The Microsoft Windows registry is responsible for storing just about every system application and program variable when you use your computer. It is the backbone of any system and without a working registry; we simply wouldn’t have a purpose for the modern day PC. The HKEY_CURRENT_USER key is one of several that make up the basis of the registry. And just like the others, it’s highly important that we keep it free of corruptions and bad memory.

So what does the HKEY_CURRENT_USER key take care of? In short, the HKEY_CURRENT_USER controls all of the settings and configurations that are native to the currently logged in user. This might not be relevant if you only have the one user setup, but on a computer shared by several people, it begins to gain in importance.

There are five top level registry keys, with HKEY_CURRENT_USER included. The HKEY_CURRENT_USER is responsible for loading up the user profile of whoever may be logged in, and saving any changes for future reference by coordinating with the long term user saved settings.

It’s worth noting that the HKEY_CURRENT_USER subtree doesn’t contain any hard coded data. Everything that you see in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER table is referenced directly as a pointer to the stable HKEY_USERS subtree. This means that if we make a change to the HKEY_USERS data, it will be represented in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER settings the next time we load up Windows and log in as the affected user.

So what sorts of settings are under the control of the HKEY_CURRENT_USER subtree? Think of everything that it’s possible to customise in your user account. This may depend on the global system settings and what you’re allowed to personalise, but you’ll normally find things like shortcuts, desktop settings, print settings and local environment variables. Each list of settings is entirely unique for the currently logged in user, and taken directly from the HKEY_USERS table.

Making a registry edit in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER subtree is pretty pointless on the surface, as the data entries are only reference points and not permanently illustrative of that user’s settings. If you want to change your settings, you shouldn’t have to go in to the registry in the first place. Most of the time, it will be possible to make changes on the operating system platform level and allow the registry to work for itself and save these changes automatically.

If, for whatever reason, you do need to make a change to a user’s saved settings, the HKEY_CURRENT_USER isn’t the table that you should be looking to edit.

It’s also worth noting that if there is no profile enabled for the currently logged in user, Windows NT based systems will automatically refer to the default profile which can be located at \Documents and Settings\Default User (WINNT)\Ntuser.dat. It’s not a good idea to touch this database as you’ll be dealing with the factory default settings and these are generally best kept in tact unless you know exactly what you’re doing.

The HKEY_CURRENT_USER subtree should be seen as an easy access point to the data of the currently logged in user. It rounds everything together nicely for viewing and troubleshooting purposes.

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