changes in registry architecture between xp and vista/7

[mraeryceos]

Is there any documentation about the changes made to the Windows registry between Windows XP and Windows Vista/7? I've googled for an hour already. All I can find is that there aren't many changes... but I would still like to know what they are.

My main concern is being able to use xp reg files I have to auto-install programs without using an installer (and I'd like to use those reg files in 7)

Edited October 4, 2011 by mraeryceos

[ricktendo]

Registry is pretty dang similar, Id say 97% of xp tweaks will work on Vista/7

[mraeryceos]

Still would like to see some documentation though

[bphlpt]

If you can find some, please pass along a link. I would think that with the potential size of the registry and the scattered places that there might be small changes that there is probably not a publicly available change log, at least not one that could help verify whether every available tweak for XP would work in Win 7 or not.

Cheers and Regards

[crashfly]

Do realize that I am giving an opinion, so what I tell you is not based on fact, but observation. I do believe that the primary differences between the XP registry and Win7 registry is probably subtle and in the way it is stored. Kind of like the differences between different versions of a DB program. The Win7 registry is probably more efficient and may having settings stored in a slightly different location (for the newer settings), otherwise it is backwards compatible because any and all settings can be exported to a common text based format. If you have ever noticed, the export of a setting into a reg file gives version 4 for XP and ver 5 for Win7.

The conclusion is that you will not directly see differences in the registries if only because they are *only* accessed on the OS they were made for. The export format is the same, so how the registries are used does not matter to the programs. As long as the correct data is returned, it should not matter the differences.