Hives
The (last known good) Registry is stored in Registry Hives:
Six of them are located in C:\Windows\System32\Config\
default
SAM
SECURITY
software
system
userdiff
There is one more hive for each user located in
C:\Windows\\Documents and Settings\<username>\
ntuser.dat
However, the hives are not the Registry:
The Registry hive files are, strictly speaking, not the Registry. The registry is a dynamic thing that exists in memory only. The Registry only exists when Windows is running. It is built by Windows from the Hives, and other hardware information, during the startup process.
The Registry Editor makes the structure of the actual Registry visible as keys and values, in much the the same way that Windows Explorer makes folders and files visible. You can also "edit" the keys and values with the Registry Editor, which is similar to editing folders and files with Windows Explorer.
