A system, method and facility for manipulating registries on a computer system. The system includes a generic registry facility, which features functions classified according to the breadth of their applicability to varying types of registries. The registries may be classified as file-based and proprietary. The file-based registries may be binary or text-based. The generic registry facility provides a library of generic registry facility functions that may be included in a specific registry manipulation module through which a computer program can manipulate a specific registry. The generic registry facility functions may be customized by the developer of the registry manipulation module for a specific registry. The functions may include an action verification function that includes a commit sequence for ensuring that requested changes to a registry are made successfully. The functions may also include a trigger function for triggering events upon the occurrence of a change to a registry.