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A hive in the Windows Registry is the name given to a major section of the registry that contains registry keys, registry subkeys, and registry values. All keys that are considered hives begin with HKEY and are at the top of the hierarchy in the registry.

The five Registry hives:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT

This mostly contains information about file types and file name extensions descriptions, icons, associations, shortcuts, automation, class IDs. It tells XP how to handle the different file types and which user interface options to use.

HKEY_USERS

Here’s where the system keeps information about every user on the system i-e. stores information about all system users and their individual settings including environment variables, color schemes, fonts, icons, desktop configuration, Start menu items, network, and more. When a new user logs on, a new key is created based on a default key.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER

This hive contains system setup info for the machine’s current user. This includes things such as desktop preferences, printers, and security settings.This hives name is the user’s SID and is recreated each time the system reboots.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

This hive stores information about the computer itself and the hardware attached to it, such as keyboards, storage, and such.This is the largest registry hive and stores two of the main registry hives.

HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG

This hive that keeps current hardware configurations during the active session.Hardware profiles allow you to specify which device drivers are to be loaded for a given Windows session.

If you purchased a new computer with Windows Vista preinstalled on it, you may have received an actual Windows Vista DVD with your purchase or a Recovery Disk created by the computer’s manufacturer, or maybe your new computer came with a Recovery Partition on the hard disk in lieu of a Recovery Disk. While a Recovery Disk or a Recovery Partition will allow you to restore your computer to the original settings from the manufacturer, chances are you will not be able to use it to repair your Windows Vista installation. For that, you will need an actual Windows Vista DVD that contains the Windows Recovery Environment; without the tools contained in the Windows Recovery Environment, you cannot repair your current installation.

Fortunately, Microsoft is adding the ability to create a Windows Recovery CD to Vista SP1.

Getting the ISO

Once you get the ISO file, you will need a way to burn it to a CD. You may already have a CD burning application such as Nero, but if you’d like to add the ability to burn ISO files directly from within Vista, download the Vista version of ISO Recorder from Alex Fienman’s site.

Once you download the ZIP file, installing ISO Recorder is a snap. Double-click Setup, and click through the Open File Security Warning and User Account Control dialog boxes and simply follow the onscreen instructions

Now you can  insert a blank CD into your CD burner. When you see the AutoPlay dialog box, just close it.

ISO Recorder, originally written as a Shell extension, integrates itself right into Windows Explorer. To launch it, locate the ISO file, right-click, and select the Copy Image To CD command

When you see the CD Recording Wizard click Next. The program will burn the ISO image to your CD and in a few minutes the CD will eject. You may then close the CD Recording Wizard

This is the way u can create your Recovery disc.When ever you have a problem with your os you can use this DVD and installed it

Booting from the Windows Recovery CD

Restart your computer with the CD in the drive. As the system reboots, follow the instructions on the screen to make your computer boot from the CD. Be patient as the Windows Recovery Environment, which actually uses Windows PE (Preinstallation Environment) to boot up, will take some time.

Once the system begins to boot from the CD, a black screen with a light gray progress bar will appear

As soon as all the files are loaded into memory, the blue and green Vista background  will display on the screen for what may seem like an eternity. Again, this may require some patience. Finally, the Install Windows dialog box, which prompts you to select Language, Time and Currency format, and Keyboard preferences, will appear on the screen .Since you are not really installing Windows, you may bypass this dialog box by clicking Next.

The main System Recovery Options dialog box will appear. If this were a real system failure, you would choose one of the appropriate recovery tools from the list. However, since this is only a test, you can simply click the Restart button.