The following are the size limits for the various registry elements.
The maximum size of a key name is 255 characters.
The maximum size of a value name is as follows:
Windows XP, Windows .NET Server 2003 family: 16383 characters
Windows 2000: 260 ANSI characters or 16383 Unicode characters.
Windows 95/98/Me: 255 characters
Long values (more than 2048 bytes) should be stored as files with the file names stored in the registry. This helps the registry perform efficiently. The maximum size of a value is as follows:
Windows NT/2000/XP: Available memory.
Windows 95/98/Me: 16,300 bytes. There is a 64K limit for the total size of all values of a key.