Information on the Windows registry?

Is there a site out there which exhaustively documents the Windows registry?

Despite being one of the most important parts of Windows, it's very very hard to get any information on the web as to what registry entries do - it seems the vast majority of people, including enthusiasts, would rather reinstall a program or even reformat their PC before they'd be willing to touch the registry.

 

Nothing fully documents it, because nobody really knows, and the fact that any program can and will write to the registry and each entry has an unlimited possibility of values. I often at work have to work out which keys relate to settings is certain applications we use so they can be standardized for employees but unless you are trying to do something specific i don't see the need for such a guide?

 

It's nice to know for those situations where you disconnect a projector and a window flies completely offscreen to a now non-existent location, or when a third-party plugin to a program causes it to crash at start-up and you have no way to disable the add-on because you need to start the program to do so, or when you change a preference in a program which ended up causing problems and you need to reset the program to its default settings. I'm sure everyone has experienced something like this at some point while using their computers, and the most frequently given advice in such situations is typically along the lines of "uninstall and reinstall the program and see if it fixes the problem" which is overkill when a simple modification/deletion of specific registry entries usually fixes these types of issues.

I don't really expect any one person (or even organization) to ever be able to tackle it, but an open/collaborative model potentially could. I mean, Seven/Eight Forums already has many of Windows' own registry entries documented.

 

Microsoft have documentation on some entries related to windows itself.
Third party app all reside under the software afaik. Many entries are self explanatory, and I guess it is up to those program Dev to put description/comment on them. I believe more app have begin to use app data folder instead of registry.

 

Many entries are indeed self-explanatory, but there are equally many that are downright baffling. My latest brush with the registry was this:

Remove ATI Catalyst Control Center from the Desktop Right-Click Menu

There's no way I would have been able to figure this one out by myself. For one, "ACE" just doesn't represent Catalyst Control Center in any way that I can imagine. Even assuming the "A" stands for ATI or AMD and the "C" is for Catalyst, what's the "E" for?