[Win32 API] Registry Element Size Limits

Registry Element Size Limits

The following table identifies the size limits for the various registry elements.

Registry Element	Size Limit
Key name	255 characters
Value name	16,383 characters Windows 2000:  260 ANSI characters or 16,383 Unicode characters. Windows Me/98/95:  255 characters
Value	Available memory (latest format) 1MB (standard format) Windows Me/98/95:  16,300 bytes. Windows 95:  There is a 64K limit for the total size of all values of a key.
Tree	A registry tree can be 512 levels deep. You can create up to 32 levels at a time through a single registry API call.

Long values (more than 2,048 bytes) should be stored as files with the file names stored in the registry. This helps the registry perform efficiently.