Entropy (computing) - Windows

Windows

Microsoft Windows releases newer than 95A feature the CryptoAPI (CAPI) API that gathers entropy in a similar fashion to Linux kernel's /dev/random.

Windows's CryptoAPI uses the binary registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Cryptography\RNG\Seed to store a seeded value from all of its entropy sources.

Because CryptoAPI is closed-source, some free and open source software applications running on the Windows platform use other measures to get randomness. For example, GnuPG, as of version 1.06, uses a variety of sources such as the number of free bytes in memory that combined with a random seed generate the desired randomness it needs.

Programmers using CAPI can get entropy by calling CAPI's CryptGenRandom, after properly initialising it.

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