How to Open Registry Editor in Windows 10

To open the Registry Editor in Windows 10, take the following steps:

The Registry Editor opens up, as shown in the following screenshot.

You will also find a shortcut to the Registry Editor on the Start menu, under the Windows Administrative Tools.

Another way is to run the regedit command in the command prompt (CMD).

Windows registry is a database that contains all the information, settings, and configurations of your Windows computer.

At the top of the hierarchy, you will see the five main hives of the registry:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT (stores information about file type associations and the registered software components used by Windows).
HKEY_CURRENT_USER (contains the settings of the currently logged-on user).
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE (contains information about the hardware and software installed on the computer).
HKEY_USERS (contains information about all user accounts on the computer).
HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG (contains information collected during the Windows boot process).

When you change a Windows setting using a GUI tool, control panel for example, behind the scenes it edits a value in the Windows registry.

The Registry Editor is the GUI tool that lets you edit these values directly.