At what point do changes in the windows registry take effect?

[Maximilian]

Is this dependent on the program? Or does everything need a restart before it takes effect?

 

[Elixer]

It depends... some things instantly, and other things a reboot is needed.

 

[code65536]

Changes to the registry are committed and written immediately. But when a specific program/service/whatever will check and use the new registry value varies, and can vary wildly.

 

[HOSED]

If I do not want to reboot the system I open task manager, end task on explorer.exe - then from task manager (or run) explorer.exe .

Thanks Oynaz,and Code655... I stand corrected. (Old habits die hard}.

 

[oynaz]

If I do not want to reboot the system I open task manager, end task on explorer.exe - then from task manager (or run) explorer.exe .

That will only effect your Windows GUI, won't it?

 

[code65536]

That will only effect your Windows GUI, won't it?

That would only affect the shell and and shell extensions the user has. For the most part, shell components don't cache settings, so restarting the shell is usually unnecessary (the only times I've ever done that is to unload or update a shell extension).

 

[stinger608]

Any time a windows registry is modified, to insure it works correctly just reboot the system.

 

[Squeetard]

Unless you are making changes specific to a program, then you can just quit and restart that app.