Editing the registry of an offline Windows install

This guide will explain how to edit the registry of an offline Windows install, which means a Windows install that is either installed and not booted or that is in a WIM/ESD archive, ready to be deployed.

The registry isn't stored in any weird hard to access place, it's stored in files. You can view and edit these files in the Registry Editor by loading them with File > Load Hive.

As for the locations of the files, let me go over them. The individual subkeys of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE (SOFTWARE, SYSTEM, etc.) are stored in the %SystemRoot%\System32\config folder. Each user's registry data (basically, HKEY_CURRENT_USER) is stored in their profile directory as NTUSER.DAT. I should also note the following:

• HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT is an alias to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes.
• HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG is an alias to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Hardware Profiles\Current.

When you're done editing the registry of the offline install, make sure to select the key the hive is loaded as, and do File > Unload Hive. The hive will remain loaded even after the Registry Editor is closed, so you need to do this manually every time.