Why is a registry file called a "hive"?

Date:	August 8, 2003 / year-entry #17
Tags:	history
Orig Link:	https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20030808-00/?p=42943
Comments:	9
Summary:	Useless trivia day. Why is a registry file called a "hive"? Because one of the original developers of Windows NT hated bees. So the developer who was responsible for the registry snuck in as many bee references as he could. A registry file is called a "hive", and registry data are stored in "cells", which...

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MartinJ says:

August 8, 2003 at 6:44 pm

I guess a bad pun would be to talk about honeypots…

Brian Randell says:

August 8, 2003 at 7:47 pm

Hmm, I thought it had to do with that fact that the data was structured using B-trees?

BrianJ says:

August 13, 2003 at 2:20 pm

So, do you know the deal with MZ of MZ header fame? Is that really someone’s initials? If so, whatever became of the real MZ?

Raymond Chen says:

August 19, 2003 at 1:58 am

MZ is indeed Mark Zbikowski. He still works at Microsoft and is one of the nicest guys it’s been my pleasure to have met.

Thomas Lee says:

October 18, 2003 at 12:28 pm

And here I thought the analogy was meant to refer to the notion that if you mess around (with the registry) and do not know what you are doing – you will get stung (or additional practice in reinstallation).

Larry Osterman says:

June 10, 2004 at 9:54 pm

Ok, so I’m coming to this 8 months late :) Mark actually interviewed me, it was absolutely the most pleasant of my on-campus interviews :).

June 19, 2004 at 5:28 pm

Commenting on this article has been closed.

The Old New Thing says:

August 24, 2004 at 9:58 am

An edge case that can result in a buffer overrun.

January 17, 2008 at 11:11 am

It didn’t do quite as much back then.

Why is a registry file called a “hive”?