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Data Types for Registry Values (Windows Embedded CE 6.0)

1/6/2010

Values in the registry can be stored in several different data types. The following table shows the data types that Windows Embedded CE supports.

Value type constant Description

REG_BINARY

Binary data in any form.

REG_DWORD

A 32-bit number.

REG_DWORD_LITTLE_ENDIAN

In little-endian format, a multibyte value is stored in memory from the lowest byte (the little end) to the highest byte. For example, the value 0x12345678 is stored as (0x78 0x56 0x34 0x12).

REG_DWORD_BIG_ENDIAN

A 32-bit number in big-endian format.

In big-endian format, a multibyte value is stored in memory from the highest byte (the big end) to the lowest byte. For example, the value 0x12345678 is stored as (0x12 0x34 0x56 0x78).

REG_EXPAND_SZ

A null-terminated string that contains unexpanded references to environment variables, for example, %PATH%.

REG_LINK

A Unicode symbolic link used internally. Applications should not use this type.

REG_MULTI_SZ

An array of null-terminated strings, terminated by two null characters.

REG_NONE

No defined value type.

REG_RESOURCE_LIST

A device driver resource list.

REG_SZ

A null-terminated string.

Size Limits for Registry Data

When programming with the registry, keep name and data size small. Registry values in Windows Embedded CE take up less memory than registry keys. Design your registry hierarchy to use as few keys as possible.

The following table shows size limits for different elements in the registry.

Limit Description

Key or value name length

255 characters

Data size

4 KB

Key hierarchy depth

Up to 16 nested subkeys

See Also

Tasks

Specifying a Registry Key

Concepts

Registry Keys