Is there an official MS document or webpage which details all the registry keys and entries?

questions
1

This has bugged me for years, for both coding and HW support purposes, how registry entries and some keys are not displayed in the registry by default, but can be added and they alter behaviour.

So is there a document or webpage of sorts which details all the registry keys and entries which exist by default and the ones that can be added, with an explanation of their behaviour change, abit like Group Policy settings?

For example I can add
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
EnableBalloonTips Dword

Set the value to zero and this will hide the balloon tips for systray icons on a per user basis.

There are reg entries which will do this on a per user, or per machine basis and also reg entries which will hide the systray itself, so I’m testing for them for my systray class.

I think most people will be familiar with the Oplocks reg settings if they have used TPS files on a windows server.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\MRXSmb\Parameters
OplocksDisabled
EnableOplocks

It just seems to be one of those area’s of knowledge which is missing from the MS documentation.

TIA

Edit

I should add, interrogating Group Policy is possible using the registry
Implementing Registry-based Policy | Microsoft Learn

TLDR
Registry keys for your group policy settings must be stored in one of the following Policy keys:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies (preferred location)

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies (preferred location)

HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies

  • Enabled
  • Disabled
  • Not Configured
2

I agree. There was enough information for the little bit of work that I did with the registry. But nowhere did I find an comprehensive discussion about it. The Clarion help does give you hints of what you can do with the Clarion statements, but not much more. I did a quick seach on Udemy and couldn’t find a course. In LinkedIn I found a couple of videos (not courses) on the topic. I suppose the registry needs to stay misterious so that you don’t want to use it too much.

Thys

3

Over the decades I’ve seen enough of windows doing its own thing, even offline air gapped machines running code in the clarion debugger that should have thrown a compiler error!

So yes misterious it is!

4

There are equivalences between them, usesful for those Windows editions like Home that do not include GPEdit.msc

There are Excel spreadshets with these equivalences and explanations for different Windows versions available through the Microsoft site, for example:

Group Policy Settings Reference Spreadsheet for Windows 11 October 2021 Update (21H2)

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=103506

Group Policy Settings Reference Spreadsheet Windows 1803

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=56946

This book has general explanations of the registry:
https://www.microsoftpressstore.com/store/windows-server-2012-r2-inside-out-volume-1-configuration-9780735682665
See Chapter 8 (Managing the registry) topics here:
https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/windows-server-2012/9780735685215/

5

I have used those spreadsheets in the past, but that only covers the group policies which will translate to a reg entry, except some security settings which dont iirc but it doesnt cover the rest of the registry settings.

You can use some of the group policy reg entries on Home editions, but not all group policy reg entries work on Home editions, because some of the windows dlls (at least in the past) have been lacking the api’s in the dlls, Win7 was the last I checked.

Its just one of those things missing from windows documentation, and then sometimes a MS employee leaks a reg setting to a reporter or an online windows clubs website, abit like powertoys apps etc and then we get to find out about it.

But other than that, so far I’ve not been able to find anything official, which is a bit frustrating.