in the following illustration:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\
    Software\
        Microsoft\
            Office\
                8.0\
                    Excel\

Under the Excel key, Microsoft Excel creates a subkey for each category of program preferences.

                Add-in Manager\
                AutoSave\
                Converters\
                Delete Commands\
                Init Commands\
                Init Menus\
                Line Print\
                Microsoft Excel\
                Recent File List\
                Spell Checker\
                WK? Settings\

Under each section key, the individual settings exist as key=value pairs. Long value settings have type REG_DWORD, binary value settings have REG_BINARY type, and string value settings have type REG_SZ.

Each time you start Microsoft Excel, it checks the registry for startup settings. For example, you can use this file to specify documents that you want opened automatically, whether you want gridlines to appear in new worksheets, or what font you want as the default font.