Can registry settings be "watched" by a program in Windows?

Question

Let me explain what I mean...

When you edit a configuration file for a service, software or process in Linux, you are generally required to restart or reload it after editing the configuration settings, in order for those configuration settings to take effect.

Is the same true in Windows, when such settings are read from the registry?

Or is it sometimes more of an event driven sort of a thing, where it watches for the settings to change before reloading them?

Answer 1

It really just depends how the application is written.

For example, most applications that make use of the registry to store configuration will read the registry at startup. You can however set call backs if a registry key changes which would give you a chance to re-load the configuration without the need to restart the process.

Have a search for regnotifychangekeyvalue as an example.