Windows 7 Registry Settings Documentation

Solution 1:

As Harrymc pointed out, you're not going to get every key, but Microsoft does actually offer quite a bit of info on the registry and it's all on support.microsoft.com. Not exactly sure what you're looking for, but you may just be able to find it there.

Head over to there, and type "REG: entries" in to the Bing search box and hit enter.

You'll get like 5000 results, many like these:

• REG: Microsoft Mail Entries, PART 2 (102962) - This is the second of three articles on the MS Mail entries; for the other entries, see "Microsoft Mail Entries, Part 1" and "Microsoft Mail Entries, Part 3". REGISTRY ENTRIES FOR ... http://support.microsoft.com/kb/102962/en-us

• REG: Device Driver Entries, PART 5
(102992) - The article contains REGISTRY entries for Sound Card and Video Drivers. These subgroups are included: Sound Card DriversVideo Device DriverVideo Information in the DeviceMap ... http://support.microsoft.com/kb/102992/en-us

• REG: Subsystems Entries, PART 2
(102972) - This is the second of two articles on these entries; for the other entries, see "Registry Entries for Subsystems, Part 1". REGISTRY ENTRIES FOR SUBSYSTEMS This section describes ... http://support.microsoft.com/kb/102972/en-us

• REG: CurrentControlSet Entries PART 3 (102986) - The article contains REGISTRY entries for the CurrentControlSet\Control Subkeys Part 3: SetupTimeZoneInformationVirtualDeviceDriversWindowsWOW For listings of the other control ... http://support.microsoft.com/kb/102986/en-us

So you've got lots of reading material available. ;)

Solution 2:

There isn't any one place that describes the registry's contents, because Microsoft prefers keeping the freedom to change. In most areas, Microsoft keeps this info in semi-confidential status. Although MS does publish some articles with registry info, these are not always up-to-date.

Therefore, when you need any registry entry, google is your friend. You have to search, and then to combine the pieces that you find into a whole (not always successfully). And not every article is correct (or not correct any more).

In spite of a lot of effort, the community's knowledge of registry settings is still quite spotty, which is just the situation that MS would like to have (and it can't really be blamed for it).