The Old New Thing

The performance cost of reading a registry key

February 22, 2006 Feb 22, 2006 02/22/06

Raymond Chen

The registry is a convenient place to record persistent cross-process data in a uniform and multi-thread-safe manner. It roams with the user if you store it in , and individual keys can be secured (even on systems that use FAT, which doesn't otherwise support security). But that doesn't mean that it's free. The cost of opening a key, ...