Which registry hive would you check to access settings for the current user profile?

To access settings for the current user profile in Windows, you would check the HKEY_USERS registry hive. This hive contains subkeys for each user profile on the system, including the current user's profile identified by their Security Identifier (SID). The subkey corresponding to the current user profile is referred to as HKEY_CURRENT_USER, which is essentially a direct pointer to the settings located in HKEY_USERS under the current user's SID.

HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG, on the other hand, stores information about the current hardware profile used by the system and doesn't pertain to user-specific settings. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE contains configuration settings for the hardware and software of the machine as a whole, not for individual user profiles. Lastly, HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT is primarily focused on file associations and registered COM objects, making it unrelated to user profile settings. Therefore, HKEY_USERS is definitively the correct choice for accessing the settings of the current user profile.