Windows Registry Tips & Tricks

Registry Tips
BY : Raghav Bisht

TABLE OF CONTENTS
OLD POSTS(windows 95)
NEW POSTS(windows xp & windows 7)

Restrictions
Disabling the F3 Search Key
Preventing Changes to File Associations
Locking File Associations
Prevent Changes to the Start Menu
DOS Restrictions
Networking Restrictions
Control Panel Restrictions
Restricting the Start Menu, Explorer, and the Desktop
Eliminating the Right Click on the Taskbar
Eliminating the Right Click on the Desktop
Hiding Any Combination of Drives
Disabling Drives in My Computer
Not Saving Settings on Exit
Not Displaying the Network Neighborhood
Disabling Run or Find from the Start Menu
Hiding All Icons from the Desktop
Disabling the Right-Click on the Start Button -
Disabling My Computer
Disabling File and Print Sharing
Explorer
Adding Open With to the Right Click in the Explorer
Opening a DOS Window to either the Drive or Directory in Explorer
Adding Explore From Here to Every Folder
Removing Open, Explore & Find from Start Button
Opening Explorer from My Computer
Network
Allowing Network Access with Blank Passwords (XP and Vista)
Re-Enabling DHCP Error Messages
Removing the Hand Icon from Shared Resources
Creating a Network Logon Banner
Disable Password Caching
Changing the MaxMTU and other Network Settings
Changing the Telnet Scroll-Back Buffer Size
Not Displaying the Last User Logged on
Setting the Minimum Password Length

Misc
Turning off System Beeps
Changing the Location Of Special Folders
Deleting Specific Registry Value
Setting the Recycle Bin to Always Delete
Setting the Internet Explorer Home Page
Preparing to Move Hard Drive to Another Computer
Comparing Registries
Setting Excel 2000 High-Contrast Cell Selection
Changing Common Icons
Changing Office 2000's Excel Undo History
Changing the Title on Windows Media Player
Turning Off the Help on Min, Max, Close Icons
Automatically Deleting a Registry Key
Fixing no AutoRun for CDs
Renaming the File System Profiles
Sticky Menus
Automatic Shutdown with Windows NT
Kill Hung Processes When Logging Off in Windows NT
NT Crash Log File
Changing the Location of Outlook Express Data Files
Disabling the Blinking Cursor
Getting Rid of Schemes
Creating a Legal Text Notice Before Logon
Enabling the Middle Mouse Button on Logitech Mouse
Easily Opening a File with Notepad
Displaying Hi-Color Icons without the Plus Pack
Backing Up the Registry
Removing Unwanted Items from the RUN Menu
Compacting the Registry
Changing Exchange's Mailbox Location
Removing Sound Events from Control Panel / Sounds
Changing the Registered Owner
Adding an Application to Every Folder
Saving Desktop Settings
Getting Rid of Tips
Changing the Location of Windows95's Installation Files
Creating a Default File Opener
Deleting Registry Keys from the Command Line
Automatic Screen Refresh
Adding Items to the Start Button
Removing the InBox Icon and Recycle Bin Icons from the Desktop
Removing Items from NEW on the Desktop
Changing the Tips of the Day

Get Your Folders to Open the Way You Want Every Time
Clearing the Documents Menu Automatically
Fixing a Corrupt Registry
Recycle Bin Edits
Removing the Shortcut Arrows
Turn Off Window Animation
To speed up the Start Menu
Changing your Modem's Initialization String
Increasing the Modem Timeout Removing Programs listed from the Control Panel's Add/Remove
Programs Section
Specifying programs to run every time Windows95 starts

Disabling the F3 Search Key
If you want to disable the ability to use the F3 key from either the Windows Explorer or Internet
Explorer
1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwarePoliciesMicrosoftInternet ExplorerRestrictions
3. Create a Dword value called NoFindFiles
4. Give it a value of 1
5. Reboot
Preventing Changes to File Associations
You can prevent users from changing associations via Windows Explorer's Tools / Folder
Options / File Types tab.
1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER Software Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion Policies
Explore
3. Create REG_DWORD data type NoFileAssociate
Locking File Associations
If you have your file associations the way you want for a particular file type, you can remove it
from the list that gets displayed in the Folder Options / File Types screen
1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
3. Scroll to the file association you want to lock.
4. In the right panel, create a new Binary value
5. Call it EditFlags
6. Give it a value of 01 00 00 00
7. Now when you go to the Folder Options / File Types screen, you won't see that file type listed.
Prevent Changes to the Start Menu
To prevent any changes to the Start Menu, even a right click:
1. Start Regedit
Explorer
3. Add a DWORD called NoChangeStartMenu

DOS Restrictions
Updated 1/31/00
There are restrictions you can make to the ability to execute DOS programs
1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKEY_Current_User / Software / Microsoft / Windows / CurrentVersion / Policies
3. Create a new key under Policies called WinOldApp
4. You can then add DWORD values set to 1 in the appropriate keys
5. To re-enable them, either delete the key or set the value to 0
 Disabled - Disable MS-DOS Prompt
 NoRealMode - Disables Single-Mode MS-DOS
Networking Restrictions
Updated 1/31/00
There are general restrictions you can make in Networking
1. Start Regedit
3. Create a new key under Policies called Network
 DisablePwdCaching = Password Caching
 HideSharePwds [hex] =Shared Passwords
 NoEntireNetwork =Entire Network
 NoNetSetup =Network applet
 NoNetSetupIDPage =Network Identification tab
 NoNetSetupSecurityPage =Network Access tab
 NoFileSharing =Network File Sharing button
 MinPwdLen = set Minimum Password Length (integer number: 0 - 99)
 NoPrintSharing =Network Print Sharing button
 NoWorkgroupContents =Network Workgroup
Control Panel Restrictions
Updated 1/31/00
There are many general restrictions you can make to the Control Panel
1. Start Regedit
3. Create a new keys under Policies called System

 NoDispCPL - Disable Display Control Panel
 NoDispBackgroundPage - Hide Background Page
 NoDispScrSavPage - Hide Screen Saver Page
 NoDispAppearancePage - Hide Appearance Page
 NoDispSettingsPage - Hide Settings Page
 NoSecCPL - Disable Password Control Panel
 NoPwdPage - Hide Password Change Page
 NoAdminPage - Hide Remote Administration Page
 NoProfilePage - Hide User Profiles Page
 NoDevMgrPage - Hide Device Manager Page
 NoConfigPage - Hide Hardware Profiles Page
 NoFileSysPage - Hide File System Button
 NoVirtMemPage - Hide Virtual Memory Button
Restricting the Start Menu, Explorer and the Desktop
Updated 1/30/00
There are many general restrictions you can make to the Start Menu, the Explorer and to the
Desktop itself.
1. Start Regedit
3. There should already be at least a Explorer section there already
4. Additional keys that can be created under Policies are WinOldApp
 ClearRecentDocsOnExit = Clear of Recent Documents on Exit
 NoAddPrinter = Adding new printers
 NoClose = Computer Shutdown
 NoDeletePrinter = Delete Installed Printers
 NoDesktop = Doesn't show Desktop items as well as and Desktop right-click menu
 NoDevMgrUpdate = Windows 98/ME web Update Manager
 NoDrives [hex] = Hides Drives in my computer
 NoFind = Find command
 NoInternetIcon = Internet Icon on Desktop
 NoNetHood = Network Neighborhood
 NoRecentDocsHistory = Recent Documents in Start Menu
 NoRun = Run command
 NoSaveSettings = Save Settings on exit
 NoSetFolders = Folders in Start Menu -> Settings
 NoSetTaskbar = Taskbar in Start Menu -> Settings
 NoSMMyDocs = My Documents folder in Start Menu

 NoSMMyPictures = My Pictures folder in Start Menu
 NoWindowsUpdate = Windows web Update
Eliminating the Right Click on the Taskbar
Added 1/10/00
To eliminate the right click on the taskbar:
Start Regedit
1. Start Regedit
Explorer
3. Add a DWORD and give it a name of NoTrayContextMenu
5. Reboot
Eliminating the Right Click on the Desktop
Added 1/10/00
To eliminate the right click on the desktop:
1. Start Regedit
Explorer
3. Add a DWORD and give it a name of NoViewContextMenu
5. Reboot
Hiding Any Combination of Drives
Submitted 2/15/98
If you want to stop a drive or any combination of drives appearing in Explorer/My Computer
Add the Binary Value of 'NoDrives' in the registry at
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesExplorer
Give it a value from a combination of the table below:
A 1 00 00 00
B 2 00 00 00
C 4 00 00 00
D 8 00 00 00

E 16 00 00 00
F 32 00 00 00
G 64 00 00 00
H 128 00 00 00
I 00 1 00 00
J 00 2 00 00
K 00 4 00 00
L 00 8 00 00
M 00 16 00 00
N 00 32 00 00
O 00 64 00 00
P 00 128 00 00
Q 00 00 1 00
R 00 00 2 00
S 00 00 4 00
T 00 00 8 00
U 00 00 16 00
V 00 00 32 00
W 00 00 64 00
X 00 00 128 00
Y 00 00 00 1
Z 00 00 00 2
Where (for eg) you want to hide Drives {C,E,J,O,R,U,Y,Z} you would give 'NoDrives' the value
14 42 12 03
Where C+E = 14, J+O = 42, R+U=12 and Y+Z = 03
Please NOTE: The Numbers are to be added in HEXadecimal ie: ABCD = 0F, not 15 All Drives
Visible is 00 00 00 00 All Drives Hidden is FF FF FF 03
Added 7/24/96
To turn off the display of local or networked drives when you click on My Computer:
1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKey_Current_User Software Microsoft Windows Current Version Policies
Explorer
3. Add a New DWORD item and name it NoDrives
4. Give it a value of 3FFFFFF
5. Now when you click on My Computer, none of your drives will show
Not Saving Setting on Exit
Added 7/21/96

1. Start Regedit
Explorer
3. Right click on the right panel and add a New / DWORD
4. Name it NoSaveSettings
6. Logoff or Reboot the computer
Not Displaying the Network Neighborhood
Added 7/21/96
1. Start Regedit
Explorer
4. Name it NoNetHood
Disabling Run or Find from the Start Menu
Added 7/21/96
1. Start Regedit
Explorer
4. Name it NoFile or NoRun
Hiding All Icons from the Desktop
Added 7/21/96
1. Start Regedit
Explorer
4. Name it NoDesktop
7. Now all icons are hidden on the desktop.

Disabling the Right-Click on the Start Button
Added 6/29/96
Normally, when you right button click on the Start button, it allows you to open your programs
folder, the Explorer and run Find.
In situations where you don't want to allow users to be able to do this in order to secure your
computer.
1. Start Regedit
2. Search for Desktop
3. This should bring you to HKey_Classes_Root Directory
4. Expand this section
5. Under Shell is Find
6. Delete Find
7. Move down a little in the Registry to Folder
8. Expand this section and remove Explore and Open
Now when you right click on the Start button, nothing should happen.
You can delete only those items that you need.
Note: - On Microsoft keyboards, this also disables the Window-E (for Explorer) and Window-F
(for Find) keys.
See the section on Installation to see how to do this automatically during an install.
Added 6/29/96
In areas where you are trying to restrict what users can do on the computer, it might be beneficial
to disable the ability to click on My Computer and have access to the drives, control panel etc.
To disable this:
1. Start Regedit
2. Search for 20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D
3. This should bring you to the HKey_Classes_Root CLSID section
4. Delete the entire section.
Now when you click on My Computer, nothing will happen.
You might want to export this section to a registry file before deleting it just in case you want to
enable it again..
See the section on Installation to see how to do this automatically during an install.
Disabling File and Print Sharing
Added 4/29/96

1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKLM,SOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesNetwork
3. Add a new DWord Value
4. Rename it to NoPrintSharing or NoFileSharing
5. Assign it a value of 1
Also see the Installation Section on doing this automatically during installation.
Adding Open With to the Right Click in the Explorer
Added 12/28/99
To add the option Open With when you right click on a file in the Explorer:
1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE Software CLASSES * shell openas command
3. If this key isn't there then just create it
4. Give it the value of C:WINDOWSrundll32.exe shell32.dll,OpenAs_RunDLL %1
Submitted 8/9/97
Add or Edit the following Registry Keys
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTDirectoryshellopennew]
@="Dos Prompt in that Directory"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTDirectoryshellopennewcommand]
@="command.com /k cd %1"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTDriveshellopennew]
@="Dos Prompt in that Drive"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTDriveshellopennewcommand]
These will allow you to right click on either the drive or the directory and the option of starting
the dos prompt there will pop up
Added 1/30/97
1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT Folder shell

3. Add a key rootexplore
4. Give it a default value of E&xplore From Here
5. Go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT Folder shell rootexplore
6. Add a key command
7. Give it a default value of Explorer.exe /e,/root,/idlist,%i
Now when you right click on any folder, you can open up an Explorer window of that folder.
This will work for both Windows95 and NT 4.0
Removing Open, Explore & Find from Start Button
Added 9/15/96
When you right click on the Start Button, you can select Open, Explore or Find.
Open shows your Programs folder. Explore starts the Explorer and allows access to all drives.
Find allows you to search and then run programs. In certain situations you might want to disable
this feature.
To remove them:
1. Start Regedit
2. Search for Directory
3. This should bring you to Hkey_Classes_Root Directory
4. Expand this section by clicking on the "+"
5. Under shell is Find
6. Delete Find
7. Scroll down below Directory to Folder
8. Expand this section under shell
9. Delete Explore and Open
Note: - When you remove Open, you cannot open any folders.
If you need to undo any of the changes, you can download the registry settings before the
changes.
Added 5/28/96
By default, when you click on the My Computer icon, you get a display of all your drives, the
Control Panel etc. If you would like to have this open the Explorer:
1. Start Regedit
2. Search for My Computer or 20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D
3. This should bring you to HKey_Classes_Root CLSID
4. Expand the key {20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}
5. Right click on Shell
6. Select New / Key and type Open and press the Enter key
7. Right click on Open

8. Select New / Key and type Command and press the Enter key
9. Double click on the Default for Command and type Explorer.exe for the value
10. Now when you click on My Computer, the Explorer will start
11. If you want to return to normal, simply delete the Open key
Allowing Network Access with Blank Passwords (XP and Vista)
Added 2/10/07
Although you can log in locally without a password, by default, WindowsXP Pro does not allow
network users to access the computer without a password. Typically you will receive an
Unknown error 31 if this is the case.
To change this setting:
1. Run gpedit.msc
2. Go to Computer Configuration / Windows Settings / Security Settings / Local Policies / Security
Options
3. Double click on Accounts: Limit local account use of blank passwords to console login only
4. Disable this option
Re-Enabling DHCP Error Messages
Added 9/20/98
If you got a DHCP error message, selected to not see DHCP errors, and now want to see them
again;
1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE System CurrentControlSet Services VxD DHCP
3. Change the value of PopupFlag from 00 to 01
Removing the Hand Icon from Shared Resources
Submitted 2/11/98
When you share a local resource, Windows95 normally puts a hand in from of that resources
icon.
To remove hand icon from your shared resources:
1. Start Regedit.
2. Go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT / Network
3. Open SharingHandler.
4. Clear it's default value
5. Restart Windows.
6. To restore set Default value "msshrui.dll".

Creating a Network Logon Banner
Submitted 12/7/96
If you want to create a Network Logon Banner:
1. Start Regedit
2. Go To HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionWinlogon
3. Create a new String called LegalNoticeCaption
4. Enter the text for your banner
Added 10/19/96
As in Windows for Workgroups, when logging on to an NT Domain, it is preferable to disable
password caching.
This allows for the single NT Domain login and eliminates the secondary Windows logon screen.
It also eliminates the possibility of the respective passwords to get out of sync.
To disable password caching on the workstation, a one-line addition to the registry needs to be
made.
To make the change, create a ASCII text file called DISABLE.REG with the following lines:
 REGEDIT4
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPolicie
sNetwork]
"DisablePwdCaching"=dword:00000001
Open up a DOS box and type REGEDIT DISABLE.REG
You can also download the DISABLE.REG file.
If you need to re-enable password caching, download ENABLE.REG and repeat the process just
with the different file name
Changing the MaxMTU and other Network Settings
Added 10/19/96
There are four network settings that can be configured so when dialing to an ISP, you should get
somewhat greater throughput.
They are the MaxMTU, MaxMSS and DefaultRcvWindow, and DefaultTTL
MaxMTU and MaxMSS

1. Start REGEDIT
2. Go to Hkey_Local_Machine / System / CurrentControlset / Services / Class / netTrans / 000n
(where n is your particular network adapter binding.)
3. Right click on the right panel
4. Select New / String Value
5. Type in MaxMTU
6. Double click on it and enter then the number you want. The usual change is to 576
7. Similarly, you can add MaxMSS and give it a value of 536
DefaultRcvWindows and DefaultTTL
1. Start REGEDIT
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE System CurrentControlSet Services VxD MSTCP
3. Add a new string DefaultRcvWindow and give it a value of 2144
4. Add a new string DefaultTTL and give it a value of 60-64
Changing the Telnet Scroll-Back Buffer Size
Added 7/27/96
By default, the Telnet session has a window size of 25 lines. To increase this so you can scroll
back
and look at a larger number on lines:
1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER Software Microsoft Telnet
3. Double-click on the entry Rows in the right hand panel
4. Increase the decimal value to one that suits your needs.

These are only the basics to help get you started.
Enabling User Profiles
Creating a Policy File
Using Group Polieies
Setting the Registry to use the Policy file
Enabling User Profiles
Before you can use System Profiles, you need to enable User Profiles.
These allow each user to have their own desktop and network configuration.
1. Open the Control Panel
2. Double-click on the Passwords icon
3. Click on the User Profiles tab
4. Check Users can customize their desktop settings as well as the other options you want under this.
5. Reboot the computer 6. To enable during installation, see the section on Installing Windows95
Creating a Policy File
1. Run POLEDIT.EXE
2. This can be found on the CD in the ADMINAPPTOOLSPOLEDIT directory
3. Select File / New File
4. If there are settings you want to change for everyone, double-click on the Default User Icon.
This will open a window with all the settings that can be changed.
5. If you want to create a policy for a user, you first need to create a new user.

Click on Edit / Add User
Type in the name of a user you want to set policies for and double click on that icon.
6. In either case a window will come up with all the restrictions and settings available.
7. To set a restriction, simply click on the box by the one you want to set.
For example, click on the + by Control Panel and the following restrictions can apply.
Note: With Restrict Display Control Panel selected, additional choices are shown at the bottom
of the screen.

Restrictions and Settings are:
Control Panel
 Display, Network, Passwords, Printer, and System Control Panels
Desktop
 Set the Wallpaper and Color Scheme
Network
 Disable File and Printer Sharing
Shell
 Custom Folders
o Custom Program, Desktop, Startup, Network Neighborhood, StartMenu and Hide
StartMenu Subfolders.
Restrictions
o Remove Run Command, Remove "folders" and "settings" from the taskbar, Remove
Find, Hide Drives in "My computer", Hide "Network Neighborhood", No "Entire
Network", No workgroup contents in Network Neighborhood, Hide All items on the
Desktop, Disable Shutdown, Don't save settings on exit.
8. When you are finished, save the file.

Using Group Policies
In addition to assigning policies to a specific user, you can assign them to users that are in an
NT or Netware Group
The advantage of this is that you can assign one policy that will effect many users. This way
you don't need to create as many separate user policies.
Group Policies needs to be installed on each client.
1. Insert the Windows95 CD
2. Open the Control Panel
3. Double-click on the Add/Remove Programs icon
4.. Click on the Windows Setup tab
5. Click on the Have Disk button
6. Browse to the ADMINAPPTOOLSPOLEDIT directory on the CD.
7. Click on the next two OK buttons.
8. Highlight the Groups Policies box and click on the Install button.
9. This will install GROUPPOL.DLL in the WINDOWSSYSTEM directory as well as make a few registry
changes.
10. When you create a policy file, you can now use Add Group. Anyone in that NT or Netware group will
have the policies you set applied.
Setting the Registry to use the Policy File
1. Select File / Open Registry

2. Double-click on the Local Computer Icon
3. Click on the + by Network
4. Check Remote Update
5. In the Update Mode box, select Manual
6. In the Path for manual update: box, type in the path and filename for the policy file you just created
in the previous section.
This can also be a UNC if it is on a server. The syntax would then be
serversharedirectorypolicy_file_name
7. Click on the OK box
8. To enable System Policies automatically during installation, see the section on Installing Windows95

Continued……..
Added 4/29/96
1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKLM,SOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesNetwork
3. Add a new Binary Value
4. Rename it to MinPwdLen
5. Assign it a value equal to your minimum password length
Also see the Installation Section on doing this automatically during installation.
Added 9/10/01
If you want to turn off all system beeps (like the ones that go through your computers' internal
speaker):
1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USERControl PanelSound
3. Edit the key Beep and give it a value of No
Added 9/10/01
If you want to turn off all system beeps (like the ones that go through your computers' internal
speaker):
1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USERControl PanelSound
3. Edit the key Beep and give it a value of No
Deleting Specific Registry Value
Submitted 12/22/01

In a previous tip, Automatically Deleting a Registry Key, it was mentioned how to remove an
entire registry key.
If you want to simply remove a specific value within a key, use the syntax below:
[Registry Key]
"value"=-
For example:
REGEDIT4
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionRun]
"MSConfig"=-
would delete the value MSCONFIG.
Setting the Recycle Bin to Always Delete
Added 11/17/01
You can set the recycle bin to always delete items (like holding down the shift key when
dragging files to the recycle bin)
1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE SOFTWARE Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion Explorer
BitBucket
3. Set the key NukeOnDelete to 1
Setting the Internet Explorer Home Page
Submitted 9/4/01
If you want to set the home page used by Internet Explorer through the registry
1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKey_Current_User Software Microsoft Internet Explorer Main
3. Give the Start Page key the string value you wish set as homepage
Preparing to Move Hard Drive to Another Computer
Submitted 12/20/00

To remove the devices from device manager when taking a HD from one computer to another,
simply:
1. Run Regedit
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and delete the Enum section
3. This removes all of the hardware specific settings
Comparing Registries
Added 2/21/00
While working with changes to your system, you might want to see what is changing in your
Registry.
Since you can export it to a text file, the steps are fairly easy
1. Start Regedit
2. With the very top level select - My Computer, on the Toolbar select Registry / Export Registry
File
3. I usually save it to the root of the C: drive with the name before (you don't need to add an
extension)
4. Make the change to your system
5. Go back to Regedit
6. Press F5 to update it
7. Export the Registry like step 2
8. Name the file after and have it go in the same directory
9. Open up a DOS window
10. Go to the directory where the two exported files are
11. Enter FC before.reg after.reg > diff.txt
12. Then you can edit diff.txt with your favorite text editor.
Note: I do the last steps so often I have a simple batch file already set up.
Setting Excel 2000 High-Contrast Cell Selection
Added 2/2/00
If you want to increase the contrast in selected cells:
1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER Software Microsoft Office 9.0 Excel Options
3. Add a DWORD value call Options6
5. Now when you select cells, they will be white on black.

Updated 1/31/00
You can change many of the common Windows icons.
1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE SOFTWARE Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion
explorer Shell Icons
3. The default icons are numbered in the right panel from 0-40
4. Double click on the number of the particular icon you want to change. See the chart
below.
5. Enter the name of the icon file you want to use followed by the number of the icon in that
file.
Note: The numbering starts with zero.
6. If you use a single .ICO file, it should be followed by a 0.
7. e.g. - filename.dll,4 - This would actually be the 5th icon since it starts with 0.
8. Make sure you delete the hidden file C:WINDOWSSHELLICONCACHE
0-13 Are the Drive and Application Icons
0 - To change the Unknown Application Icon
2 - To change the Default Application Icon
3 - To change the Closed Folder Icon
4 - To change the Open Folder Icon
5 - To change the 5 1/4" Floppy Icon
6 - To change the 3 1/2" Floppy Icon
7 - To change the Removable Disk Icon
8 - To change the Hard Drive Icon
9 - To change the Network Drive Online Icon
10 - To change the Network Drive Offline Icon
11 - To change the CD Drive Icon
12 - To change the Ramdrive Icon
13 - To change the Entire Network Icon
19-27 Are the Start Menu Icons
19 - To change the Programs Icon
20 - To change the Documents Icon
21 - To change the Settings Icon
22 - To change the Find Icon
23 - To change the Help Icon
24 - To change the Run Icon
27 - To change the Shutdown Icon
Other Icons
33 - To change the DUN Folder Icon
34 - To change the Desktop Icon

35 - To change the Control Panel Icon
37 - To change the Printer Folder Icon
40 - To change the Audio CD Icon
43 - To change the Favorites Icon
44 - To change the Logoff Icon
Changing Office 2000's Excel Undo History
Added 1/27/00
By default, Excel has only approximately 16 undo's you can perform.
To increase that number:
1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER Software Microsoft Office 9.0 Excel Options
3. Add a dword called UndoHistory
4. Give it the value you want for the amount you want.
Changing the Title on Windows Media Player
Added 1/27/00
You can change the title bar for the Windows Media Player
1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKEY_USERS .DEFAULT Software Policies Microsoft WindowsMediaPlayer
3. Create a string value of TitleBar
4. Give it a value of whatever you want to appear in the title bar
Turning Off the Help on Min, Max, Close Icons
Added 1/8/00
When the mouse goes over the minimize, maximize and close icons on the upper right hand side
of a window, you normally get a display telling you want those are for.
To disable that display:
1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER Control Panel Desktop
3. Create a String Value called MinMaxClose
5. Reboot

Automatically Deleting a Registry Key
Added 12/20/99
Normally you cannot automatically delete registry keys from reg file. But there is a way...
Simply include a minus sign inside the left bracket before the main key.
For example.
If you want to delete the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE Software Microsoft Office 8.0
Common Assistants, your regfile would simply look like:
REGEDIT4
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftOffice8.0CommonAssistants]
This would delete that key and any below it.
Added 11/9/99
If your CDs have stop starting automatically, and you have checked everything else:
1. Go to HKEY_USERS.DefaultSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesExplorer
2. The value for NoDriveTypeAutoRun should be set to 95 00 00 00
Added 11/9/99
If your CDs have stop starting automatically, and you have checked everything else:
1. Go to HKEY_USERS.DefaultSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesExplorer
2. The value for NoDriveTypeAutoRun should be set to 95 00 00 00
Sticky Menus
Added 4/20/99
Normally when you move the mouse over the Start Menu / Programs, it will automatically
cascade and show the submenus.
If you want them to open only when you actually click on them:
1. Start Regedit

2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER Control Panel Desktop
3. If if it not already there, create a string called MenuShowDelay
Automatic Shutdown with Windows NT
Submitted 3/28/99
Most laptops allow the operating system to turn off the hardware after shutdown, instead of
displaying the message telling you it's now safe to turn off your system.
You can take advantage of this capability by enabling the Power Down After Shutdown feature.
To enable this feature, simply add a REG_SZ value named
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows
NTCurrentVersionWinlogonPowerdownAfterShutDown and set it to 1.
Next, tell NT to shut down and see if the machine turns itself off after shutting down. If it
doesn't, change the value back to 0 to restore normal operation.
Kill Hung Processes When Logging Off in Windows NT
Submitted 3/28/99
When you tell NT to shut down, it first sends shutdown requests to any running processes.
Most 32-bit applications honor these requests and shut down, but older 16-bit apps running in the
Virtual DOS Machine often won't.
When this occurs, the operating system prompts you with a dialog box asking if you want to kill
the task, wait for the task to die on its own, or cancel the shutdown.
By modifying the Registry, you can automate this process.
You can force NT to kill all running processes on shutdown by adding a REG_SZ value named
HKEY_USERControlPanelDesktopAutoEndTasks and set the value to 1. You can also add
this value to HKEY_USERS.DEFAULT so that all new accounts will shut down the same way.
NT Crash Log File
Submitted 3/28/99
In addition to the crash log file, you can also enable two other methods of crash notification and
logging.
You can enable an administrative alert by changing the value of

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlCrashControlSendAlert to
1. The next time the system crashes, an administrative alert will be sent that may provide the first
sign of the crash.
You can also make NT log the crash in the event log by changing the value of
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetCrashControlLogEvent to 1 instead
of its default 0. Now, the exact time of the crash will be permanently recorded.
Changing the Location of Outlook Express Data Files
Added 1/16/99
Normally Outlook Express keeps its data files in the C:WindowsApplication
DataMicrosoftOutlook Express directory.
To change this:
1. First copy those files to the new location
2. Start RegEdit
3. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER Software Microsoft Outlook Express
4. Change the Store Root key to the directory where you moved the files
Disabling the Blinking Cursor
Added 10/17/98
To stop the cursor from blinking in applications such as Word:
1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USERControl PanelDesktop
3. Add a String Value
4. Name it CursorBlinkRate
5. Give it a value of -1
6. Reboot the computer
Getting Rid of Schemes
Updated 6/7/98
1. A safer way would be is to go to the Control Panel / Display / Appearance tab
2. Go to the Scheme drop down box
3. Select the one you don't want and click on the delete button
Submitted by obs

When you right click on your desktop and pick properties your Display Properties screen
appears.
Under Appearance tab / Schemes, determine if you want all those wild schemes.
If not they can be deleted and clear approximately 45K.
Before you delete them, choose or create at least 1 Scheme and "Save As" (in my case Bud 1).
1. Open Regedit
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER Control Panel Appearance Schemes
3. Highlight every String and Value on the right side and delete. DO NOT DELETE "Default"
Creating a Legal Text Notice Before Logon
Added 2/15/98
You can create a banner that will come up just before you logon to the computer:
1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKeyLocalMachine SOFTWARE Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion WinLogon
3. Create a new string value called LegalNoticeCaption and give it a value you want to see in the
menu bar
4. Create a new string value called LegalNoticeText and give it a value you want to see in the dialog
box
Now before anyone logs into that computer, this banner will come up on the screen.
This can be useful for any legal warnings you want to give regarding the use of the computer.
Enabling the Middle Mouse Button on Logitech Mouse
To enable the middle mouse button on Logitech Mouses to act as a double-click button by only
pressing it once:
1. Run Regedit
2. Go to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWARELOGITECHMOUSEWARECURRENTVERSIONSERIALV0000
3. Change DoubleClick to equal 001
Easily Opening a File with Notepad
Submitted 10/25/97
This will enable you to right click on any file and have the option to open it with notepad.
Also if a file has no association and you try to open it it will open with notepad
1. Run 'regedit.exe'
2. Expand "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT"
3. Inside "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT", expand "*"
4. Inside "*", create a key called "shell"

5. Inside "shell" create a key called "open"
6. Inside "open" edit the string "(default)" to say "open (notepad)"
7. Inside "open" create a key called "command"
8. Inside "command" edit the string "(default)" to say C:WINDOWSNOTEPAD.EXE "%1"
Displaying Hi-Color Icons without the Plus Pack
Submitted 10/19/97
1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER Control Panel desktop WindowMetrics
3. Add or edit Shell Icon BPP=16 where the number is the color depth.
4. The default is 8 (bit or 256 colors).
Backing Up the Registry
Submitted 9/13/97
There are many backup programs for the registry but if the computer goes down and you can't
fire off Win95 because of the registry problem.
Backup to a directory the following files:
 SYSTEM.DATA
 SYSTEM.DA0 (Yes seem to be the same size)
 USER.DAT
 USER.DA0 (Same size likely)
 WIN.INI
 CONTROL.INI
 SYSTEM.INI
These files can be copied to the windows directory from Win95 or DOS to help correct
problems.
Removing Unwanted Items from the RUN Menu
Submitted 8/23/97
1. Start the REGEDIT program
2. Search for the word RUNMRU
3. Delete the ones you don't want
4. Rename so they are all in alphabetical order again
5. Close and restart windows

Compacting the Registry
Submitted 4/5/97
How to compact the registry?
1. Got to true DOS, not a DOS window
2. Run Regedit and then export the entire Registry to COMPACT.REG.
3. Then exit regedit and run it again with the following switch. REGEDIT /C COMPACT.REG
Changing Exchange's Mailbox Location
Added 3/29/97
When you create a mailbox in Exchange for e-mail, you specify the file where you want to mail
to go.
You cannot change this in Exchange afterwards.
If you want to change the file name or location::
1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER Software Microsoft WindowsMessaging Subsystem Profiles
3. Go to the profile you want to change
4. Go to the section that has the file location for your mailbox (*.PST) file in the right hand panel
5. Make the change to file location or name
6. Restart Exchange
Removing Sound Events from Control Panel / Sounds
Added 3/16/97
When you view what events you can assign sounds to from Control Panel / Sounds,
you cannot delete the events themselves. In order to do that:
1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER / AppEvents / Schemes / Apps
3. From here you can delete any items you don't want to show or no longer need.
Changing the Registered Owner
Added 2/6/97
1. Starting Regedit
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / SOFTWARE / Microsoft / Windows / CurrentVersion
3. From there you can edit the name in the Registered Owner key

Adding an Application to the Right Click on Every Folder
Added 1/30/97
Here is how to add any application to the menu when you right click on any Folder.
This could be useful if there is an app you always want available and don't want to go through
the Start menu
1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT Folder shell
3. Add a key Name_of_Your_App
4. This can really be any label, just use one that makes sense to you
5. Give it a default value of Name_of_Your_App
6. Putting a & in front of a character will allow you to use the keyboard
7. Go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT Folder shell Name_of_Your_App
8. Add a key command
9. Give it a default value of the application you want to run
10. For example: c:program filesinternet exploreriexplore.exe
11. Include the full path
Now when you right click on any folder, you can have access to that application
This will work for both Windows95 and NT 4.0
Saving Desktop Settings
Submitted 1/11/97
When I would go to Control Panel or Start Menu Programs, or any other Desktop window
setting; meaning size, position, icon arrangement, they would never be as I set them. I found an
answer:
At [HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesExplorer]
There is a "NoSaveSettings" key. I deleted it and now my all my stuff stays where I tell it.
The same key shows up at:
[HKEY_USERSbwilSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesExplorer](where
bwil is your password profile) Just thought I'd share this with you all.
Getting Rid of Tips
Remember those "Tips of the day" that appeared when you first install Win95?
If you don't want them any longer and want to clear yet more Clutter, approximately 5K, you can
delete them at:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE SOFTWARE Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion explorer
Tips

Changing the Location of Windows95's Installation Files
Added 12/18/96
If you need to change the drive and or path where Windows95 will look for it's installation files:
1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE SOFTWARE Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion Setup
SourcePath
3. Change the location from there
Added 11/29/96
If you have a un-registered file type and want to view it with Explorer's Right-click
you can add your program to the right-click options by:
1. Starting Regedit
2. Go to HKEY_CLASS_ROOT / Unknown
3. Highlight the Shell Folder below it
4. Right click on Shell and create a New Key
5. Name it anything you want (For example NOTEPAD)
6. Create a New Key under that named command
7. Highlight the Command key
8. Double click on the Default value in the right hand panel
9. In Value Data, enter the path and filename of the program you want to use to open the file type
10. For example: C:WINDOWSNOTEPAD.EXE %1
11. Click on OK
In this example, when you right click on a file in Explorer, NOTEPAD will show up as an
option.
Added 11/3/96
With the OEM Version of Windows95, a new switch, /D, is added to Regedit.
This enables you to delete items from Registry.
The syntax is: REGEDIT /L:system.dat_location /R:user.dat_location /D Reg_Key
where Reg_Key is the key you want to delete
There are two requirements:
1. That you have to boot to the same OEM version of Windows95 as the REGEDIT.EXE file.
2. You cannot be in Win95 at the time you use this switch.

Added 10/24/96
When you make changes to your hard drive and use Explorer, the changes are not usually
displayed until you press the F5 key
To make the updates automatic:
1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / System / CurrentControlSet / Control / UpdateMode
3. Edit the DWORD value to be between 1 and 7
4. Restart Windows
Added 10/17/96
To add items when you right-click on the Start Button:
1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKey_Classes_Root / Directory / Shell
3. Right-click on Shell and select New / Key
4. Type in the name of the key and press the Enter key
5. In the Default name that shows in the right hand panel, you can add a title with a & character in
front of the letter for a shortcut
6. Right-click on the key you just created and create another key under it called command
7. For the value of this command, enter the full path and program you want to execute
8. Now when you right click on the Start Button, your new program will show up. You do not need
to reboot first.
9. For example, if you wanted WinWord, you would add that as the first key, the default in the
right panel would be &WinWord so when you right click on the Start Button, the W would be
underlined and you could just press that key. The command would be something like
C:MSOFFICEWINWORDWINWORD.EXE
Removing Items from NEW
Added 7/27/96
When you right-click on the desktop and select New, a list of default templates you can open up
are listed.
To remove items from that list:
1. Start Regedit
2. Search for the string ShellNew
3. This should bring you to HKey_Classes_Root

4. For the items you want to remove, simply rename the ShellNew command
5. Renaming is safer that deleting it
6. Continue searching for the items you want to remove
7. You do not need to reboot for the change to take effect
Submitted 7/27/96
You can edit the Tips of the day in the Registry by going to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE SOFTWARE Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion explorer
Tips
Get Your Folders to Open the Way You Want Every Time
Submitted 7/7/96
To get your folders to open the way you want every time:
1. Set up all your folders the way you want (auto arrange, view, etc.),
2. Start RegEdit
3. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesExplorer.
4. Go to NoSaveSettings
5. Modify and change Value to 1
Clearing the Documents Menu Automatically
Added 6/2/96
The Documents Menu displays the last file and programs you used. You can clear item manually
but only through editing
the Registry can you turn this off automatically. This can be useful on computers that are used by
multiple people.
The same settings can be also used in NT 4.0
1. Set the properties on the Recycle Bin to delete files immediately.
2. Start Regedit
3. Go to HKey_Current_User Software Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion Explorer User
Shell Folders
6. Rename it to Recent - Only if it is not already there
7. Give it the value of C:RECYCLED
8. Set your Recycle bin to Automatically delete files
9. Log off and back on again.

Your Documents Menu should now be blank. This will be for all subsequent users who logon as
well.
Fixing Corrupt Registry
Added 5/12/96
If your registry has gotten corrupted, and re-installing Windows95 over your existing version
does not fix the problem,
there is a hidden, read-only, system file on the root of your boot drive called SYSTEM.1ST.
This is the initial system registry created when you first installed Windows95.
To use this file:
1. Go to your Windows directory
2. Un-Attrib your current SYSTEM.DAT file (attrib -r -s -h system.dat)
3. Copy your current SYSTEM.DAT to something like SYSTEM.BAD file (just in case)
4. Move to your root directory
5. Un-Attrib the SYSTEM.1ST file
6. Copy SYSTEM.1ST to WINDOWSSYSTEM.DAT
7. Re-start your system
You will need to install your 32-bit apps and any other programs or changes that modified your
system registry
but you will not need to go through a new again. Your 16-bit apps should not need to be re-
installed since they do
not modify the registry. You will also retain your current desktop configuration.
Recycle Bin Edits
Submitted 5/2/96
Fooling with the recycle bin. Why not make the icon context menu act like other icon
context menu's.
Add rename to the menu:
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTCLSID{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-
00AA002F954E}ShellFolder]
"Attributes"=hex:50,01,00,20
Add delete to the menu:

Add rename and delete to the menu:
Restore the recycle bin to win 95 defaults including un-deleting the icon after deletion:
... Restore the icon.
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionexplorerDeskt
opNameSpace{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}]
@="Recycle Bin"
... reset win 95 defaults
. [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTCLSID{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-
Other edits to the recycle bin icon:
"Attributes"=hex:40,01,01,20 ... standard shortcut arrow
"Attributes"=hex:40,01,02,20 ... another shortcut arrow
"Attributes"=hex:40,01,04,20 ... and another shortcut arrow
"Attributes"=hex:40,01,08,20 ... make it look disabled (like it's been cut)
I added the above edits for fun. But it gets you thinking.
Note: Adding rename and delete to the context menu takes effect instantly. To restore the icon
after deletion requires screen refresh (F5).
Have fun.... Tom
Removing the Shortcut Icon Arrows
Added 4/21/96
1. Open REGEDIT.EXE
2. Open the Key HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
3. Open the Key LNKFILE
4. Delete the value IsShortcut
5. Open the next Key PIFFILE
6. Delete the value IsShortcut
7. Restart the Win95
You can shut off the animation displayed when you minimize and maximize windows.
Added 4/21/96
1. Open Regedit

2. HKEY_CURRENT_USER
3. Control panel
4. Desktop
5. WindowMetrics
6. Right Mouse Click an empty space in the right pane.
7. Select new string value.
8. Name the new value MinAnimate.
9. Doubleclick on the new string value (MinAnimate) and click on "Modify"
10. Enter a value of 0 for Off or 1 for On then hit Enter
11. Close Regedit and all programs then reboot.
To speed up the Start Menu
Added 4/21/96
1. Start the REGEDIT program
2. Search for the word desktop
3. This should be in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT / CLSID / {00021400...
4. Right Click on the right panel
5. Pick NEW / String Value.
6. Name it MenuShowDelay, all one word.
7. Select a value from 1-10, 1 being the fastest.
8. Exit REGEDIT
9. Restart Windows
Added 4/21/96
1. Start REGEDIT
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE System CurrentControlSet Services Class Modem 0000
Init
3. Change the settings to the new values
Increasing the Modem Timeout
Added 4/21/96
If your modem it timing out during file transfers or loading Web Pages,
you might try increasing the timeout period.
To change it:
1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / System / CurrentControlSet / Services / Class / Modem / XXXX /
Settings
Where XXXX is the number of your modem

3. Move to the right panel and double click on Inactivity Timeout
4. The number of minutes for a timeout should be entered between the brackets.
5. For example, a US Robotics Sportster could have S19=<30> to set it to 30 minutes.
Removing Programs listed from the Control Panel's Add/Remove Programs Section
Added 4/21/96
If you remove an installed program and its files by deleting the files,
it may still show up in the Add/Remove programs list through the control panel.
In order to remove it from the list (so you don't need to re-install in order to just remove it again).
1. Start the Registry Editor
2. Open HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / SOFTWARE / Microsoft / Windows / CurrentVersion / Uninstall
3. Delete any programs here.
This will only delete them from the list, not delete the actual programs.
Only programs designed for Windows95 will show up here in the first place.
Specifying programs to run every time Windows95 starts
Added 4/21/96
If you want to start programs every time Windows95 runs, but would like to hide them from
users
by not having the listed in the Startup folder or the WIN.INI file, you can have them load
through the registry.
1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE SOFTWARE Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion Run or
RunOnce
5. Type in any name
6. For the value, enter the path and executable for the program you want to run.

NEW POSTS (windows xp & 7)
1. Empty temporary Internet files on exit (in Internet Explorer)
"HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurr entVersionInternet
SettingsCache"
and
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCur rentVersionInternet
SettingsCache"
Create a new DWORD "Persistent" and change the value to "0" for emptying and "1" to
remove this option.
2. Disable the Windows Key
"HK_L_Msystemcurrentcontrolsetcontrolkeybo ard layout"
Create a new Binary value, or modify the existing value called 'Scancode Map' as
shown below.
Value: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 03 00 00 00 00 00 5B E0 00 00 5C E0 00 00 00 00
3. Disable the Harddisk Lowdiskspace warning in Windows Xp
User Key: "HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurr
entVersionPoliciesExplorer"
and
System Key: "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCur
rentVersionPoliciesExplorer"
create a new DWORD 'NoLowDiskSpaceChecks' and change its value to '1'.
4. View System BIOS Information
Open Registry and navigate to
"HK_L_Mhardwaredescriptionsystem"
5. Disable Internet access in Network
Open Registry and make the following changes
"KH_C_Usersoftwaremicrosoftwindowscurrentversi oninternetsettings"
Change the value of "Proxyenabled" to 1 and change the value of "proxyserver" and set
it to an ip address. Change the value of the ip address and port to "10.0.0.1:5555"
6. Change the Title of Windows Media Player
"HK_C_USERsoftwarepoliciesmicrosoftwindowsmedi aplayer"
Create a new string value called ' TitleBar' and change text as your wish.
7. Disable the ability to Right click on the desktop
"HK_C_Usersoftwaremicrosoftwindowscurrentversi onpoliciesexplorer"
Create a DWORD "NoViewContextMenu" and change its value to "0" for disabling and
"1" for enabling.

8. Hide all items on desktop
"HK_C_USERsoftwaremicrosoftwindowscurrentversi onpoliciesexplorer"
and
"HK_L_Msoftwaremicrosoftwindowscurrentversion policiesexplorer"
create a new DWORD "NoDesktop" and change its value to "1"
You can show all the items in the desktop by chaning the value to "0"
9. Disable the "Change Password" button in windows
"HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurr
entVersionPoliciesSystem"
and
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCur rentVersi
onPoliciesSystem"
Create a new DWORD "DisableChangePassword" and change its value to "0" for
disabling and "1" for enabling.
10. Disable the "cancel" button or pressing the "Esc" key while logging on to
Windows"
"HKEY_USERS.DEFAULTSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCu rrentVersionRun"
Create a new string value "NoLogon" and change its value to "RUNDLL32
shell32,SHExitWindowsEx 0"
11. Remove "Log off" from start menu
and
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCur
Create a new DWORD "NoLogOff" and change its value to "1" for disabling and "0" for
enabling.
12. Clear the Recent playlist in Media Player
Navigate to "HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftMediaPlayer Player"
And clear the "RecentFileList" subkey.
13. Disable the Autorun Option in your CD Rom Drive:
Open your Registry and navigate to "HK_L_Msystemcurrentcontrolsetservicescdro
m"
Change the value of 'Autorun', or create a new DWORD value if it doesn't already exist,
and set the value as '0' for Autorun disabled.
14. Clear the Internet Explorere typed addresses history
"HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftInternet ExplorerTypedURLs"
And delete the subkeys.

15. Remove recent documents from start menu
and
Create a new DWORD "NoRecentDocsMenu" and change its value to "1".
16. Remove Network connections from start menu
and
Create a new DWORD "NoNetworkConnections" and change its value to "1".
17. Remove My documents from start menu
and
Create a new DWORD "NoSMMyDocs" and change its value to "1".
18. Remove My pictures from start menu
and
rentVersionPoliciesExplorer "
Create a new DWORD "NoSMMyPictures" ad change its value to "1".
19. Remove My music fro start menu
and
Create a new DWORD "NoStartMenuMyMusic" and change its value to "1".
20. Reboot windows after crash
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetContr olCrashControl"
Create a new DWORD "AutoReboot" and change its value to "1".Restart the machine
for the effect to take place.
21. Disable the use of MSDos

entVersionPoliciesWinOldApp"
and
rentVersionPoliciesWinOldApp"
Create a new DWORD "Disabled" and set its value to "1". Change it to "0" for enabling.
22. Enable Directory completion in MSDos prompt
User Key: "HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftCommand Processor"
and
System Key: "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftCommand Processor"
Create a new DWORD "PathCompletionChar " and set it to equal the hex value of the
required control character.
23. Quick edit the command prompt
User Key: "HKEY_CURRENT_USERConsole"
and
System Key: "HKEY_USERS.DEFAULTConsole"
Create a new DWORD "QuickEdit" and set its value to "1" for enabling and "0" for
disabling.
24. Disable Registry editing
"HKEY_CURRENT_USERSOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurr
entVersionPoliciesSystem"
Create a new DWORD "DisableRegistryTools" and change its value to "0" for allowing
Regedit and "1" for disabling it.
25. Disable task scheduler
" HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurr entVersionRunServices"
Delete the value from "SchedulingAgent". Usually its value is set to "'mstask.exe".
26. Remove My computer from desktop and start menu
entVersionPoliciesNonEnum"
and
rentVersionPoliciesNonEnum"
Create "{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}" and change its value to "1" for
removing. Change its value to "0" for showing.
27. Show Windows version on desktop
User Key: "HKEY_CURRENT_USERControl PanelDesktop"
Create a new DWORD " PaintDesktopVersion" and change its value to "1" for showing
and "0" for removing.
28. Remove My documenst from desktop

Windows 95, 98 and Me
"HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareClassesCLSID{450D8FB A-AD25-11D0-98A8-
0800361B1103}ShellFolder"
Windows NT, 2000 and XP
entVersionExplorerCLSID{450D8FBA-AD25-11D0-98A8-0800361B1103}ShellFolder"
Modify the value called "Attributes" as "0xf0500174" to hide or "0xf0400174" to show.
29. Disable Scan disk after improper shutdown
" HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESystemCurrentControlSetContro lFileSystem"
create a new DWORD "DisableScandiskOnBoot" and change its value to "01" for
disablng and "00" for enabling.
30. Automatically end Hung programs.
" HKEY_CURRENT_USERControl PanelDesktop"
and
"System Key: [HKEY_USERS.DEFAULTControl PanelDesktop"
Modify the value of "AutoEndTasks" to "1".
Backup / Restore the Registry
To Backup/Restore the Windows Registry: Windows 9x For XP 2000 click here
1. If you are in MSDOS, at the C:Windows prompt type
2. Attrib -s -r -h C:WindowsSystem.dat (press Enter)
3. Attrib -s -r -h C:WindowsUser.dat (press Enter)
To make the backup copies type:
1. copy C:WindowsSystem.dat C:WindowsSystem.000 (press Enter)
2. copy C:WindowsUser.dat C:Windowsuser.000 (press Enter)
To Restore the Registry
1. copy C:WindowsSystem.000 C:WindowsSystem.dat (press Enter)
2. copy C:WindowsUser.000 C:Windowsuser.dat (press Enter)
Add Open With to all files
You can add "Open With..." to the Right click context menu of all files.This is great for when
you have several programs you want to open the same file types with. I use three different text
editors so I added it to the ".txt" key.
1. Open RegEdit
2. Go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT*Shell

3. Add a new Key named "OpenWith" by right clicking the "Shell" Key and selecting new
4. Set the (Default) to "Op&en With..."
5. Add a new Key named "Command" by right clicking the "OpenWith" Key and selecting new
6. Set the (Default) to "C:Windowsrundll32.exe shell32.dll,OpenAs_RunDLL %1", C: being
your Windows drive. You must enter the "OpenAs_RunDLL %1" exactly this way.
Customize the System Tray
You can add your name or anything you like that consists of 8 characters or less. This will
replace the AM or PM next to the system time. But you can corrupt some trial licenses of
software that you may have downloaded.
1. Open RegEdit
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USERControl PanelInternational
3. Add two new String values, "s1159" and "s2359"
4. Right click the new value name and modify. Enter anything you like up to 8 characters.
If you enter two different values when modifying, you can have the system tray display the two
different values in the AM and PM.
Lock Out Unwanted Users
Want to keep people from accessing Windows, even as the default user? If you do not have a
domain do not attempt this.
1. Open RegEdit
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINENetworkLogon
3. Create a dword value "MustBeValidated"
4. Set the value to 1
This forced logon can be bypassed in Safe Mode on Windows 9x
Disable the Outlook Express Splash Screen
You can make OutLook Express load quicker by disabling the splash screen:
1. Open RegEdit
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOutLook Express
3. Add a string value "NoSplash"
4. Set the value data to 1 as a Dword value
Multiple Columns For the Start Menu
To make Windows use multiple Start Menu Columns instead of a single scrolling column, like
Windows 9x had, Also if you are using Classic Mode in XP

1. Open RegEdit
2. Go to the key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE Software Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion Explorer
Advanced
3. Create a string value "StartMenuScrollPrograms"
4. Right click the new string value and select modify
5. Set the value to "FALSE"
Changing Windows' Icons
You can change the Icons Windows uses for folders, the Start Menu, opened and closed folder in
the Explorer, and many more.
1. Open RegEdit
2. Go to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE Software Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion Explorer Shell
Icons
3. Add a string value for each Icon you wish to change.
Example: "3" ="C:WindowsIconsMyIcon.ico,0" This will change the closed folders in the
Explorer to "MyIcon.ico". Here is a complete list for each value.
0= Unknown file type
1= MSN file types
2= Applications Generic
3= Closed Folder
4= Open Folder
5= 5.25" Drive
6= 3.25" Drive
7= Removable Drive
8= Hard Drive
9= NetWork Drive
10= Network Drive Offline
11= CD-ROM Drive
12= RAM Drive
13= Entire Network
14= Network Hub
15= My Computer
16= Printer
17= Network Neighborhood
18= Network Workgroup
19= Start Menu's Program Folders
20= Start Menu's Documents
21= Start Menu's Setting
22= Start Menu's Find
23= Start Menu's Help
24= Start Menu's Run
25= Start Menu's Suspend
26= Start Menu's PC Undock
27= Start Menu's Shutdown
28= Shared
29= Shortcut Arrow
30= (Unknown Overlay)
31= Recycle Bin Empty
32= Recycle Bin Full
33= Dial-up Network
34= DeskTop
35= Control Panel
36= Start Menu's Programs
37= Printer Folder
38= Fonts Folder
39= Taskbar Icon
40= Audio CD
You need to reboot after making changes. You may need to delete the hidden file
ShellIconCache if after rebooting the desired Icons are not displayed.
Change Default Folder Locations
You can change or delete the Windows mandatory locations of folder like My Documents:

1. Open RegEdit
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER Software Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion Explorer
Shell Folders
3. Change the desired folder location, My Documents is normally list as "Personal"
4. Open the Explorer and rename or create the folder you wish.
To change the desired location of the Program Files folder
1. Go to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersion
2. Change the value of "ProgramFiles", or "ProgramFilesDir"
Now when you install a new program it will default to the new location you have selected.
Change the Registered Change the User Information
You can change the Registered Owner or Registered Organization to anything you want even
after Windows is installed.
1) Open RegEdit
2) Got to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE SOFTWARE Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion.
3) Change the value of "RegisteredOrganization" or "RegisteredOwner", to what ever you want
Add the following Registry Keys for a Directory:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTDirectoryshellopennew
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTDirectoryshellopennewcommand
Add or Edit the following Registry Keys for a Drive:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTDriveshellopennew
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTDriveshellopennewcommand
These will allow you to right click on either the drive or the directory and the option of starting
the dos prompt will pop up.
Changing Exchange/Outlook Mailbox Location
To change the location of your mailbox for Exchange:
1. Open RegEdit
2. Go to

HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftware MicrosoftWindows Messaging Subsystem Profiles
4. Go to the value name that has the file location for your mailbox (*.PST) file
To change the location of your mailbox for Outlook
1. Open RegEdit
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOutlook (or Outlook Express if Outlook
Express)
3. Go to the section "Store Root"
4. Make the change to file location
Add/Remove Sound Events from Control Panel
You can Add and delete sounds events in the Control Panel. In order to do that:
1. Open RegEdit
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USERAppEventsSchemesApps and
HKEY_CURRENT_USERAppEventsSchemesEventlabels. If this key does not exist you can
create it and add events.
3. You can add/delete any items you want to or delete the ones you no longer want.
Here is how to add any application to the Context Menu when you right click on any Folder.
This way you do not have to always go to the Start Menu. When you right click on any folder,
you can have access to that application, the same as using Sent To.
1. Open RegEdit
2. Go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTFoldershell
3. Add a new Key to the "Shell" Key and name it anything you like.
4. Give it a default value that will appear when you right click a folder, i.e. NewKey (use an "&"
without the quotes, in front of any character and it will allow you to use the keyboard)
5. Click on the Key HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTFoldershellNewKey
6. Add a New Key named Command
7. Set the (Default) value of the application you want to run
8. For example: c:program filesinternet exploreriexplore.exe (Include the full path and
parameters if you need them)
When you want to right click on any folder and want to open up an Explorer window of that
folder.
1. Open RegEdit

3. Add a new Key "RootExplore " under the "Shell" Key
4. Set the (Default) value to "E&xplore From Here "
5. Right Click the "RootExplore " Key and add a new Key "Command"to the RootExplore
6. Set the (Default) value of Explorer.exe /e,/root,/idlist,%i
Changing the Location of Windows' Installation Files
If you need to change the drive and or path where Windows looks for its installation files:
1.Open RegEdit
2.Go to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWARE Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion Setup
3.Edit the value next to SourcePath
Creating a Logon Banner
If you want to create a Logon Banner: A message box to appear below your logon on.
1.Open RegEdit
2.Go To
For Windows 9x and ME -
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWARE Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion Winlogon
For Windows 2000 XP 2003 Vista -
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWARE Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion Winlogon
3.Create a new String value"LegalNoticeCaption "
4. Enter the Title of the window. What is displayed in the Title Bar.
5. Create a new string value "LegalNoticeText"
6. Enter the text for your message box that will appear even before the Logon window.
If you have a un-registered file type and want to view it instead of having to select Open With.
Use Explorer's Right-click and add your program to the right-click options by:
1. Open RegEdit
2. Go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTUnknownShell
3. Right click on "Shell" and create a New Key and name it "Open "
4. Create a New Key under the "Open" key you just created and name it "Command"
5. Set the (Default) value to the path and filename of the program you want to use to open the
file type
6. For example: C:WindowsNOTEPAD.EXE %1
You must use the "%1" for this to work.and a space between the exe and the %1

There are two ways to delete a key from the Registry from the Command line. At the Windows
Command line:
RegEdit /l location of System.dat /R location of User.dat /D Registry key to delete
You cannot be in Windows at the time you use this switch.
Or you can create a reg file as such:
REGEDIT4
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINEthe key you want to delete]
Note the negative sign just behind the[
Then at the Command line type:
1. RegEdit C:Windows(name of the regfile).
Change/Add Restrictions And Features
If you want to make restrictions to what users can do or use on their computer without having to
run Poledit, you can edit the Registry. You can add and delete Windows features in this Key
shown below.
Zero is Off and the value 1 is On. Example: to Save Windows settings add or modify the value
name NoSaveSettings to 0, if set to1 Windows will not save settings. And NoDeletePrinter set to
1 will prevent the user from deleting a printer.
HKEY_USERS(yourprofilename) Software Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion Policies
Explorer so change it there also if you are using different profiles.
1.Open RegEdit
2.Go to
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoft CurrentVersion Policies
3.Go to the Explorer Key (Additional keys that can be created under Policies are System,
Explorer, Network and WinOldApp )
4.You can then add DWORD or binary values set to 1 in the appropriate keys for ON and 0 for
off.
NoDeletePrinter - Disables Deletion of Printers
NoAddPrinter - Disables Addition of Printers
NoRun - Disables Run Command
NoSetFolders - Removes Folders from Settings on Start Menu
NoSetTaskbar - Removes Taskbar from Settings on Start Menu
NoFind - Removes the Find Command
NoDrives - Hides Drives in My Computers
NoNetHood - Hides the Network Neighborhood
NoDesktop - Hides all icons on the Desktop
NoClose - Disables Shutdown
NoSaveSettings - Don't save settings on exit

DisableRegistryTools - Disable Registry Editing Tools
NoRecentDocsMenu - Hides the Documents shortcut at the Start button
NoRecentDocsHistory- Clears history of Documents
NoFileMenu _ Hides the Files Menu in Explorer
NoActiveDesktop - No Active Desktop
NoActiveDesktopChanges- No changes allowed
NoInternetIcon - No Internet Explorer Icon on the Desktop
NoFavoritesMenu - Hides the Favorites menu
NoChangeStartMenu _ Disables changes to the Start Menu
NoFolderOptions _ Hides the Folder Options in the Explorer
ClearRecentDocsOnExit - Empty the recent Docs folder on reboot
NoLogoff - Hides the Log Off .... in the Start Menu
And here are a few more you can play with
ShowInfoTip
NoTrayContextMenu
NoStartMenuSubFolders
NoWindowsUpdate
NoViewContextMenu
EnforceShellExtensionSecurity
LinkResolveIgnoreLinkInfo
NoDriveTypeAutoRun
NoStartBanner
NoSetActiveDesktop
EditLevel
NoNetConnectDisconnect
RestrictRun - Disables all exe programs except those listed in the RestrictRun subkey
This key has many other available keys, there is one to even hide the taskbar, one to hide the
control panel and more. I'm not telling you how, as someone may want to play a trick on you.
The policies key has a great deal of control over how and what program can run and how one can
access what feature.
In the System key you can enter:
NoDispCPL - Disable Display Control Panel
NoDispBackgroundPage - Hide Background Page
NoDispScrSavPage - Hide Screen Saver Page
NoDispAppearancePage - Hide Appearance Page
NoDispSettingsPage - Hide Settings Page
NoSecCPL - Disable Password Control Panel
NoPwdPage - Hide Password Change Page
NoAdminPage - Hide Remote Administration Page
NoProfilePage - Hide User Profiles Page
NoDevMgrPage - Hide Device Manager Page
NoConfigPage - Hide Hardware Profiles Page
NoFileSysPage - Hide File System Button
NoVirtMemPage - Hide Virtual Memory Button

In the Network key you can enter:
NoNetSetup - Disable the Network Control Panel
NoNetSetupIDPage - Hide Identification Page
NoNetSetupSecurityPage - Hide Access Control Page
NoFileSharingControl - Disable File Sharing Controls
NoPrintSharing - Disable Print Sharing Controls
In the WinOldApp key you can enter:
Disabled - Disable MS-DOS Prompt
NoRealMode - Disables Single-Mode MS-DOS
When you make changes to your file system and use Explorer, the changes are not usually
displayed until you press the F5 key
To refresh automatically:
1. Open RegEdit
2. Go to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESystemCurrentControlSetControlUpdate
3. Set the value name "UpdateMode" to 1
To disable password caching, which allows for the single Network login and eliminates the
secondary Windows logon screen. Either use the same password or:
1. Open RegEdit
2. Go to the key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWARE Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion Policies
Network
3. Add a Dword value "DisablePwdCaching" and set the value to 1
Changing the MaxMTU for faster Downloads
There are four Internet settings that can be configured, you can get greater throughput (faster
Internet downloads) by modifying a few settings.
1.Open RegEdit
2.Go to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESystemCurrentControlset Services Class net 000x
(where x is your particular network adapter binding.)
3.Right click on the right panel
4.Select NewString Value and create the value name IPMTU
5.Double click on it and enter then the number you want. The usual change is to 576
6.Similarly, you can add IPMSS and give it a value of 536

(Windows 9X)You can set DefaultRcvWindow, and DefaultTTL by adding these string values to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE System CurrentControlset Services VXD MSTCP
Set the DefaultRcvWindow to"5840"and the DefaultTTL to "128"
Note: These settings will slow down your network access speed slightly, but you will probably
not even see the difference if you are using a network card. If you are using Direct Cable you
should see a sight difference.
1.Open RegEdit
2.Go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTDirectoryShell
3.Right-click on Shell and select New Key
4.Type in the name of the key and press the Enter key
5.In the Default name that shows in the right hand panel, you can add a title with a "&" character
in front of the letter for a shortcut
6.Right-click on the key you just created and create another key under it called command
7.For the value of this command, enter the full path and program you want to execute
8.Now when you right click on the Start Button, your new program will be there.
9.For example, if you want Word to be added, you would add that as the first key, the default in
the right panel would be &Word so when you right click on the Start Button, the W would be the
Hot Key on your keyboard. The value of the key would be C:Program
FilesOfficeWinwordWinword.exe
Remove Open, Explore & Find from Start Button
Open shows your Programs folder. Explore starts the Explorer and allows access to all drives.
Find allows you to search and then run programs. In certain situations you might want to disable
this feature.
To remove them:
1.Open RegEdit
2.Go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTDirectoryShellFind
3.Delete Find
4.Scroll down below Directory to Folder
5.Expand this section under shell
6.Delete Explore and Open
Caution: - When you remove Open, you cannot open any folders.
Removing Items from NEW Context Menu
When you right-click on the desktop and select New, or use the File Menu item in the Explore
and select New a list of default templates you can open up are listed.
1. Open RegEdit

2. Do a Search for the string ShellNew in the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT Hive
3. Delete the ShellNew command key for the items you want to remove.
Changing Telnet Window
You can view more data if you increase the line count of Telnet. By Default it has a window size
of 25 lines. To increase this so you can scroll back and look at a larger number on lines:
1. Open RegEdit
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftTelnet
3. Modify the value data of "Rows"
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoft Windows CurrentVersion explorer Tips
1.Open RegEdit
2.Go to
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftware Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion Policies Explorer
3.Add a New DWORD item and name it NoDrives
4.Give it a value of 3FFFFFF
5.Now when you click on My Computer, none of your drives will show.
Changing the caption on the Title Bar
Change the Caption on the Title Bar for OutLook Express or the Internet Explorer:
For Outlook Express:
1. Open RegEdit
2. Go to
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOutLook Express
For IE5 and up use:
HKEY_CURRENT_USERIDENTITIES {9DDDACCO-38F2-11D6-93CA-812B1F3493B}
SOFTWARE MICROSOFT OUTLOOK EXPRESS5.0
3. Add a string value "WindowTitle" (no space)
4. Modify the value to what ever you like.
For no splash screen, add a dword value "NoSplash" set to 1
The Key {9DDDACCO-38F2-11D6-93CA-812B1F3493B} can be any key you find here. Each
user has his own Key number.
The Key 5.0 is whatever version of IE you have
For Internet Explorer:
1. Open RegEdit

2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftInternet ExplorerMain
3. Add a string value "Window Title" (use a space)
Normally, when you right button click on the Start button, it allows you to open your programs
folder, the Explorer and run Find.
In situations where you don't want to allow users to be able to do this in order to secure your
computer.
1.Open RegEdit
2.Search for Desktop
3.This should bring you to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTDirectory
4.Expand this section
5.Under Shell is Find
6.Delete Find
7.Move down a little in the Registry to Folder
8.Expand this section and remove Explore and Open
Note: - On Microsoft keyboards, this also disables the Window-E (for Explorer) and Window-F
(for Find) keys.
See the section on Installation in the RESKIT to see how to do this automatically during an
install.
In areas where you are trying to restrict what users can do on the computer, it might be beneficial
to disable the ability to click on My Computer and have access to the drives, control panel etc.
To disable this:
1.Open RegEdit
2.Search for 20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D
3.This should bring you to the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTCLSID section
4.Delete the entire section.
You might want to export this section to a Registry file before deleting it just in case you want to
enable it again. Or you can rename it to 20D0HideMyComputer4FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-
08002B30309D. You can also hide all the Desktop Icons, see Change/Add restrictions.
By default, when you click on the My Computer icon, you get a display of all your drives, the
Control Panel etc. If you would like to have this open the Explorer:
1. Open RegEdit
2. Go to
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTCLSID {20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D} Shell

3 . Add a new Key named "Open" if it does not exists by right clicking "Shell" and selecting
new.
4. . Add a new Key named "Command" by right clicking "Open" and selecting new
5. Set the (Default) value for the Command Key to "Explorer.exe" or
"C:WindowsExplorer.exe"
Recycle Bin Edits
Fooling with the recycle bin. Why not make the icon context menu act like other icon context
menus.
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTCLSID {645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E} ShellFolder
Restore the recycle bin to Windows defaults including un-deleting the icon after deletion:
Restore the icon.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWARE Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion explorer
DesktopNameSpace{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}
@="Recycle Bin"
Reset Windows defaults.
"Attributes"=hex:40,01,02,20 ... a different shortcut arrow
"Attributes"=hex:40,01,04,20 ... and still another shortcut arrow
For Windows XP and 2000 also edit HKEY_CURRENT_USER Software Microsoft
Windows CurrentVersion Explorer CLSID {645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}
For Windows ME also edit HKEY_CURRENT_USER Software Classes CLSID {645FF040-
5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}
1.Open RegEdit
2.Go to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE SOFTWARE Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion Policies
Network

3. Now, choose the Edit/New/Binary value command and call the new value MinPwdLen. Press
Enter twice and Assign it a value equal to your minimum password length.
Adddelete programs to run every time Windows starts
You can start or stop programs from executing at boot up by adding or deleting them to/from the
run Keys in the Registry. Windows loads programs to start in the following order; Program listed
in the Local Machine hive, then the Current User hive, then theWin.ini Run= and Load = lines.
then finally programs in your Start Up folder.
To add or remove programs in the Registry
1.Open RegEdit
2.Go to the desired Key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows CurrentVersion Run
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows CurrentVersion RunServices
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows CurrentVersion Run
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows CurrentVersion RunServices
3. Add a new String Value and name it anything you like
4. For the value data, enter the path and executable for the program you want to run.
By adding the value to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER hive instead allows the program to start
only when that user is logged on.
If you add the value to the RunOnce key the program will run once and be removed from the key
by Windows.
1.Open RegEdit
2.Open the Key HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
3.Open the Key LNKFILE
4.Delete the value IsShortcut
5.Open the next Key PIFFILE
7.Restart the Windows
You can shut off the animation displayed when you minimize and maximize Windows.
1. Open RegEdit
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USERControl panel Desktop WindowMetrics
3. Create a new string value "MinAnimate".
4. Set the value data of 0 for Off or 1 for On

1.Open RegEdit
2.Go to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESystemCurrentControlSet Services Class Modem 0000 Init
3.Change the settings to the new values
If your modem it is timing out during file transfers or loading Web Pages, you might try
increasing the timeout period. To change the Time Out::
1.Open RegEdit
2.Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESystemCurrentControlSet Services Class Modem
XXXX Settings Where XXXX is the number of your modem
3. In the right panel and double click on Inactivity Timeout
4.The number of minutes for a timeout should be entered between the brackets.
5.For example, a setting could have S19=<10> to set it to 10 minutes.
Removing Programs from Control Panel's Add/Remove Programs Section
If you uninstalled a program by deleting the files, it may still show up in the Add/Remove
programs list in the Control Panel.
In order to remove it from the list.
1.Open RegEdit
2.Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE SOFTWARE Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion
Uninstall
3.Delete any programs here.
If you have a problem locating the desired program open each key and view the DisplayName
value
The Fix for Grayed Out Boxes
The File Types tab in Explorer's View / Options menu lets you edit most of your file types, but
certain settings cannot be changed. The default action for a batch file, for instance, runs the batch
file instead of opening it via Notepad or Wordpad. Thus, when you double-click on
AUTOEXEC.BAT, a DOS window opens, and the file executes. If you want to change this
default action and edit a batch file when you double-click on it, however, the File Types tab does
not let you do so; the Set Default button for the file type called MS-DOS Batch File is always
grayed out.
The button is grayed out because HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT's batfile key contains an EditFlag
value entry. Such entries are used throughout the Registry to prevent novice users from altering
certain system settings. The binary data in batfile's EditFlag reads d0 04 00 00. If you change this
value to 00 00 00 00, you can then change any of the batch file settings. Do not, however,
indiscriminately zero out EditFlag; if you do so in a system ProgID such as Drive or AudioCD, it
completely disappears from the File Types list. For ProgIDs that are linked to extensions, set all
EditFlags to 00 00 00 00. For system ProgIDs, replace EditFlag data with 02 00 00 00.

If you wish to have access to some buttons while leaving others grayed out, you must know the
function of each EditFlag bit. The last two bytes of data are always zero, but most bits within the
first two bytes have a specific effect:
 Byte 1, bit 1: Removes the file type from the master list in the File Types tab (select View /
Options under Explorer) if it has an associated extension.
 Byte 1, bit 2: Adds the file type to the File Types tab if it does not have an associated extension.
 Byte 1, bit 3: Identifies a type with no associated extension.
 Byte 1, bit 4: Grays out the Edit button in the File Types tab.
 Byte 1, bit 5: Grays out the Remove button in the File Types tab.
 Byte 1, bit 6: Grays out the New button in the Edit File Type dialog (select the Edit button in the
File Types tab).
 Byte 1, bit 7: Grays out the Edit button in the Edit File Type dialog.
 Byte 1, bit 8: Grays out the Remove button in the Edit File Type dialog.
 Byte 2, bit 1: Prevents you from editing a file type's description in the Edit File Type dialog.
 Byte 2, bit 2: Grays out the Change Icon button in the Edit File Type dialog.
 Byte 2, bit 3: Grays out the SetDefault button in the Edit File Type dialog.
 Byte 2, bit 4: Prevents you from editing an action's description in the Edit Action dialog (select
the Edit button in the Edit File Type dialog).
 Byte 2, bit 5: Prevents you from editing the command line in the Edit Action dialog.
 Byte 2, bit 6: Prevents you from setting DDE (Dynamic Data Exchange) fields in the Edit Action
dialog.
The EditFlags value for Drive, for instance, is d2 01 00 00 in Hex (1101 0010 0000 0001 in
binary). Bits 2, 5, 7, and 8 are on in byte 1, and bit 1 is on in byte 2. The EditFlag for batfile is d0
04 00 00 in Hex or 1101 0000 0000 0100 in binary. In this case, bits 5, 7, and 8 are on in byte 1,
and bit 3 is on in byte 2.
Bits 4, 5, and 6 of byte 2 apply only to actions that are protected. EditFlags with action keys
(such as HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTbatfileshellopen) determine protection. If byte 1, bit 1 of
such an EditFlag is 0 (or if there is no EditFlag), then the action is protected. If byte 1, bit 1 is 1,
then the action is unprotected.
Protection on system files
To enable protection on system files such as the KnownDLLs list, add the following value;
1. Open RegEdit
2. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESystemCurrentControlSet Control SessionManager
3. Create the a Dword value and name it "ProtectionMode "
4. Set the Value to1

The 50 Best Registry Hacks that Make Windows Better
Prevent Windows Update from Forcibly Rebooting Your Computer
We’ve all been at our computer when the Windows Update dialog pops up and tells us to reboot
our computer. I’ve become convinced that this dialog has been designed to detect when we are
most busy and only prompt us at that moment.
The real problem comes into play when Windows gets tired of reminding us and says that the
computer is going to reboot in 5 minutes, and the only way you can prevent the inevitable is to
temporarily disable Windows Update.
There’s a couple of ways that we can disable this behavior, however. You’ll still get the prompt,
but it won’t force you to shut down.
This trick should work for all versions of Windows as far as we know. You can always resort to
the temporary disabling measures instead.
Manual Registry Hack
Open up regedit.exe through the start menu search box or run dialog, and navigate down to the
following key, creating new keys if they don’t exist.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREPoliciesMicrosoftWindowsWindowsUpdateAU

Create a new 32-bit DWORD value named NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers and give it a
value of 1 to prevent automatic reboot while users are logged on. Delete the value to put things
back to the way they were.
Downloadable Registry Hack
Just download and extract the registry hack files and double-click on WUNoAutoReboot.reg to
disable automatic reboots. The other script will remove the hack.
Download WUNoAutoReboot Registry Hack
Using Auto Reboot Remover Utility
If you’d rather not mess with the registry, you can use a small utility created by the guys at
Intelliadmin which will make the changes for you. Just make sure you right-click and run as
administrator if you are using Vista.
Download Auto Reboot Remover from Intelliadmin
This hack should work for the professional or business editions of XP, Vista, or even Windows
Server. I’d be interested to hear your feedback in the comments.

Stop Windows Update from Hijacking the Sleep/Shutdown Button
As an avid user of the Sleep function on my laptop, I’ve been more than irritated with Windows
7 or Vista’s habit of changing the Sleep/Shutdown button into an ―Install Updates and Shut
Down‖ button whenever there are updates from Windows Update.
After the last time I accidentally clicked this stupid button when I just wanted to enter sleep
mode, I decided to look for a solution.
Update: Windows 7 does the same thing to my Shutdown button, and this same registry hack
fixes the problem.
If you’d like to manually create this hack, you can open up regedit.exe using the start menu
search box and then browse down to the following key, creating the key if it doesn’t exist.
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwarePoliciesMicrosoftWindowsWindowsUpdateAU

Add a 32-bit DWORD value called NoAUAsDefaultShutdownOption with a value of 1. No
reboot should be necessary.
Now our Sleep button should be back to the way it was, but if you wanted to use the Install
Updates and Shut Down option, it’s still available via the shutdown menu:
Download Registry Hack
Unzip the file and double-click on the StopHijackingMySleepButton.reg file to activate the
registry hack. You shouldn’t have to restart anything, as the changes will happen immediately.
There’s also a registry file to uninstall the hack.
I believe there is a similar option for XP, but I’m guessing the key is located in a different place.

How to Clean Up Your Messy Windows Context Menu
One of the most irritating things about Windows is the context menu clutter that you have to deal
with once you install a bunch of applications. It seems like every application is fighting for a
piece of your context menu, and it’s not like you even use half of them.
Today we’ll explain where these menu items are hiding in your registry, how to disable them the
geeky way, and an easier cleanup method for non-geeks as well.
Either way, your context menu won’t look like this one anymore…
Cleaning the Context Menu by Hacking the Registry
If you want to clean things up the truly geeky way, you can open up regedit.exe through the start
menu search or run box, and then browse down to one of the following keys… sadly the context
menu items are not stored in a single location.
Most of the menu items that used for all files and folders can be found by looking at one of these
keys:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT*shell
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT*shellexContextMenuHandlers
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTAllFileSystemObjectsShellEx
Items that are specific to folders can usually be found in one of these keys instead:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTDirectoryshell
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTDirectoryshellexContextMenuHandlers

The context menu items found at these different locations will need to be handled differently,
and we’ll explain how, so keep reading!
Dealing with “shell” Items
Let’s take a look at one item as an example… if you browse down to the shell key under
Directory you’ll see the items for Add to VLC media player and Play with VLC. Items under the
regular ―shell‖ key are usually really easy to spot, and easy to deal with.
If you want to hide one of these items so that you’ll have to Shift+Right-Click, then you can add
a new string value on the right-hand side and name it ―Extended‖ like you can see below:
If you’d like to disable it instead, but don’t want to delete the key, you can add a new string
value and call it ―LegacyDisable‖.

And of course, you could just delete the whole key if you really wanted to… but I’d export a
copy just in case.
Dealing with “shellex” Items
You probably noticed the other registry keys above that have ―shellex‖ (Shell Extension) in the
name instead of just ―shell‖. Those types of keys will need to be handled differently… for an
example, we’ll head down to one of the keys mentioned above:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTDirectoryshellexContextMenuHandlers
These items will be a little more tough to decipher… but you can usually figure out an item by
the key name on the left, and then just modify the (Default) value by putting a few dashes in
front of it, which will disable the item without actually deleting anything.
In this example, I’ve clicked on 7-ZIP on the left, and by putting dashes in front of the value data
I’ve disabled that menu item.

You’ll want to go through each location in the list at the top of this article until you figure out
where exactly the offending items are located. At that point, you can use one of the tricks we
mentioned in order to disable that item.
Dealing With Specific File Type Items
Sometimes, although not often, the menu items are located on the registry key for a specific file
type. In that case you’ll need to first locate the file extension key by looking under
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT for that extension, which will tell you the name of the key that you
need to look for.
For instance, if I wanted to remove a menu item for Excel documents (.xls) I would look at this
registry key, which gives me the name of the actual key to look under…
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.xls
As you can see above, the actual type of the file is ―Excel.Sheet.8″, so I’ll then browse down to
this registry key:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTExcel.Sheet.8shell

And now I can use the same techniques as above to disable items under ―shell‖… remember
LegacyDisable and Extended? Yep, those work here.
Cleaning Up the Context Menu the Easy Way
Instead of hacking the registry, you can use two different NirSoft utilities to clean up the context
menu. Sadly, some of the menu items are implemented as Explorer shell extensions (like the
―shellex‖ keys we explained above), and some are implemented as regular context menu items
(like the regular ―shell‖ keys we explained above).
The first tool we will check out is ShellMenuView, which allows us to manage all of those
―shell‖ key items with an easy to use interface.
Just browse down until you find the offending item, then click the Disable button… which will
actually create a LegacyDisable key just like we explained in the manual section above.
You’ll see that those items are instantly disabled:
Next, we need to disable those ―shellex‖ or Shell Extensions, using another great Nirsoft utility
appropriately called ShellExView. This one works the same exact way as the first utility… just
click on the Disable button to remove the items.

After using both of these utilities for just a few minutes, I was able to get my context menu back
to the pristine ―new install‖ state.
Go forth, and clean your context menu clutter! And yes, this works the same in all versions of
Windows.

Add "Take Ownership" to Explorer Right-Click Menu in Win 7 or Vista
Taking ownership of system files or folders in Windows 7 or Vista is not a simple task. Whether
you use the GUI or the command line, it takes far too many steps.
Thankfully somebody created a registry hack that will give you a menu item for ―Take
Ownership‖ that will handle all the steps for you. (If you are the person that originally made this
script, let me know and I’ll give you credit)
Here’s what the new right-click menu will look like after installing this registry hack.
Install
Download and unzip the files contained in the zipfile. Double-click the
InstallTakeOwnership.reg file and click through the prompts. No reboot necessary.
Uninstall
Double-click the RemoveTakeOwnership.reg file and click through the prompts. No reboot
necessary.

Disable Aero Shake in Windows 7
One of the interesting new features in Windows 7 is the way you can grab a window by the title
bar and ―shake‖ it back and forth to minimize everything else. It’s a fun feature, but just in case
you want to disable it we’ve got the solution for you.
Disable Aero Shake Manual Registry Hack
Open up regedit.exe through the start menu search or run box, and then navigate down to the
following key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwarePoliciesMicrosoftWindows
Once you are there, right-click on the Windows key and create a new key called Explorer.

Now right-click on the right-hand side, create a new 32-bit DWORD with the following settings:
 Name: NoWindowMinimizingShortcuts
 Value: 1
Once you’ve created this, you should log off and back on for the change to take effect.
Simply download, extract, and double-click on DisableAeroShake.reg to enter the information
into the registry. To re-enable use the other file.
Download DisableAeroShake registry hack from howtogeek.com

Add "Open with Notepad" to the Context Menu for All Files
The default method of opening unknown files forces you to go through a list of known
applications and is generally a pain to deal with. That’s why I like to have a context menu option
for ―Open with Notepad‖ so that I can quickly open up files without having to go through a lot of
trouble.
This registry hack is nothing new, it’s been around forever… think of this as a refresher course.
Also note that you can use this same technique to substitute any other application that you’d like
by adjusting the path in the registry to point to the different editor.
Open regedit.exe through the start menu search or run box, and then browse down to the
following key:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT*shell

Right-click on ―shell‖ and choose to create a new key, calling it ―Open with Notepad‖. Create a
new key below that one called ―command‖. Double-click on the (Default) value in the right-hand
pane and enter in the following:
notepad.exe %1
The change should take effect immediately… just right-click on any file and you’ll see the next
menu entry.

Disable All Notification Balloons in Windows 7 or Vista
If you find the popup notification balloons in the Windows system tray to be too annoying, you
might be interested to know that you can completely disable them. This would be an extreme
option, of course… typically you can just turn them off in any offending applications, but if you
want to disable them across the board, this is the solution.
Note: This should work in any version of Windows.
Note: I’m not necessarily recommending that everybody do this… you should only bother with it
if you need to solve this particular problem.
Open up regedit.exe through the start menu search or run box, and then browse down to the
following key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerAdvanced
Right-click on the right-hand pane, and create a new 32-bit DWORD with the following values:
 Name: EnableBalloonTips
 Value: 0
You’ll have to logoff and back on in order to see the change… or to be more correct, you won’t
see any popup balloons anymore.

Quick Tip: Change the Registered Owner in Windows
If you’ve ever wondered how to change the name of the person that Windows is registered to,
this is the quick tip for you. It’s not all that useful, but it might come in handy if you got a
computer from somebody else.
Open up regedit.exe through the start menu search box, and then locate the following registry
key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersion
Now you can find the RegisteredOwner and RegisteredOrganization keys in the right-hand pane.
Change them to whatever values you want.To show off the new changes, just type winver.exe
into the start menu search box to see the About Windows box:
Kinda useless, but one of those things I have to write about if I want to cover everything
This should work in all versions of Windows, including Windows 7.

Keyboard Ninja: Kill Windows with the Blue Screen of Death in 3 Keystrokes
Have you ever wanted to show off your keyboard ninja skills by taking down Windows with just
a couple of keystrokes? All you have to do is add one registry key, and then you can impress
your friends… or use it to convince people to switch to Linux.
This isn’t a bug, it’s a ―feature‖ in Windows that is designed to let users trigger a crash dump for
testing purposes. There’s even a whole Microsoft KB article on the subject.
To enable this feature, open up regedit and then browse down to one of these keys, depending on
your keyboard type:
USB Keyboard
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServiceskbdhidParameters
PS/2 Keyboard
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesi8042prtParameters
Now right-click on the right-hand pane and add a new DWORD key named CrashOnCtrlScroll,
giving it a value of 1.
Reboot your computer, and when it starts back up you can trigger the Blue Screen of Death by
using the following keyboard shortcut:

Hold down Right Ctrl and hit Scroll Lock twice
To remove this ―feature‖ you can just delete the registry key and then restart your computer
again.
Please note that following this article WILL crash your computer… really isn’t very useful, but
it’s lots of fun =)

How to Add Any Application to the Windows Desktop Right-Click Menu
If you want really quick access to launch a frequently used application without putting extra
icons on your desktop, you can add that application to the context menu for the desktop with a
simple registry hack. Here’s how to do it.
Naturally, we’ve also covered the opposite scenario—how to clean up your messy Windows
context menu, which is an equally useful read if you’ve got a bunch of items you want to remove
from the menu.
Note: this article was originally published a few years ago, but we’ve updated and polished it for
Windows 7 and are republishing it for you today.
Adding Applications to the Desktop Context Menu
For today’s lesson we’ll show you how to add Notepad to the menu, but you could add any
applications you want instead. The first thing you’ll want to do is open up regedit.exe through
the Start Menu search or run box, and then browse down to the following key:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTDirectoryBackgroundshell

The screen should look similar to this one if you are in the right place.
Next, you’ll want to create a new key underneath the shell key, the name of which is exactly
what is going to show up on the desktop menu. Right-click on the ―shell‖ key, and then choose
New Key from the menu.
Give the new key the name that you want to show up on the desktop context menu. For this
example we’ll be using Notepad.

Optional: If you want to assign an ―Alt‖ key to this menu entry for quicker access, you can
change the (Default) value on the right and put an & character in front of the key you want to
use. For instance, if you wanted to be able to just use the N key to launch Notepad once the
desktop context menu pops up, you can do this:

Personally I don’t find this terribly useful since you have to use the mouse to right-click on the
desktop… may as well just use the mouse to click the item. Still, for completeness I’ve included
it.
Next you’ll need to create the command key that will actually hold the command used to launch
the application. Right-click on the new Notepad key, and then choose New Key from the menu.
Give this key the name ―command‖ in lowercase.

To complete this step you’ll need the full path to the application that you want to launch. You
can use Shift + Right-Click to get the Copy as Path menu item to find this more quickly. Note: of
course, for Notepad you wouldn’t need the full path, but this is just an example.
Now click on ―command‖ on the left side, and then double-click on the (Default) key in the right
side to edit the string value.
Paste in the full path to the executable that you got from the ―Copy as Path‖ step above, or you
can put in the full path yourself if you’d like.
Once it’s done, it should look like this:

And right-clicking on the desktop will produce the new menu item… naturally, using this menu
item should launch Notepad.
You can add as many applications to the desktop context menu as you’d like, just repeat the steps
again with a new menu item name.

How to Add Google Documents to the Windows Explorer “New” Menu
We’ve already shown you how to create shortcuts to create new Google Docs easily, but what if
you want total Windows integration? Here’s how to add them to the Windows Explorer ―New‖
menu for easier access.
This should work for all versions of Windows, and you can modify it to work with Google Apps
for your Domain as well. Keep reading for the full instructions.
Import the Registry Hack
The first step is to download and extract the package we’ve provided at the end of the article.
Once you’ve done that, you’ll want to import the registry hack file, since there are just way too
many keys to manually create them all.
Just double-click on the AddGoogleDocsToNewMenu.reg file, provided in the zip file at the
bottom of the article, and you’ll see a message saying it was successful.
You aren’t done yet! Keep reading…
Copy the Icons and Runner Application
I’ve created a set of icons and a tiny runner application, which does nothing more than launch
whatever your default browser is. In fact, it’s created in AutoHotkey and consists of nothing
more than the following line:
Run, %1%

You’ll need to copy the 4 icons and the googledocsrunner.exe and put them all into your
Windows directory. There should be 5 total files, and it’ll look something like this once you copy
them in:
If you’re using regular Google Apps, you should be done. You may need to use the Refresh
option from the context menu, like this:
Go ahead, test it out! Open up your New menu, and select one of them.
If the icons aren’t showing up yet, you might have to log out and back in, or restart Explorer.exe.

Editing the Keys for Google Apps for Domains
If you’re using Google Apps for your Domain, unfortunately you’re going to need to modify a
few keys. You can do this in the registry, or you can modify the .reg file that we imported earlier.
If you choose to go the registry route, here’s what you need to do.
Open up regedit.exe through the Start Menu search or run box, and then browse down to one of
the following keys, one for each type of document:
 HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.googledocShellNew
 HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.googledrawingShellNew
 HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.googlepresentationShellNew
 HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.googlespreadsheetShellNew
For each one, you’ll want to open up the ―command‖ key on the right-hand side, which points to
the runner application, and the only parameter is the URL.
You’ll need to modify each of the URLs so that it matches your domain, in the format below:
 https://docs.google.com/a/YOURDOMAIN.com/?action=newdoc
 https://spreadsheets.google.com/a/YOURDOMAIN.com/ccc?new
 https://docs.google.com/a/YOURDOMAIN.com/?action=new_presentation
 https://docs.google.com/a/YOURDOMAIN.com/drawings/create?hl=en
Once you’ve done that, you should be done, and the shortcuts should work now.
Removing the Registry Hack
To remove the registry hack, use the provided UninstallGoogleNewMenu.reg file, and then
delete the 5 files you copied into the Windows directory.

How to Add Registry Editor to Control Panel
It’s always struck me as odd that system tweakers use the registry editor all the time to fix
annoyances in Windows, but nobody has created a tweak to add the registry editor to the control
panel… until now.
I’ve created a registry hack to add the registry editor as another option in the Control Panel in
any version of Windows.
Usage in Windows 7 or Vista
After installation you’ll need to choose System and Maintenance in the control panel.
And you’ll see the new Registry Editor item at the bottom of the list:
Perhaps most useful, it’s now available through the start menu search box.
Usage in Windows XP
After installation you’ll see the new icon in Control Panel if you choose the classic view.
Installation
Just extract and double-click on the installation script. You can remove using the included
removal script.

Remove "Shortcut" Text From New Shortcuts in Windows 7 or Vista
A source of annoyance for many Windows users is the ‖ – Shortcut‖ text that is added to the
name of newly created shortcuts, and every time you have to manually edit the shortcut and
remove that text. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a registry hack for this?
Most long-time geeks will remember that there was a hack for Windows XP, and probably
already know that the same hack works in Windows 7 or Vista as well.
Notice the ‖ – Shortcut‖ added to my pidgin icon.
Open up regedit.exe through the start menu search box, and then browse down to the following
registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorer
On the right-hand side you’ll find a key that is just called ―link‖, with a default value of 1e 00 00
00. Open this key up and change the 1e to 00 instead, leaving you with 00 00 00 00.
You’ll have to log off and then back on to make this change take effect. Please note that this
won’t affect existing shortcuts, only shortcuts that you create from now on.
To change the setting back, just change back to the 1e value, log off and back on.

Disable Win+X Shortcut Keys on Windows 7 or Vista
Windows 7 and Vista have all the same Windows+X shortcut keys as other versions of
Windows, such as Win+E for explorer and Win+D for the desktop, but adds in all of the
Win+<num> keys to launch the shortcuts in the Vista Quick Launch menu (or switch to apps in
Windows 7), as well as Win+X for mobility center, etc. But what if you want to disable all these
extra keys?
Turns out you can disable all the extra keys at once with a single registry entry, which I’ve
provided as a downloadable registry hack.
Just open up regedit.exe through the start menu search box and navigate to the following key
(create if it doesn’t exist)
Create a 32-bit DWORD value called NoWinKeys and set the value to 1. You’ll need to log on
and back off for the changes to take effect.

Stupid Geek Tricks: Enable the Secret "How-To Geek" Mode in Windows 7
We haven’t told anybody before, but Windows has a hidden ―How-To Geek Mode‖ that you can
enable which gives you access to every Control Panel tool on a single page—and we’ve
documented the secret method for you here.
Update: Do not use this on Vista. If you did, you can use Ctrl+Shift+Esc to start task manager,
File Run and open a command prompt with cmd.exe, and then use the rmdir command to get
rid of the folder.
To activate the secret How-To Geek mode, right-click on the desktop, choose New –> Folder,
and then give it this name:
How-To Geek.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}
Once you’ve done so, you’ll have activated the secret mode, and the icon will change…
Double-click on the icon, and now you can use the How-To Geek mode, which lists out every
single Control Panel tool on a single page.

At this point you might notice why this is a stupid geek trick—it’s much easier to use the default
Control Panel than navigating through a massive list, and anybody that really calls themselves a
geek will be using the Start Menu or Control Panel search box anyway.
In case you were wondering, this is the same as that silly “God Mode” trick that everybody else
is writing about. For more on why it’s pointless, see Ed Bott’s post on the subject.
Alright, So It’s Not Really a Secret How-To Geek Mode
Sadly, this is nothing more than a stupid geek trick using a technique that isn’t widely known—
Windows uses GUIDs (Globally Unique Identifiers) behind the scenes for every single object,
component, etc. And when you create a new folder with an extension that is a GUID recognized
by Windows, it’s going to launch whatever is listed in the registry for that GUID.
You can see for yourself by heading into regedit.exe and searching for {ED7BA470-8E54-465E-
825C-99712043E01C} under the HKCR CLSID section. You’ll see on the right-hand pane that
it’s the ―All Tasks‖ view of the Control Panel, which you can’t normally see from the UI.
You can use this same technique for other Windows objects by doing some digging around in the
registry… for instance, if you were to search under HKCR CLSID for ―Recycle Bin‖, you’d
eventually come across the right key—the one on the left-hand side here:

So if you created a folder with the name ―The Geek Knows Deleted Files.{645FF040-5081-
101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}‖, you’d end up with this icon, clearly from the Recycle Bin.
And it’s even a fully functional Recycle Bin… just right-click and you’ll see the menu:
So here’s the quick list of the ones I felt like digging up, but I’m sure there’s more things you
can launch if you really felt like it.
Recycle Bin: {645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}
My Computer: {20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}
Network Connections: {7007ACC7-3202-11D1-AAD2-00805FC1270E}
User Accounts: {60632754-c523-4b62-b45c-4172da012619}
Libraries: {031E4825-7B94-4dc3-B131-E946B44C8DD5}
To use any of them, simply create a new folder with the syntax AnyTextHere.{GUID}
Create Shortcuts to GUIDs
Since the GUID points to a Windows object launched by Windows Explorer, you can also create
shortcuts and launch them directly from explorer.exe instead of creating the folder. For instance,
if you wanted to create a shortcut to My Computer, you could paste in the following as the
location for a new shortcut:
explorer ::{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}

And just like that, you’d have a shortcut to My Computer, which you can customize with a
different icon, and a shortcut key if you so choose.
Yeah, it’s a stupid geek trick, but it’s always fun to learn new things.
Note: The Control Panel’s All Items hack and the Libraries hack will probably only work in
Windows 7. The others should work in any version of Windows.

Disable Windows Mobility Center in Windows 7 or Vista
Windows Mobility Center is a fairly useful tool for those of us using Windows 7 or Vista on a
laptop computer, but might not be for everybody, especially since it takes over the Win+X
keyboard shortcut.
If you would rather disable Windows Mobility Center, all it takes is a single registry tweak.
Manual Registry Tweak
Open up regedit.exe through the start menu search box and then navigate to the following key,
creating it if it doesn’t exist:
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesMobilityCent
er
Now create a new 32-bit DWORD entry in the right-hand pane called NoMobilityCenter and
give it a value of 1.

Hide Drives from Your Computer in Windows 7 or Vista
If you’ve got drives in My Computer that you never access, such as a USB Flash drive that you
are using solely for ReadyBoost, a floppy drive, or a network drive only used for a particular
piece of software, then you might want to simply hide the drive from your computer.
This tip will only hide the drive from being displayed, applications and the command prompt
will still have access to it, and you can still manually browse to the folder if you type in the path.
Now what’s that floppy drive doing there?
Configure the Hidden Drives
Open up regedit.exe by using the start menu search box, and then browse down to the following
key.
If the Explorer key does not exist, you can right-click on Policies, select New Key and name it
Explorer.

The NoDrives key most likely does not exist by default, so you’ll need to create it with right-
click new 32-bit DWORD and name it NoDrives.
This value is a 32 bit number, and the bits are arranged in reverse order with a value of 1 hiding
that drive. For example, if we wanted to hide drives A: and F: we would arrange it like this:
Z Y X W V U T S R Q P O N M L K J I H G F E D C B A
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1
Converting 100001 to decimal we end up with a decimal value of 33 or a hex value of 0×21, so if
you double-click on the key in the registry editor, choose Decimal and then enter 33 into the
value field.
In order to see these changes, you’ll need to restart explorer.exe, which you can do easily from
Task Manager or the longer way by just logging off and back on.
Uninstall Tweak
To disable this tweak, simply remove the NoDrives registry key entirely.
Reference Info
Here’s a list of the values you’ll want to enter for a few different drive letters.
Drive Letter Decimal Hex
A 1 1
B 2 2
C 4 4

D 8 8
E 16 10
F 32 20
G 64 40
H 128 80
If you want to hide multiple drives, you’ll need to use the table of all the drive letters to figure
out the correct binary code, and then convert that to decimal or hex. (hint: you can use the
calculator in scientific mode)
Look, now that worthless floppy drive is gone!
Naturally it would be better to disable the floppy drive in your BIOS, but this tip is still valid for
other types of drives.
Note that this also works on Windows XP.

How to Put a Real Libraries Icon On Your Windows 7 Desktop
We’re big fans of hidden registry hacks around here, so when our friend Justin showed how to
put a real, working Libraries icon on the desktop, we figured it would make a perfect article for
for a few extra geek points.
Yeah, you can always create a shortcut icon for anything on the desktop, but this one is the actual
icon without the shortcut overlay. Plus it’s a geeky hidden trick—what’s not to like?
As mentioned, this article is courtesy of our geeky friend Justin, who figured out the registry
hack.
Open up regedit.exe through the Start Menu search or run box, and then browse down to the
following registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindows
CurrentVersionExplorerHideDesktopIconsNewStartPanel
Once you’re there, create a new 32-bit DWORD value on the right-hand side, and give it the
name {031E4825-7B94-4dc3-B131-E946B44C8DD5} and the value of 0.

You might not see it right away, but you can right-click on the desktop and choose Refresh to
instantly have it show up.
If you put this one side-by-side with a regular shortcut, you’ll see the difference. Yes, the one on
the left is the registry hacked one
If you don’t feel like manually dealing with the registry hack, you can just download this one.
There’s two files named appropriately—one adds the icon, the other one removes it.

How to Restore Previous Versions of the Registry in Windows 7
If you want to manually restore a specific section of the registry from a previous System Restore
snapshot, or access some specific keys from an older version of the registry, you can do so by
getting access to those files and then exporting sections from them. Here’s how to do it in
Windows 7 or Vista.
Since Windows 7 and Vista utilize Shadow Copy, otherwise known as Volume Snapshot
Service, to power the ―Previous Versions‖ feature, there are snapshots of important files taken
over time, including registry hives, so we can access the older versions of registry files this way
without having to do a full System Restore.
This article was jointly written by myself and Ramesh from WinHelpOnline, who has also
covered how to do the same thing on Windows XP.
Access Previous Registry Hives from Shadow Copy
Important Note: before we get started, we should really give you a disclaimer: you should not
use this technique unless you know what you’re doing and are willing to deal with possible
problems, or at least have some good backups of your files. Still here? Read on.
The first thing you’re going to want to do is disable User Account Control, because you can’t
really access the folders otherwise. Once you’ve done that and rebooted, open up a new
Windows Explorer window and head to the following folder:
C:WindowsSystem32Config
Right-click anywhere in the white space area of the folder, choose Properties from the menu, and
then click the Previous Versions tab. Once you’re there, double-click the appropriate folder
(Hint: Look at the Date modified field to decide which version of the files you want to restore.)
Note: If you’re using Windows Vista Home editions and you want to do this, you’re going to
need to use Shadow Explorer to get to these files.

Select the registry hive files you need, and copy them to a folder of your choice.

Click OK when you see the Windows Security prompt.

And now you should have a folder containing the backup registry keys.
Now that you have the backup versions of the registry, you can use them to access the older
version.
Loading a Registry Hive and Accessing Specific Keys
At this point you can load the entire registry hive into the registry, which will make it a sub-key
of one of the main sections, and allow you to access settings from the older version. Open up the
Registry Editor using regedit.exe in the Start Menu search or run boxes, click on
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE or HKEY_USERS, and then use File –> Load Hive.

You’ll be prompted to give the new hive a name—for this example I just used test.
And just like that, you can see the new key with the contents from last week’s backup copy. So,
for instance, if one of the settings or license keys for an application was lost, we can find it by
browsing through the keys for that application. You’ll have to manually make the changes if
you’re doing just a few keys.

If you are trying to use this method to restore large chunks of the registry, you can export a key,
modify the exported file to have the correct key path instead of Test, and then import it again.
It’s a bit of a pain, but might be helpful if you need to.
Once you’re done, you should make absolutely certain to delete this entire key, or else it’s going
to add a lot of extra bloat to your registry that you really don’t need.
Access the Previous Version’s Registry Keys Through the Command Line
Instead of loading the registry key using the GUI and adding all those keys to your current
registry, you can use the RegFileExport tool from Nirsoft to access and extract the data from the
backup files directly—you’ll just need to know the exact key that you’re looking for
So, for example, if you wanted to access the list of currently installed programs from the
Programs and Features dialog. You’d run a command like this against the saved backup copy of
the SOFTWARE registry hive—assuming you have the command-line application in the same
directory as the backup file:

regfileexport SOFTWARE ExportedKey.reg ―HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWARE
MicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionUninstall‖
This will generate a regular .reg file that you can either double-click to enter the contents into the
registry, or you can open it up and find specific keys that you might want to use.
This method can actually be used to easily restore sections of the registry, should you need to.
It’s probably most useful for restoring the sections pertaining to a specific application.
Again, you should be very careful when editing the registry, but at least you know a lot more
than you did before.

Remove or Hide Unwanted Items From the Control Panel in Windows 7
Have you ever opened the Control Panel in Windows 7 and thought there is no reason to have
some of the icons listed? Today we take a look at how to remove unwanted or unneeded items
from Control Panel in Windows 7.
Delete CPL Files
In this example we want to remove the Realtek HD Audio Manager because we have a new
sound card and don’t use the integrated sound that came with it.
We can delete the CPL file associated with the icon. You will need to have administrator
privileges so make sure you’re logged in as Admin. Then navigate to the following directory.
C:WindowsSystem32
Once there instead of scrolling through everything to find what you need, simply type *.cpl into
the Search field in Explorer. This is a ―wildcard‖ search that will bring up all the CPL items in
the directory.
This should easily allow you to scroll through and find the one you want to remove. For this
instance it’s RTSnMg64.cpl for Realtek Sound Manager. You might want to backup the file or
create a System Restore Point before deleting it.After deleting the file you need to close out of
Control Panel and when you open it back up, the item will be gone.

Hide Items in Control Panel Using the Registry
For some items you won’t be able to easily delete the CPL file if it’s a Windows system file or in
use. You could use a program like Unlocker, but we can tweak the Registry to hide items in
Control Panel.
Remember before making any changes to your computer’s Registry back it up first. Tweaking the
Registry can lead to an unstable or unusable system.
Open the Registry Editor by typing regedit into the Search bar in the Start Menu and hit Enter.
Then navigate to
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesExplorer and
create a new DWORD Value.

Name it Disallow.Cpl and give it a value of 1.
Next create a new key and also name it DisallowCpl.

Now within the DisallowCpl key, create a new String value for each of the items you don’t want
showing in Control Panel.
For example, here we’ll remove the icons for Sync Center, Sound, and Speech Recognition.
So for each String Value name and Value data field, enter the item you want removed and close
out of Registry Editor. Actually you can give it any Value name you want, but keeping it the
same makes things easier to find later.

You should be able to see the results by closing and reopening Control Panel, but if not, log off
and back on again. Here you can see we no longer have the items listed in Control Panel. Go
through the above steps for whatever you want removed from Control Panel.
Hide Control Panel Items Through Group Policy
Sometimes you might want to hide an item in the Control Panel permanently or for a short period
of time. Here we take a look at hiding them through Local Group Policy Editor.
Note: Keep in mind Group Policy is not available in Home versions of Windows. For this
demonstration we’re going to hide QuickTime & Sync Center since we never use them.
To open Group Policy type gpedit.msc into the Search bar in the Start Menu and hit Enter.
Alternately, if you find yourself in Group Policy a lot, check our article on how to create a
shortcut to Group Policy Editor in Windows 7.
Local Group Policy Editor opens and you want to navigate to User Configuration
Administrative Templates Control Panel. In the right pane double-click on Hide specified
Control Panel items.

Select Enabled and under Options you will see List of disallowed Control Panel items…click on
the Show button.
This will bring up a window where you can enter in the items you don’t want displayed in the
Control Panel. In each Value field we’ll type in QuickTime and Sync Center then click OK.
Note: You might want to use proper Canonical names so for example Microsoft.SyncCenter. In
our tests we had success without using the Canonical names. If you experience problems not
using Canonical names leave a comment and let us know.

Click OK again and close out of Group Policy Editor. If you already had Control Panel open
close and reopen it again to refresh the view. As you can see, QuickTime and Sync Center is no
longer listed.
The neat thing about using Group Policy Editor is that you can unhide an item if you need to by
going back and deleting a certain value. For instance we want to show QuickTime again, so we’ll
delete the Value.
All you need to do is highlight the value and clear the field…and we’re done. The QuickTime
icon is back.
Allow Only Certain Items or Hide them All
The method above works well for removing certain items from the Control Panel. But if you
only want to show a few items, you don’t want to type them all in. So instead select Show only
specified Control Panel items.

Then type in only the items you want to be shown. For example we only want Programs and
Features, System, and Sound to be displayed.
Now when you open Control Panel, only the items you want will be displayed.
If you don’t want anything displayed at all for some reason you can do that as well. If you try to
keep the value field empty, you’ll get the following error.

So in the value field type in null then OK and close out of Group Policy Editor.
Then when you open Control Panel…There’s nothing to see here…move along.
Removing items from Control Panel can be useful if you you no longer need an icon for an
uninstalled item, want to clean out the clutter, or just don’t want users to see them. There are
many ways to go about it, and this guide should get you started managing what’s shown in
Control Panel. One of the easiest ways to do it is through Group Policy Editor, but unfortunately
it isn’t available in Home versions of Windows, so you’ll need to hack the Registry.
Again, always remember to create a Restore Point or backup the registry before making any
changes to it!

Make the Taskbar Buttons Switch to the Last Active Window in Windows 7
The new Windows 7 taskbar’s Aero Peek feature, with the live thumbnails of every window, is
awesome… but sometimes you just want to be able to click the taskbar button and have the last
open window show up instead. Here’s a quick hack to make it work better.
To better understand the problem, imagine having nine windows of the same type open on your
screen, but you are primarily working in just one of the windows at a time. So every time you
want to switch back, you have to click the taskbar button, and then choose the one you are using
from the list, which can be pretty annoying…
Now if you know your Windows 7 shortcuts, you’d know that you can simply hold down the Ctrl
key while clicking on the taskbar button, and the last window will show up. In fact, you can keep
holding down the Ctrl key and keep clicking, and Windows will cycle through the open
windows. It’s a useful shortcut, but hardly something you want to do every single time.
Instead, we’ll use a quick registry hack to make the normal click switch to the last open
window—if you still want to see the thumbnail list, just hover your mouse over the button for
half a second to see the full list.
Manual Registry Hack for Last Active Window
Open up regedit.exe through the start menu search or run box, and then head down to the
Once you’re there, create a new 32-bit DWORD value on the right hand side, give it the name
LastActiveClick, and set the value to 1. Once you are done, it should look something like this:
Once you are done, you’ll have to log off and back on, or you can kill Explorer.exe through Task
Manager and re-open it.

Make Aero Peek Display Instantly (or Disable it) in Windows 7
Aero Peek is one of the more useful new features in Windows 7… just move your mouse to the
taskbar for half a second, and everything else hides so you can see the desktop or application
window. But why does it take half a second?
There’s a simple little registry hack that will change the amount of time between hovering your
mouse over the show desktop button in the lower right-hand corner, and the Aero Peek display
showing up. The same thing should work for when you hover over an application window on the
taskbar.
And of course, if you wanted to completely disable Aero Peek, we’ve got you covered for that
too—just head into the taskbar properties (right-click the taskbar and use Properties), then
remove the checkbox from ―Use Aero Peek to preview the desktop‖.
If you want to disable Aero Peek on everything, including the taskbar thumbnails, you’ll need to
head into System Properties in Control Panel (search for ―View advanced system settings‖), and
then remove the checkbox from Aero Peek there:

Manual Registry Hack to Adjust Aero Peek Delay
If you want to change the amount of time to trigger Aero Peek and tweak it for your own
preferences (maybe you don’t want instant, but you want it quicker), you’ll need to use the
manual registry hack. The instant variety is downloadable below.
following key:
On the right-hand side, you’ll need to find the key for DesktopLivePreviewHoverTime (or create
a new DWORD if it does not exist) and double-click to edit it—just make sure to flip the Base
radio button over to Decimal before you make edits (unless you think in hex).
The value is in milliseconds, so if you wanted 1 second, you would use 1000, or 500 for half a
second, etc. If you want to make it instant, just set to it 0 (which works fine in hex too). The
default value is 500, or half a second.
Note that you’ll need to log off, and then log back on, for it to take effect.

Why Doesn’t Disk Cleanup Delete Everything from the Temp Folder?
After you’ve used Disk Cleanup, you probably expect every temporary file to be completely
deleted, but that’s not actually the case. Files are only deleted if they are older than 7 days old,
but you can tweak that number to something else.
This is one of those tutorials that we’re showing you for the purpose of explaining how
something works, but we’re not necessarily recommending that you implement it unless you
really understand what’s going on. Keep reading for more.
Why Doesn’t Disk Cleanup Delete All Files?
The applications that you’re running create temporary files, not to litter your hard drive, but to
store files while the application is working on them—whether it’s downloading files, storing files
that you’re currently editing, or just caching files so the next time you open the application the
files will be more quickly accessible.
The problem is that most applications don’t seem to clean up after themselves, or if they do, they
definitely don’t do it very well. That’s why your temporary folder gets really huge over time, and
needs to be cleaned out.
Since these files are often being used by applications, Windows doesn’t know whether a
particular file can be deleted, so Disk Cleanup only cleans up files that are older than 7 days,
which is a safe guess—most people probably don’t have an application open for more than a
week, especially since Microsoft makes you reboot nearly every Tuesday, right?

You can even see in the screenshot that Disk Cleanup explains this to you, if you select the
Temporary files option in the list.
Change Disk Cleanup to Delete Files Newer than 7 Days
If you’re one of those people that reboots your PC every day, you can probably change the Disk
Cleanup value down to something lower, like 2 days. If you don’t reboot but you rarely keep
applications open, you could probably do fine with 2-3 days instead, though the value you
choose is really up to you—just keep in mind applications need those temporary files if they are
running.
Open up regedit.exe through the Start Menu search or run box, and then browse down to the
following key:
CurrentVersionExplorerVolumeCachesTemporary Files
Once you’re there, you’ll see the LastAccess value on the right-hand side, which contains a value
that specifies the number of days, which you can change to whatever you’d like.

If you want to see the results of your changes, you can open up your temporary folder by
entering the following into the Windows Explorer location bar:
%temp%
And again, if you’re an average user, you probably shouldn’t mess with this registry value—but
at least you know a little more how it works, right?

Remove “Troubleshoot Compatibility” from the Windows Context Menu
Reader Jeevus wrote in asking how to remove the ―Troubleshoot Compatibility‖ item from the
Windows context menu whenever you right-click on an application—naturally, we were happy
to explain how to do it, and share with the rest of you.
You’ll want to note that we’re not necessarily recommending that you remove this item, since it
could be useful if you’re having compatibility issues with an application, but we’re fans of
showing how to do something—also, we just like tinkering in the registry.
Removing Troubleshoot Compatibility
Open up regedit.exe through the Start Menu search or Run box, and then head down to the
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTexefileshellexContextMenuHandlersCompatibility
You should see a key over on the right-hand side, and if you add a ―-― character to the beginning
of the value, the item will disappear entirely from the context menu for executables, at least . Of
course, you could also delete the key, but please don’t just delete it without testing this way out
first.
Next you’ll want to head down to this registry key, which does the same thing for application
shortcuts:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTlnkfileshellexContextMenuHandlersCompatibility
Make the same change on the right-hand side.
It’s probably a better bet to right-click on the key on the left-hand pane, choose Export, and then
save it out to a registry file that can be restored later by simply double-clicking on it. Once
you’ve done that, then you can remove the key entirely, which will reduce the registry calls for
this item, and give you a solid 0.000000000000001% speed increase.
At this point you can right-click on an application file, and you won’t see the troubleshoot
compatibility item anymore.
Make sure to check out our guide to using Program Compatibility Mode in Windows 7 before
you make this registry hack—it’s really a very useful feature.

Show the Classic “All Programs” Menu in the Start Menu in Windows 7
There are a lot of new users to Windows 7 who are not happy with the new Start Menu and wish
they could revert to the Classic menu. Here is how to at least get back the Classic ―All
Programs‖ Menu.
Remember the Classic Start Menu in XP where you could show the All Programs Menu? Let’s
take a look at getting that back in Windows 7.
Note: This trick uses a Registry hack so you’ll want to make sure you back up the Registry before
making any changes.
Get All Programs Menu Back
First click on the Start Menu and type regedit into the Search box and hit Enter.
Now we need to navigate to
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerShell
Folders. Double-click on Favorites on the right side…

Now change the Value data to the following and click OK:
C:ProgramDataMicrosoftWindowsStart MenuPrograms
Next scroll down a bit further to
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerUser Shell
Folders. Double-click on the Favorites entry.
Again we need to edit the Value data to:
C:ProgramDataMicrosoftWindowsStart MenuPrograms

After making the changes close out of the Registry Editor and right-click on the Start Menu and
select Properties.
In the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties Window click on the Start Menu tab then click on the
Customize button.
Scroll down and click the box next to Favorites menu, click OK, and reboot your system.

When you come back from the Restart you will see Programs on the right side of the Start Menu
and have a list of All Programs similar to that of XP.
While it’s not quite the same as the good old XP days, if you’re looking to get the All Programs
Menu back, this Registry hack will do the trick without installing 3rd party software.
If you’re not comfortable making changes to the Registry, check out some 3rd party solutions
which we have covered…
 Get an Aero Styled Classic Start Menu in Windows 7
 Get the Classic Start Menu in Windows 7 with CSMenu
 ClassicShell Adds Classic Start Menu and Explorer Features to Windows 7
Editor’s Note: The registry hack at the heart of this idea was originally figured out by our friend
Vishal over at his Tweaking with Vishal site. Thanks to him for the original find.

How To Add Recycle Bin to “My Computer” in Windows 7 or Vista
Have you ever wanted to add the Recycle Bin to your My Computer screen? Yeah, it’s probably
not the most common request, but here’s how to do it anyway with a simple registry hack.
Here’s what we’re talking about… if you wanted to do something more useful, you can also add
Control Panel to My Computer as well.
To make this tweak, we’ll be doing a quick registry hack, but there’s a downloadable version
provided as well.
Manual Registry Tweak to Add Recycle Bin
following key:
CurrentVersionExplorerMyComputerNameSpace
Now that you’re there, you’ll need to right-click and create a new key…
Name the key with the following text:
{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}
Once you are done, it should look like this:

Now you should be able to hit F5 on your My Computer screen, or close it and re-open.

Remove Gadgets and Screen Resolution on Windows 7 Desktop Context Menu
One of the first things you might notice in Windows 7 is the addition of the new Gadgets and
Screen Resolution items to the context menu. The only problem is that you might not really want
them there—so we’ll explain how to get rid of them.
No clue what we’re talking about? If you are using Windows 7 and you right-click on the
desktop, you’ll see a bunch of new items at the bottom:
For extra credit, if you want to get rid of that Catalyst item, we’ve already written about how to
remove the ATI Catalyst Control Center from the desktop context menu.
Remove Gadgets and Screen Resolution Items
Normally removing items from a menu should be a simple registry hack, without any
complicated instructions—just like removing the ATI item that we mentioned above. The
problem, in this case, is that the new Windows 7 items are actually protected by special
permissions making them annoying to remove—but we’re geeks, so all things are possible.
You’ll want to open up regedit.exe through the start menu search or run box, and then browse
down to the following registry key:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTDesktopBackgroundShell

Once you’re there, you might notice that while you can see the three new items, you can’t
remove or rename them.
What we’ll need to do is give ourselves permission to the keys, starting by right-clicking on the
DesktopBackground key and choosing Permissions.
Now you’ll want to pretty much ignore everything in here, and click the Advanced button.

Head to the Owner tab, click on Administrators in the list, and then check the box for ―Replace
owner on subcontainers and objects‖.
Make absolutely certain you’ve checked that box before you click Apply!

Now head back to the Permissions tab, and select Administrators in the list (which should say
Full Control already), and check the box for ―Replace all child object permissions with
inheritable permissions from this object‖.
Make absolutely certain you select that checkbox before clicking Apply!

You’ll be prompted by Windows, asking if you really want to proceed. We do.
And now, you should be able to rename or delete any of the keys. I would advise making a
backup by right-clicking on DesktopBackground and choosing to export into a reghack file.

For example, to remove Gadgets and Screen Resolution from the menu, I’ve deleted both of
those keys (after making a backup, of course).
Combined with removing the ATI Catalyst item from the menu, we now have a nice, clean
desktop menu.
Stay tuned, because in an upcoming article we’re going to teach you how to do even more with
the context menu.

Stupid Geek Tricks: Enable More Fonts for the Windows Command Prompt
Have you ever noticed that there are only two fonts to choose from in the Command prompt
properties window? What you might not know is that you can use a simple registry hack to
enable alternate fonts, including a very readable font that comes with Vista and Office 2007.
But that’s not all… you can enable a number of fixed width fonts if you really want to. We’ll
cover how this works, as well as one of my favorite ―interesting‖ fonts for the command prompt.
Changing the Default Command Prompt Font
To change the font, you’ll want to right-click on the title bar and choose Properties from the
menu. If you want to set the defaults for all command prompt windows you can choose the
Defaults option instead.
Now on the font tab, you’ll be able to choose from any of the fonts that are enabled in the
registry.

You’ll notice in my screenshot that I have the Consolas font enabled… which isn’t normally
enabled by default, so keep reading on how to enable it!
Enabling Additional Fonts for the Command Prompt
In order to enable additional fonts in the command prompt, you’ll need to pull out your registry
hacking skills and open up regedit.exe through the start menu search or run box, navigating
down to the following key:
NTCurrentVersionConsoleTrueTypeFont
Once you get down to that key, you’ll see the list of enabled True Type fonts on the right-hand
pane. To add another one, add a new string value named 00, and set the value to the name of the
font you want to enable.
Note that you will have to reboot your computer before you can then use the new font in the
command prompt.

You’ll see here that I enabled the Consolas font by using that as the value. This font is included
by default on any machine that has Vista or Office 2007, but if you are using XP you can just
install the free Powerpoint 2007 Viewer which contains the fonts.

Even at really small font sizes, Consolas is quite readable.
What Fonts Can I Enable?
The command prompt will only accept fonts that are fixed-width, so don’t even bother trying to
enable Comic Sans =) I started looking around on various font websites and found a few fonts
that worked, like this White Rabbit font that has a fun look:
To enable an additional font like that one while still keeping Consolas enabled, you’ll first need
to download and install the font (right-click on it and choose Install), and then go back into the
registry and add a new key, making sure to give it a different name (I used 00 and 000, but you
could use 00, 01, 02, etc).

Once you’ve enabled both of the fonts you should be able to choose between them in the Font
tab like before (remember you have to reboot for them to actually work).
Some fonts don’t work, however… I tried quite a few fixed-width fonts that gave me an error
when I tried to open the properties window:
If this happens to you, don’t worry… just go back into the registry and remove the item. Still, a
rather fun trick… anybody remember vfont from the DOS days?

Remove ATI Catalyst Control Center from the Desktop Right-Click Menu
Have you ever wondered how to remove the ―Catalyst(TM) Control Center‖ item from the
desktop context menu? After writing yesterday about how to remove the NVIDIA Control Panel,
a number of readers wrote in asking how to get rid of the ATI version.
We can look in the same place in the registry in order to quickly remove the item, or we can use
the same utility we used yesterday to completely disable the shell extension.
Note: This method works the same for XP, Vista, and Windows 7.
In case you aren’t sure what we’re talking about, here’s the menu item we’re looking to remove:
Remove the Registry Hack Way
following key:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTDirectoryBackgroundshellexContextMenuHandlersACE
Double-click on the (Default) value in the right-hand side, and then add some dashes in front of
the value to disable it. You should be able to right-click on the desktop and see that the item is
removed.
If you would prefer, you can simply get rid of this key, but I would do right-click / export the key
out to a file for backup purposes before deleting it.

Completely Disable the Shell Extension
If you don’t want that shell extension loading at all, you can use the awesome Nirsoft
ShellExView application to just completely disable the extension and prevent it from running.
Note: make sure to launch ShellExView by right-clicking and choosing Run as Administrator if
you are using Vista. This doesn’t seem to work for Windows 7, but the registry hack above will
work perfectly fine.
Find the ―SimpleShlExt Class‖ item with the description ―ACE Context Menu‖ in the list, and
click the Disable button.
If you aren’t sure it’s the right one, double-click on it to see the details, and verify that it’s
similar to this one (although your version could be different)
At this point, you should have a nice clean desktop context menu:Does this menu item annoy
you as much as it does me?

Remove NVIDIA Control Panel from Desktop Right-Click Menu
Have you ever wondered how to remove the ―NVIDIA Control Panel‖ item from the desktop
context menu? If so, you probably didn’t realize that it’s trivially easy to remove.
Note: This method works the same for XP, Vista, and Windows 7.
For those of you in the dark about what we’re talking about, here’s the menu item we’re looking
to remove:
I rarely need to use the NVIDIA Control Panel, and it’s accessible via the control panel’s
Additional Options section if I really needed to get to it.
Remove the Easy Way
Just open up the NVIDIA Control Panel, and uncheck View Add Desktop Context Menu
This will immediately remove the item from the context menu:

The only problem with this is that the shell menu item doesn’t actually get removed, just
disabled.
Remove With a Registry Hack
If you want to make remove the menu item from the registry, you can open up regedit.exe
through the start menu search or run box, and then browse down to the following key:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTDirectoryBackgroundshellexContextMenuHandlers
Find the NvCplDesktopContext key on the left-hand side, and then make sure to Export the
current key out to a file for backup purposes. Once you’ve done that, delete that key.
Completely Disable the Shell Extension
If you don’t want that shell extension loading at all, you can use the awesome Nirsoft
ShellExView application to just completely disable the extension and prevent it from running.

Note: make sure to launch ShellExView by right-clicking and choosing Run as Administrator if
you are using Vista.
Find ―DesktopContextClass‖ with the description ―NVIDIA Display Properties Extension‖, and
click the Disable button.
If you aren’t sure it’s the right one, double-click on it to see the details, and verify that it’s
similar to this one (although your version could be different)
As soon as you use the Disable button, the menu item will be gone.

Make "Command Prompt Here" Always Display for Folders in Windows Vista
We’ve previously explained how you can open a command prompt by holding down the Shift
key and right-clicking on a folder or the desktop… but how do you make that item show up
without having to hold down the shift key?
There’s a simple registry hack you can do that will enable ―Open Command Window Here‖ item
without holding down the shift key:
You can either manually edit the registry, or use the downloadable registry hack files to do it.
following key to add the right-click menu to drive icons:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTDriveshellcmd

Rename the ―Extended‖ key on the right to something else, like ―Extended-Orig‖. (Note that you
could simply delete the value, but renaming it ensures that you can quickly rename it back to
reverse the change)
To add the item to the folder context menu, browse down to the following key:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTDirectoryshellcmd
And rename the same ―Extended‖ key here. The changes should be immediate.

Add Encrypt / Decrypt Options to Windows 7 / Vista Right-Click Menu
If you use the built-in file encryption in Windows 7 or Vista, you might be interested in adding
an option to the right-click menu to more easily encrypt and decrypt your files, rather than
having to use the file properties dialog.
Adding this to the menu couldn’t be simpler – there’s only a single registry key to add.
Open up regedit.exe through the start menu search box, and then find the following registry key:
In the right-hand pane, create a new 32-bit DWORD value called EncryptionContextMenu and
give it a value of 1.
Now when you right-click on a file, you’ll see a new option called Encrypt.

When you choose this option, you’ll receive the following dialog, asking if you want to encrypt
just the file, or also the parent folder. You can also choose just the file as the default.
Once the files are encrypted, you’ll notice that the title of the file is now green, indicating that
it’s been encrypted. The right-click option will also now change to Decrypt.
Definitely much simpler… makes me wonder why this wasn’t a built-in option.

Customize the Default Screensavers in Windows 7 and Vista
Windows 7 and Vista include a nice set of backgrounds, but unfortunately most of them aren’t
configurable by default. Thanks to a free app and some registry changes, however, you can
make the default screensavers uniquely yours!
Customize the default screensavers
If you’ve ever pressed the Customize button on most of the default screensavers in Windows 7
and Vista, you were probably greeted with this message:
A little digging in the registry shows that this isn’t fully correct. The default screensavers in
Vista and 7 do have options you can set, but they’re not obvious. With the help of an app or
some registry tips, you can easily customize the screensavers to be uniquely yours. Here’s how
you can do it with an app or in the registry.
Customize Windows Screensavers with System Screensavers Tweaker
Download the System Screensavers Tweaker (link below), and unzip the folder. Run
nt6srccfg.exe in the folder to tweak your screensavers. This application lets you tweak the
screensavers’ registry settings graphically, and it works great in all editions of Windows Vista
and 7, including x64 versions.
Change any of the settings you want in the screensaver tweaker, and click Apply.

To preview the changes to your screensaver, open the Screen Saver settings window as normal
by right-clicking on the desktop, and selecting Personalize.
Click on the Screensaver button on the bottom right.
Now, select your modified screensaver, and click Preview to see your changes.

You can change a wide variety of settings for the Bubbles, Ribbons, and Mystify screensavers in
Windows 7 and Vista, as well as the Aurora screensaver in Windows Vista. The tweaks to the
Bubbles screensaver are especially nice. Here’s how the Bubbles look without transparency.
And, by tweaking a little more, you get a screensaver that looks more like a screen full of
marbles.

Ribbons and Mystify each have less settings, but still can produce some unique effects.
How’s that for a brilliant screensaver?
And, if you want to return your screensavers to their default settings, simply run the System
Screensavers Tweaker and select Reset to defaults on any screensaver you wish to reset.

Customize Windows Screensavers in the Registry
If you prefer to roll up your sleeves and tweak Windows under-the-hood, then here’s how you
can customize the screensavers yourself in the Registry. Type regedit into the search box in the
Start menu, browse to the key for each screensaver, and add or modify the DWORD values listed
for that screensaver using the Decimal base.
Please Note: Tweaking the Registry can be difficult, so if you’re unsure, just use the tweaking
application above. Also, you’ll probably want to create a System Restore Point.

Bubbles
To edit the Bubbles screensaver, browse to the following in regedit:
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrent
VersionScreensaversBubbles
Now, add or modify the following DWORD values to tweak the screensaver:
 MaterialGlass – enter 0 for solid or 1 for transparent bubbles
 Radius – enter a number between 1090000000 and 1130000000; the larger the number, the
larger the bubbles’ radius
 ShowBubbles – enter 0 to show a black background or 1 to show the current desktop behind
the bubbles
 ShowShadows – enter 0 for no shadow or 1 for shadows behind the bubbles
 SphereDensity – enter a number from 1000000000 to 2100000000; the higher the number, the
more bubbles on the screen.
 TurbulenceNumOctaves – enter a number from 1 to 255; the higher the number, the faster the
bubble colors will change.
Ribbons
To edit the Ribbons screensaver, browse to the following in regedit:
VersionScreensaversRibbons
 Blur – enter 0 to prevent ribbons from fading, or 1 to have them fade away after a few
moments.
 Numribbons – enter a number from 1 to 100; the higher the number, the more ribbons on the
screen.
 RibbonWidth – enter a number from 1000000000 to 1080000000; the higher the number, the
thicker the ribbons.
Mystify
To edit the Mystify screensaver, browse to the following in regedit:
VersionScreensaversMystify
 Blur – enter 0 to prevent lines from fading, or 1 to have them fade away after a few moments.
 LineWidth – enter a number from 1000000000 to 1080000000; the higher the number, the
wider the lines.

 NumLines – enter a number from 1 to 100; the higher the value, the more lines on the screen.
Aurora – Windows Vista only
To edit the Aurora screensaver in Windows Vista, browse to the following in regedit:
VersionScreensaversAurora
 Amplitude – enter a value from 500000000 to 2000000000; the higher the value, the slower the
motion.
 Brightness – enter a value from 1000000000 to 1050000000; the higher the value, the brighter
the affect.
 NumLayers – enter a value from 1 to 15; the higher the value, the more aurora layers displayed.
 Speed – enter a value from 1000000000 to 2100000000; the higher the value, the faster the
cycling.
Conclusion
Although the default screensavers are nice, they can be boring after awhile with their default
settings. But with these tweaks, you can create a variety of vibrant screensavers that should keep
your desktop fresh and interesting.

Skip the Annoying "Use the Web service to find the correct program" Dialog
If you’ve used Windows for any length of time, you’ve likely tried to open a file with an
unknown extension. Instead of getting a list of programs to open the file with, you get an
annoying dialog asking you to use a web service to find a program. So how do we change this?
You can use a registry hack to force Windows to skip this dialog altogether, and give you a list
of applications to use to open the file instead, just as if you had selected the second option.
When you double-click on a file with an unknown extension, Windows presents you with this
irritating dialog:
If you selected ―Select a program from a list of installed programs‖, you would get this much
more useful dialog instead:
The registry hack will show you the second Open With dialog instead of that irritating first one.

Open regedit.exe through the start menu search or run box, and then browse down to the
following key (create the key if it doesn’t exist)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesExplor
er
Create a new 32-bit DWORD value on the right-hand side with the following values:
 Name: NoInternetOpenWith
 Value: 1
The change should be immediate, no need to restart anything. To reset back to default, set the
value to 0 or delete the key.

How to Disable Caps Lock Key in Windows 7 or Vista
The caps lock key is one of those remnants of another age of computers, back when people used
to shout at each other more often. Unless you’re in the accounting department, it’s probably not
very useful, so today we’ll learn how to disable it.
If you’re using Mac OS X instead, you can follow our guide on how to disable Caps Lock in OS
X using a registry hack, or you can map any key to any key if you really want to.
Note: This article was originally published years ago, but we’ve updated it and are republishing
for everybody that might not have seen it. Image by Laurence Vagner
Understanding How Windows Key Re-Mapping Works
Windows doesn’t have a default setting to allow for disabling the key, so what we have to do is
re-map the key to something non-existent so as to completely disable it. To do this manually,
you’d open up regedit.exe and browse down to the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlKeyboard Layout
Here’s the format of the binary data in the Scancode Map key, with the important parts in bold
and various colors:
00000000 00000000 02000000 00003A00 00000000
Here’s how it works:
 The first 16 zeros are just there to waste space.

 The “02″ in bold represents how many keys you are going to re-map plus 1. (It really represents
the length of the data, but whatever)
 The orange bolded “0000″ is the key we actually want Windows to map TO, which in this case is
nothing, or 0.
 The blue bolded “3A00″ is the key we are mapping from, in this case the caps lock key.
 The next 8 zeros are there to waste space as the null terminator.
You can map between multiple keys by incrementing the ―02″ and then adding another of the
colorful bold blocks in the middle. The 3A00 in the mix is the scan code. For example, if you
wanted to disable the caps lock key and then change scroll lock into a caps lock key:
00000000 00000000 03000000 00003A00 3A004600 00000000
It might seem complicated, but it’s really fairly simple once you start working with it.
Downloadable Registry Hack to Disable or Remap the Caps Lock Key
Now that you’ve learned how these things work internally, you can download and extract the
zipfile which contains the following files:
ChangeCapsToControl.reg Changes Caps Lock to be a Control key
ChangeCapsToShift.reg Changes Caps Lock to be a Shift key
SwitchCapsToScrollLock.reg Disables Caps Lock and swaps Scroll lock to be Caps Lock
KillCapsLock.reg Disables Caps Lock
DisableKeyboardRemap Uninstalls the preference by deleting the key
Once you’ve applied one of these registry files, you’ll have to reboot your computer for it to
work. To uninstall, you can use the uninstall registry tweak, or you can simply delete the
Scancode Map key entirely.

Add Defragment to the Right-Click Menu for a Drive
After writing the article last week about how to add Disk Cleanup to the context menu for a
drive, I received several requests for how to add another menu item for Defrag instead. With a
simple registry hack we can do just that.
After manually applying or downloading the hack, you’ll have a new item on the right-click
menu for your drives…
Which will start up the command-line version of Disk Defragmenter (after accepting the UAC
prompt)
following key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTDriveshell
Create a new key under shell called ―runas‖, and then set the (Default) value to ―Defragment‖. If
you want to hide this menu item behind the Shift key right-click menu, then add a new string
called Extended with no value.
Next, you’ll need to create a key called ―command‖ and set the default value to the following,
which is the command to run defrag with the default options but show verbose output.
defrag %1 -v
You can alternately choose from one of the other defrag switches here if you’d like.

Add Control Panel to the Desktop Right-Click Menu in Vista
A couple of days ago I noticed a thread on our forum asking how to add Control Panel to the
desktop context menu, so I decided to write up the solution for everybody, since it seems like a
really useful hack.
Since we like to explain with screenshots, when you right-click on the desktop you’ll see a new
menu item called Control Panel:
Once you select that item, obviously it will immediately open up Control Panel:
Of course you could use the same technique to add any item into the context menu, or you could
even use the same location in the registry to remove things like the NVIDIA Control Panel or
ATI Control Center from the menu.
following key:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTDirectoryBackgroundshell

Once you are there, you’ll want to right-click on ―shell‖ and create a new key called Control
Panel.
Under that one, you’ll want to right-click and create a new key called ―command‖.
Select the ―command‖ key on the left-hand side, and then set the (Default) value on the right-
hand side to the following:
rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL
You should immediately see the new item in your context menu, and it should be working. To
remove, simply delete the Control Panel key.

Use Verbose Boot Messages to Troubleshoot Windows Startup Problems
If you’ve ever had problems with your PC starting up or shutting down slowly, there’s lots of
different troubleshooting techniques that you can use—today we’ll talk about how to enable
verbose messages.
Enabling these verbose messages is not going to magically solve your problems, of course—the
point is to use this to identify a problem, which you can then solve through other means,
generally by uninstalling a problem application or upgrading a faulty driver.
Enable Verbose Boot Logging for Drivers and Such
Open up msconfig.exe through the Start Menu search or run box, and then head over to the Boot
tab. You’ll want to use one of these two settings:
 Boot log: Use this setting to create a text log of all the drivers that are loaded during startup.
 OS boot information: Use this setting to display the drivers on the screen while booting (note
that this seems to slow startup a bit)
Once you’ve chosen your settings, click OK and reboot to see the change.

If you chose to enable the Boot log, you can just paste the following into your Run box to open
up the file:
notepad %SystemRoot%ntbtlog.txt
You’ll see something like this, which shows all the drivers that loaded, and even the ones that
didn’t load.

If you chose the ―OS boot information‖ option, you’ll actually see each driver as it loads. This
can be helpful to see what is taking a long time to load.
Note: this option does seem to make booting take longer. You should probably disable the option
once you are done.
Enable Verbose Service Startup/Shutdown Messages
Windows loads up the drivers first during the black screen portion of the boot process, but then
once you are looking at the regular login wallpaper screen, it is loading up services in the
background. To troubleshoot this part of the process, you’ll have to flip a registry switch.
Open up regedit.exe and head to the following key, creating it if the key path isn’t there:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoft
WindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesSystem
Once you are there, create a new 32-bit DWORD on the right-hand side named VerboseStatus,
giving it a value of 1.

Now when you start up or shut down, you’ll see more verbose messages telling you what is
taking so long.
Of course, on a normal PC these messages will fly by so fast that you won’t see anything.
An Even Better Solution: Use Soluto
If you really want to troubleshoot your system startup problems, you should check out Soluto,
which can actually analyze your entire boot process and tell you where all the problems are—
even helping you disable things that are taking too much time.

How to Enable or Disable TortoiseSVN Menus Easily
If you’re a programmer that uses TortoiseSVN to manage your Subversion source control
project, you might wonder how to easily disable the menu items without completely uninstalling.
Here’s a quick way to do it.
Note: this article is meant for programmers or people pretending to be programmers.
The general idea is that we’ll remove the Windows Explorer context menu items from the
registry with one script, and then add the registry entries back with another script.
To make it a little simpler and prevent the annoying Regedit prompts, what you can do is create a
shortcut to regedit.exe, pass in the location of the registry hack file we’ve provided, and make
sure to use the /s switch for silent mode.
Then put those shortcuts in your Start Menu folder, so you can easily get them from the start
menu search.

Or you could create a set of hotkeys to enable or disable them on the fly… if you’re reading this,
you’re probably a programmer, so you can figure that out.

How to Add Control Panel to “My Computer” in Windows 7 or Vista
Back in the Windows XP days, you could easily add Control Panel to My Computer with a
simple checkbox in the folder view settings. Windows 7 and Vista don’t make this quite as easy,
but there’s still a way to get it back.
To make this tweak, we’ll be doing a quick registry hack, but there’s a downloadable version
provided as well.
Manual Registry Tweak to Add Control Panel
following key:
CurrentVersionExplorerMyComputerNameSpace
Now that you’re there, you’ll need to right-click and create a new key…

If you want to add the regular Control Panel view, with the categories, you’ll need to use one
GUID as the name of the key. If you want the icon view instead, you can use the other key. Here
they are:
 Category View: {26EE0668-A00A-44D7-9371-BEB064C98683}
 Icon View: {21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}
Once you’re done, it should look like this:
Now over in the Computer view, just hit the F5 key to refresh the panel, and you should see the
new icon pop up in the list:
Now when you click on the icon you’ll be taken to Control Panel. If you didn’t know how to
change the view before, you can use the drop-down box on the right-hand side to switch between
Category and icon view.

Increase the Speed of the Aero Taskbar Thumbnails in Windows 7
By default you may notice that there is a slight delay when hovering your mouse over a Taskbar
Thumbnail. Here is a neat registry hack that will allow you to speed it up.
Registry Hack
First type regedit into the search box in the Start Menu and hit Enter.
Now navigate to
and right-click to create a new DWORD and name it ExtendedUIHoverTime.
Now double-click on it and give it a Decimal value of ―1‖ click OK, close out of Registry Editor,
then logoff and back on for it to go into effect.

When you come back, you’ll notice when you hover your mouse over a thumbnail of an open
app on the Taskbar the preview pops up instantly with no delay.
Slow it Down
If for some reason you want to slow it down you can do that too. Just change the Decimal value
to something else like 1000 which is milliseconds. Then the delay will be a lot longer. You can
change the value to whatever you want for your needs. We’re not sure why anyone would want
to slow the preview down, but you never know.
If you’re annoyed by the small delay that takes place when hovering over a thumbnail on the
Taskbar, this neat registry hack will fix the annoyance. If you want to increase the size of the
Thumbnail Previews check out our article on using Windows 7 Taskbar Thumbnail Customizer.

Remove Programs from the Open With Menu in Explorer
Would you like to clean up the Open with menu in Windows Explorer? Here’s how you can
remove program entries you don’t want in this menu on any version of Windows.
Have you ever accidently opened an mp3 with Notepad, or a zip file with Word? If so, you’re
also likely irritated that these programs now show up in the Open with menu in Windows
Explorer every time you select one of those files. Whenever you open a file type with a
particular program, Windows will add an entry for it to the Open with menu. Usually this is
helpful, but it can also clutter up the menu with wrong entries.
On our computer, we have tried to open a PDF file with Word and Notepad, neither which can
actually view the PDF itself. Let’s remove these entries. To do this, we need to remove the
registry entries for these programs. Enter regedit in your Start menu search or in the Run
command to open the Registry editor.
Backup your registry first just in case, so you can roll-back any changes you make if you
accidently delete the wrong value.
Now, browse to the following key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER Software Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion Explorer
FileExts
Here you’ll see a list of all the file extensions that are registered on your computer.

Browse to the file extension you wish to edit, click the white triangle beside it to see the
subfolders, and select OpenWithList. In our test, we want to change the programs associated
with PDF files, so we select the OpenWithList folder under .pdf.
Notice the names of the programs under the Data column on the right. Right-click the value for
the program you don’t want to see in the Open With menu and select Delete.
Click Yes at the prompt to confirm that you want to delete this value.
Repeat these steps with all the programs you want to remove from this file type’s Open with
menu. You can go ahead and remove entries from other file types as well if you wish.
Once you’ve removed the entries you didn’t want to see, check out the Open with menu in
Explorer again. Now it will be much more streamlined and will only show the programs you
want to see.

Conclusion
This simple trick can help you keep your Open with menu tidy, and only show the programs you
want in the list. It can be irritating to accidently open files in programs that can’t even read
them. This trick works in all versions of Windows, including 2000, XP, Vista, and Windows 7.

Add "Run as Administrator" to Any File Type in Windows 7 or Vista
Have you ever tried to unzip a file to the Program Files directory in Windows 7 or Vista? You’ll
get all sorts of permission denied errors, and generally be unsuccessful. So how do we open up
the zipfile as an administrator? For that matter, how do you open any file as administrator?
There’s a simple registry tweak that will let us specify the action to run as administrator for a file
type. Unfortunately you’ll have to make the tweak manually, but we’ll walk you through it.
Note: The method explained here is courtesy of jd2066, one of the helpful geeks over on our
forum.
Manual Registry Tweak
Open regedit through the start menu search or run box and then browse down to the following
key, substituting ―.zip‖ for the file extension that you are looking for. (Note that the find dialog
helps here)
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.zip
Now you want to take note of the Data value for the ―(Default)‖ item. This tells you which
application is registered to handle this file type, and also where we need to go in the registry
next.
For this example, since the data field in this example says ―WinRAR.ZIP‖ we’ll need to browse
down to the following registry key. (again, the find dialog helps here)
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTWinRAR.ZIPshellopencommand
What we want to do is copy the shellopencommand section to shellrunascommand. The
easiest way to do that is right-click on ―command‖ and then choose Export.

Now open up the exported registry file in Notepad and change ―open‖ to ―runas‖ where indicated
below:
Double-click on the file to enter the information into the registry. Now you’ll see that the ―runas‖
section is identical to the ―open‖ section:
And now you can right-click on a file and open it as administrator:
This example used WinRAR, but this should work for almost any filetype or application. You’ll
just have to change where you look in the registry.

Create a Context Menu Item to Copy a Text File To the Clipboard in Windows 7
/ Vista / XP
If you are the type of person that likes to keep a lot of information stored in text-format files on
your drive, you’ve probably encountered a scenario where you want to copy that information to
the clipboard… so you open the file in notepad, select all, then copy to the clipboard. What if
you could do it with a simple context menu item instead?
Using a little registry hacking and the clip.exe utility built into Windows 7 and Vista, we can do
just that, and we can even hide it behind the Shift + Right-Click menu so that it won’t waste
space on the menu unless you hold down the shift key.
Using the Copy to Clipboard Hack
Simply hold down the Shift key and right-click on a text file, and you’ll see a new item for
―Copy to Clipboard‖:
Now you’ll have the information on the clipboard for easy pasting into whatever application
you’d like:

Note: If you are using Windows XP, you can download clip.exe from Microsoft. Just save the file
in the Windows directory and the rest of the hack should work for you.
Manual Registry Hack (for .txt files)
following key:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTtxtfileshell
Underneath each file type in the registry (for instance txtfile), there is a shell key with a list of
actions under it. We’ll create a new key called ―copytoclip‖, and then a key under it called
―command‖. Set the default value of ―copytoclip‖ to something useful like ―Copy Contents to
Clipboard‖, and then set the default value of ―command‖ to the following:
cmd /c clip < ―%1″
What we’re doing is running a command prompt, and then piping the file into the clip.exe utility.
You could do the same thing from the command prompt, or in a script.
You could duplicate this same tweak for other file types, such as html or code files, by finding
their key in the registry and adding the same menu items.

Disable the "Send To" Folder on the Windows Explorer Context Menu
After writing the article about adding Notepad to the context menu I noticed all the comments
from users that prefer to use a shortcut in the Send To menu, which got me thinking… I wonder
if you can disable the Send To folder?
Of course you can easily disable it… naturally it’s a registry hack, so standard disclaimers apply.
following key:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTAllFilesystemObjectsshellexContextMenuHandlersSend To
Find the (Default) value on the left, double-click on it and remove the text from the value,
leaving it blank. The change will be immediate.
Restore Send To Menu
Change the value of the registry key back to this:
{7BA4C740-9E81-11CF-99D3-00AA004AE837}

Remove "Map Network Drive" Menu Item from Windows Vista or XP
If you have never used the ―Map Network Drive‖ dialog box, do you ever wonder how to get rid
of it? Personally I only map drives from the command line so I never use it either… so I’m
thankful there’s a registry hack that can remove the menu items.
If you are unfamiliar with what I’m talking about, just right-click on the Computer icon and
you’ll see:
Here’s that same context menu without the items.Of course, it would probably be simplest to just
uninstall, disable or remove file sharing altogether, but if you don’t want to do that and still want
the menu items gone, this registry hack is for you.
Note: This will completely disable all connect/disconnect menu items, including on currently
mapped drives and the Tools menu.
Open regedit.exe through the start menu search or run box, and then navigate down to the
following key, creating if it does not exist.

Why is Task Manager Disabled?
Some time ago I received an email from a reader curious why their Task Manager option was
grayed out on the taskbar right-click menu. After a bit of research his problem was solved, and
now I’m sharing the solution with everybody.
There is a registry key that will disable Task Manager, although it’s not always clear how or why
it was set to disable. In many cases the problem is related to spyware, so you should also scan
your computer.
Why is task manager grayed out?
following key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesSystem
On the right-hand side is a 32-bit REG_DWORD value named DisableTaskMgr with one of two
values:
 1 – Disable task manager
 0 – Enable task manager
Just double-click and change the value, or even delete the key. The change should take place
immediately.

How to Clean Up Your Messy Internet Explorer Context Menu
Is your Internet Explorer context menu completely out of control? Is it so long that it actually
runs off the screen? Here’s how to quickly take a few steps to get rid of all that ridiculous clutter
without installing Google Chrome instead.
Giant Context Menus!
Here’s a screenshot of the actual context menu in the browser on my PC, which is clearly
completely out of control—and I don’t even use Internet Explorer on a regular basis.
Clean Out the Messy Context Menu
The first thing you’ll notice is that there’s an ―Accelerators‖ section of the context menu, and if
you don’t use any of them, you can easily get rid of them all. Just head into Tools –> Manage
Add-ons, click on Accelerators on the left-hand menu, and then disable any of the items that you
don’t use.
While you’re in here, you should also click on Toolbars and Extensions and get rid of anything
else that you don’t actually need—it’ll make Internet Explorer run a whole lot faster.

Next you’ll want to open up regedit.exe through the start menu search or run box, and then
browse down to the following key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftInternet ExplorerMenuExt
Once you’re there, right-click on the key and choose Export, and then save out the file
somewhere just in case you need to revert the changes—if you do, you can simply double-click
on the exported file to put everything back.
And now you can start deleting all the items that you don’t use.

You’ll need to restart Internet Explorer once you’re done, but you should notice that the context
menu is much smaller than it used to be.
Much better, though still not great. Hopefully Internet Explorer 9 will make the menu system
simpler.

On the right-hand pane create a new 32-bit DWORD value with the following values:
 Name: NoNetConnectDisconnect
 Value: 1
The change should be immediate, you can right-click on Computer to see the difference. To
remove, just delete the key or set the value to 0.

How to Restore the Real Internet Explorer Desktop Icon in Windows 7
Remember how previous versions of Windows had an Internet Explorer icon on the desktop, and
you could right-click it to quickly access the Internet Options screen? It’s completely gone in
Windows 7, but a geeky hack can bring it back.
Microsoft removed this feature to comply with all those murky legal battles they’ve had, and
their alternate suggestion is to create a standard shortcut to iexplore.exe on the Desktop, but it’s
not the same thing. We’ve got a registry hack to bring it back.
This guest article was written by Ramesh from the WinHelpOnline blog, where he’s got loads of
really geeky registry hacks.
Bring Back the Internet Explorer Namespace Icon in Windows 7 the Easy Way
If you just want the IE icon back, all you need to do is download the
RealInternetExplorerIcon.zip file, extract the contents, and then double-click on the
w7_ie_icon_restore.reg file. That’s all you have to do.
There’s also an undo registry file there if you want to get rid of it.
If you prefer doing things the manual way, or just really want to understand how this hack
works, you can follow through the manual steps below to learn how it was done, but we’ll have
to warn you that it’s a lot of steps.
Launch Regedit.exe using the Start Menu search box, and then navigate to the following location:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT CLSID {871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D}
Right-click on the key on the left-hand pane, choose Export, and save it to a .REG file (say, ie-
guid.reg)

Open up the REG file using Notepad…
From the Edit menu, click Replace, and replace every occurrence of the following GUID string
{871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D}
… with a custom GUID string, such as:
{871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30301D}

Save the REG file and close Notepad, and then double-click on the file to merge the contents to
the registry. Either re-open the registry editor, or use the F5 key to reload everything with the
new changes (this step is important).
Now you can navigate downto the following registry key:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT CLSID {871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30301D} Shellex
ContextMenuHandlers ieframe
Double-click on the (default) key in the right-hand pane and set its data as:
{871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D}
With this done, press F5 on the desktop and you’ll see the Internet Explorer icon that looks like
this:
The icon appears incomplete without the Properties command in right click menu, so keep
reading.
Final Registry Hack Adjustments

Click on the following key, which should still be viewable in your Registry editor window from
the last step.
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTCLSID{871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30301D}
Double-click LocalizedString in the right-hand pane and type the following data to rename the
icon.
Internet Explorer
Select the following key:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTCLSID{871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30301D}shell
Add a subkey and name it as Properties, then select the Properties key, double-click the (default)
value and type the following:
P&roperties
Create a String value named Position, and type the following data
bottom
At this point the window should look something like this:
Under Properties, create a subkey and name it as Command, and then set its (default) value as
follows:
control.exe inetcpl.cpl

Navigate down to the following key, and then delete the value named LegacyDisable
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT CLSID {871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30301D} shell
OpenHomePage
Now head to the this key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE SOFTWARE Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion Explorer
Desktop NameSpace
Create a subkey named {871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30301D} (which is the custom
GUID that we used earlier in this article.)
Press F5 to refresh the Desktop, and here is how the Internet Explorer icon would look like,
finally.
That’s it! It only took 24 steps, but you made it through to the end—of course, you could just
download the registry hack and get the icon back with a double-click.

Display a Text Message During Bootup of Windows 7
Sometimes you might want to leave a text message for a user before they log into a Windows 7
computer. Today we show you a neat trick that allows you to leave a message they can read
before logging in.
Add a Text Message
To add a message, click on Start and enter regedit into the Search box and hit Enter.
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrent
VersionPoliciesSystem and double-click on legalnoticecaption.

In the Value data field enter in the header you want…for instance your company name or the
name of your computer…whatever you want it to be, then click OK.
Then double-click on legalnoticetext …

And in the Value data field enter in the message you want to display and click OK. Close out of
Registry Editor and reboot the computer.
After the machine reboots you’ll see the text message you just created at the Welcome screen.

You can include whatever text message you want to be included for the user to read before they
log in.

This is a neat trick if you have a company or school and want to show a particular message to the
user before they log into the machine.

How can I disable the User Account Control
(UAC) feature on my Windows Vista
computer?
Method #1 - Using MSCONFIG
1. Launch MSCONFIG by from the Run menu.
2. Click on the Tools tab. Scroll down till you find "Disable UAC" . Click on that line.
3. Press the Launch button.
4. A CMD window will open. When the command is done, you can close the window.
5. Close MSCONFIG. You need to reboot the computer for changes to apply.
You can re-enable UAC by selecting the "Enable UAC" line and then clicking on the Launch
button.
*Recommended: Speed up Vista boot times by reducing the number of programs that load at
startup. Control your Vista startup list with this Vista app
Method #2 - Using Regedit
1. Open Registry Editor.
2. In Registry Editor, navigate to the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesS
ystem
3. Locate the following value (DWORD): EnableLUA and give it a value of 0.
Note: As always, before making changes to your registry you should always make sure
you have a valid backup. In cases where you're supposed to delete or modify keys or
values from the registry it is possible to first export that key or value(s) to a .REG file
before performing the changes.
4. Close Registry Editor. You need to reboot the computer for changes to apply.
In order to re-enable UAC just change the above value to 1.
Method #3 - Using Group Policy
This can be done via Local Group Policy or via Active Directory-based GPO, which is much
more suited for large networks where one would like to disable UAC for many computers at
once.
If using Local Group Policy you'll need to open the Group Policy Editor (Start > Run >
gpedit.msc) from your Vista computer.
If using in AD-based GPO, open Group Policy Management Console (Start > Run > gpmc.msc)
from a Vista computer that is a member of the domain. In the GPMC window, browse to the
required GPO that is linked to the OU or domain where the Vista computers are located, then
edit it.

1. In the Group Policy Editor window, browse to Computer Configuration > Windows Settings >
Security Settings > Local Policies > Security Options.
2. In the right pane scroll to find the User Access Control policies (they're down at the bottom of
the window). You need to configure the following policies:
3. You'll need to reboot your computers.

Method #4 - Using Control Panel
1. Open Control Panel.
2. Under User Account and Family settings click on the "Add or remove user account".
3. Click on one of the user accounts, for example you can use the Guest account.
4. Under the user account click on the "Go to the main User Account page" link.

5. Under "Make changes to your user account" click on the "Change security settings" link.
6. In the "Turn on User Account Control (UAC) to make your computer more secure" click to
unselect the "Use User Account Control (UAC) to help protect your computer". Click on the Ok
button.

7. You will be prompted to reboot your computer. Do so when ready.
In order to re-enable UAC just select the above checkbox and reboot.

Disable Group Policy Objects (Windows 2000/XP)
Open your registry and find or create the key below.
Create a new DWORD value, or modify the existing value, called "DisableGPO" and set it
according to the value data below.
Exit your registry; you may need to restart or log out of Windows for the change to take effect.
(Default) REG_SZ (value not set)
DisableGPO REG_DWORD 0x00000001 (1)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwarePoliciesMicrosoftWindowsSyste...
Registry Settings
System Key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwarePoliciesMicrosoftWindowsSystem]
Value Name: DisableGPO
Data Type: REG_DWORD (DWORD Value)
Value Data: (0 = default, 1 = disable group policy)

More Registry Tricks
1. Add OpenWith to all files
2. Backup/Restore the Registry
3. Lockout unwanted Users
4. Customize the System Tray
5. Changing Windows' Icons
6. Change Registered User
7. Change Registered Owner
8. Add/Remove Sound Events
9. Open a DOS Window to a folder
10. Change Exchange/Outlook Mailbox
11. Add Apps to Right Click
12. Add Explore to all Folders
13. Creating a Logon Banner
14. Creating a Default File Opener
15. Changing the Tips of the Day
16. Automatic Screen Refresh
17. Disable Password Caching
18. Removing Items from NEW
19. Recycle Bin Edits
20. Disabling My Computer
21. Changing Desktop Icons
22. Turn Off Window Animation
23. Change/add restriction and features
24. Change Keyboard layout
25. Making Telnets window larger
26. Multiple Columns For the Start Menu
27. Change Default Folder Locations
28. Disabling Drives in My Computer
29. Disable the Outlook Express Splash Screen
30. Change Location of Windows Installation Files
31. Change the caption on the Title Bar for Outlook
32. Change the caption on the Title Bar on I.E.
33. Clearing the Documents Menu Automatically
34. Disabling the Right-Click on the Start Button
35. Opening the Explorer from My Computer
36. Setting the Minimum Password Length
37. AddDelete programs to run on boot up
38. Removing the Shortcut Icon Arrows
39. Changing your Modem's Initialization String
40. Increasing the Modem Timeout
41. Clear Apps from Add/Remove
42. The Fix For Grayed Out Boxes
43. Adding Items to the Start Button

44. Change the MaxMTU for faster Downloads
45. Remove Open, Explore & Find from Start Menu
46. More Protection for system files
47. Delete Registry Keys from Command Line
______________________________________________________________________________
1. Backup / Restore the Registry
To Backup/Restore the Windows Registry: Windows 9x For XP 2000 click here
If you are in MSDOS, at the C:Windows prompt type
Attrib -s -r -h C:WindowsSystem.dat (press Enter)
Attrib -s -r -h C:WindowsUser.dat (press Enter)
To make the backup copies type:
copy C:WindowsSystem.dat C:WindowsSystem.000 (press Enter)
copy C:WindowsUser.dat C:Windowsuser.000 (press Enter)
To Restore the Registry
copy C:WindowsSystem.000 C:WindowsSystem.dat (press Enter)
copy C:WindowsUser.000 C:Windowsuser.dat (press Enter)
Add Open With to all files
You can add "Open With..." to the Right click context menu of all files.This is great for
when you have several programs you want to open the same file types with. I use three
different text editors so I added it to the ".txt" key.
1. Open RegEdit

2. Go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT*Shell
3. Add a new Key named "OpenWith" by right clicking the "Shell" Key and selecting
new
4. Set the (Default) to "Op&en With..."
5. Add a new Key named "Command" by right clicking the "OpenWith" Key and
selecting new
6. Set the (Default) to "C:Windowsrundll32.exe shell32.dll,OpenAs_RunDLL %1", C:
being your Windows drive. You must enter the "OpenAs_RunDLL %1" exactly this way.
Customize the System Tray
You can add your name or anything you like that consists of 8 characters or less. This
will replace the AM or PM next to the system time. But you can corrupt some trial
licenses of software that you may have downloaded.
1. Open RegEdit
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USERControl PanelInternational
3. Add two new String values, "s1159" and "s2359"
4. Right click the new value name and modify. Enter anything you like up to 8
characters.
If you enter two different values when modifying, you can have the system tray display
the two different values in the AM and PM.
Lock Out Unwanted Users

Want to keep people from accessing Windows, even as the default user? If you do not
have a domain do not attempt this.
1. Open RegEdit
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINENetworkLogon
3. Create a dword value "MustBeValidated"
4. Set the value to 1
This forced logon can be bypassed in Safe Mode on Windows 9x
Disable the Outlook Express Splash Screen
You can make OutLook Express load quicker by disabling the splash screen:
1. Open RegEdit
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOutLook Express
3. Add a string value "NoSplash"
4. Set the value data to 1 as a Dword value
Multiple Columns For the Start Menu
To make Windows use multiple Start Menu Columns instead of a single scrolling
column, like Windows 9x had, Also if you are using Classic Mode in XP
1. Open RegEdit

2. Go to the key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE Software Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion
Explorer Advanced
3. Create a string value "StartMenuScrollPrograms"
4. Right click the new string value and select modify
5. Set the value to "FALSE"
Changing Windows' Icons
You can change the Icons Windows uses for folders, the Start Menu, opened and closed
folder in the Explorer, and many more.
1. Open RegEdit
2. Go to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE Software Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion
Explorer Shell Icons
3. Add a string value for each Icon you wish to change.
Example: "3" ="C:WindowsIconsMyIcon.ico,0" This will change the closed folders in
the Explorer to "MyIcon.ico". Here is a complete list for each value. 0= Unknown file
type
1= MSN file types
2= Applications Generic
3= Closed Folder
4= Open Folder
5= 5.25" Drive
6= 3.25" Drive

7= Removable Drive
8= Hard Drive
9= NetWork Drive
10= Network Drive Offline
11= CD-ROM Drive
12= RAM Drive
13= Entire Network 14= Network Hub
15= My Computer
16= Printer
17= Network Neighborhood
18= Network Workgroup
19= Start Menu's Program Folders
20= Start Menu's Documents
21= Start Menu's Setting
22= Start Menu's Find
23= Start Menu's Help
24= Start Menu's Run
25= Start Menu's Suspend
26= Start Menu's PC Undock
27= Start Menu's Shutdown 28= Shared
29= Shortcut Arrow
30= (Unknown Overlay)
31= Recycle Bin Empty

32= Recycle Bin Full
33= Dial-up Network
34= DeskTop
35= Control Panel
36= Start Menu's Programs
37= Printer Folder
38= Fonts Folder
39= Taskbar Icon
40= Audio CD
You need to reboot after making changes. You may need to delete the hidden file
ShellIconCache if after rebooting the desired Icons are not displayed.
Change Default Folder Locations
You can change or delete the Windows mandatory locations of folder like My
Documents:
1. Open RegEdit
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER Software Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion
Explorer Shell Folders
3. Change the desired folder location, My Documents is normally list as "Personal"
4. Open the Explorer and rename or create the folder you wish.

To change the desired location of the Program Files folder
1. Go to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersion
2. Change the value of "ProgramFiles", or "ProgramFilesDir"
Now when you install a new program it will default to the new location you have
selected.
Change the Registered Change the User Information
You can change the Registered Owner or Registered Organization to anything you want
even after Windows is installed.
1) Open RegEdit
2) Got to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE SOFTWARE Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion.
3) Change the value of "RegisteredOrganization" or "RegisteredOwner", to what ever
you want
Add the following Registry Keys for a Directory:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTDirectoryshellopennew
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTDirectoryshellopennewcommand

Add or Edit the following Registry Keys for a Drive:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTDriveshellopennew
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTDriveshellopennewcommand
These will allow you to right click on either the drive or the directory and the option of
starting the dos prompt will pop up.
Changing Exchange/Outlook Mailbox Location
To change the location of your mailbox for Exchange:
1. Open RegEdit
2. Go to
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftware MicrosoftWindows Messaging Subsystem
Profiles
4. Go to the value name that has the file location for your mailbox (*.PST) file
To change the location of your mailbox for Outlook

1. Open RegEdit
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOutlook (or Outlook Express if
Outlook Express)
3. Go to the section "Store Root"
4. Make the change to file location
Add/Remove Sound Events from Control Panel
You can Add and delete sounds events in the Control Panel. In order to do that:
1. Open RegEdit
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USERAppEventsSchemesApps and
HKEY_CURRENT_USERAppEventsSchemesEventlabels. If this key does not exist
you can create it and add events.
3. You can add/delete any items you want to or delete the ones you no longer want.
Here is how to add any application to the Context Menu when you right click on any
Folder. This way you do not have to always go to the Start Menu. When you right click
on any folder, you can have access to that application, the same as using Sent To.
1. Open RegEdit
3. Add a new Key to the "Shell" Key and name it anything you like.

4. Give it a default value that will appear when you right click a folder, i.e. NewKey (use
an "&" without the quotes, in front of any character and it will allow you to use the
keyboard)
5. Click on the Key HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTFoldershellNewKey
6. Add a New Key named Command
7. Set the (Default) value of the application you want to run
8. For example: c:program filesinternet exploreriexplore.exe (Include the full path and
parameters if you need them)
When you want to right click on any folder and want to open up an Explorer window of
that folder.
1. Open RegEdit
3. Add a new Key "RootExplore " under the "Shell" Key
4. Set the (Default) value to "E&xplore From Here "
5. Right Click the "RootExplore " Key and add a new Key "Command"to the
RootExplore
6. Set the (Default) value of Explorer.exe /e,/root,/idlist,%i
Changing the Location of Windows' Installation Files
If you need to change the drive and or path where Windows looks for its installation files:
1.Open RegEdit

2.Go to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWARE Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion
Setup
3.Edit the value next to SourcePath
Creating a Logon Banner
If you want to create a Logon Banner: A message box to appear below your logon on.
1.Open RegEdit
2.Go To
For Windows 9x and ME -
Winlogon
For Windows 2000 XP 2003 Vista -
Winlogon
3.Create a new String value"LegalNoticeCaption "
4. Enter the Title of the window. What is displayed in the Title Bar.
5. Create a new string value "LegalNoticeText"
6. Enter the text for your message box that will appear even before the Logon window.

If you have a un-registered file type and want to view it instead of having to select Open
With. Use Explorer's Right-click and add your program to the right-click options by:
1. Open RegEdit
2. Go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTUnknownShell
3. Right click on "Shell" and create a New Key and name it "Open "
4. Create a New Key under the "Open" key you just created and name it "Command"
5. Set the (Default) value to the path and filename of the program you want to use to
open the file type
6. For example: C:WindowsNOTEPAD.EXE %1
You must use the "%1" for this to work.and a space between the exe and the %1
There are two ways to delete a key from the Registry from the Command line. At the
Windows Command line:
RegEdit /l location of System.dat /R location of User.dat /D Registry key to delete
You cannot be in Windows at the time you use this switch.
Or you can create a reg file as such:
REGEDIT4
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINEthe key you want to delete]

Note the negative sign just behind the[
Then at the Command line type:
1. RegEdit C:Windows(name of the regfile).
Change/Add Restrictions And Features
If you want to make restrictions to what users can do or use on their computer without
having to run Poledit, you can edit the Registry. You can add and delete Windows
features in this Key shown below.
Zero is Off and the value 1 is On. Example: to Save Windows settings add or modify the
value name NoSaveSettings to 0, if set to1 Windows will not save settings. And
NoDeletePrinter set to 1 will prevent the user from deleting a printer.
HKEY_USERS(yourprofilename) Software Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion
Policies Explorer so change it there also if you are using different profiles.
1.Open RegEdit
2.Go to
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoft CurrentVersion Policies
3.Go to the Explorer Key (Additional keys that can be created under Policies are System,
Explorer, Network and WinOldApp )
4.You can then add DWORD or binary values set to 1 in the appropriate keys for ON
and 0 for off.
NoDeletePrinter - Disables Deletion of Printers
NoAddPrinter - Disables Addition of Printers

NoRun - Disables Run Command
NoSetFolders - Removes Folders from Settings on Start Menu
NoSetTaskbar - Removes Taskbar from Settings on Start Menu
NoFind - Removes the Find Command
NoDrives - Hides Drives in My Computers
NoNetHood - Hides the Network Neighborhood
NoDesktop - Hides all icons on the Desktop
NoClose - Disables Shutdown
NoSaveSettings - Don't save settings on exit
DisableRegistryTools - Disable Registry Editing Tools
NoRecentDocsMenu - Hides the Documents shortcut at the Start button
NoRecentDocsHistory- Clears history of Documents
NoFileMenu _ Hides the Files Menu in Explorer
NoActiveDesktop - No Active Desktop
NoActiveDesktopChanges- No changes allowed
NoInternetIcon - No Internet Explorer Icon on the Desktop
NoFavoritesMenu - Hides the Favorites menu
NoChangeStartMenu _ Disables changes to the Start Menu
NoFolderOptions _ Hides the Folder Options in the Explorer
ClearRecentDocsOnExit - Empty the recent Docs folder on reboot
NoLogoff - Hides the Log Off .... in the Start Menu
And here are a few more you can play with

ShowInfoTip
NoTrayContextMenu
NoStartMenuSubFolders
NoWindowsUpdate
NoViewContextMenu
EnforceShellExtensionSecurity
LinkResolveIgnoreLinkInfo
NoDriveTypeAutoRun
NoStartBanner
NoSetActiveDesktop
EditLevel
NoNetConnectDisconnect
RestrictRun - Disables all exe programs except those listed in the RestrictRun subkey
This key has many other available keys, there is one to even hide the taskbar, one to hide
the control panel and more. I'm not telling you how, as someone may want to play a trick
on you. The policies key has a great deal of control over how and what program can run
and how one can access what feature.
In the System key you can enter:
NoDispCPL - Disable Display Control Panel
NoDispBackgroundPage - Hide Background Page
NoDispScrSavPage - Hide Screen Saver Page
NoDispAppearancePage - Hide Appearance Page
NoDispSettingsPage - Hide Settings Page
NoSecCPL - Disable Password Control Panel

NoPwdPage - Hide Password Change Page
NoAdminPage - Hide Remote Administration Page
NoProfilePage - Hide User Profiles Page
NoDevMgrPage - Hide Device Manager Page
NoConfigPage - Hide Hardware Profiles Page
NoFileSysPage - Hide File System Button
NoVirtMemPage - Hide Virtual Memory Button
In the Network key you can enter:
NoNetSetup - Disable the Network Control Panel
NoNetSetupIDPage - Hide Identification Page
NoNetSetupSecurityPage - Hide Access Control Page
NoFileSharingControl - Disable File Sharing Controls
NoPrintSharing - Disable Print Sharing Controls
In the WinOldApp key you can enter:
Disabled - Disable MS-DOS Prompt
NoRealMode - Disables Single-Mode MS-DOS
When you make changes to your file system and use Explorer, the changes are not
usually displayed until you press the F5 key
To refresh automatically:

1. Open RegEdit
2. Go to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESystemCurrentControlSetControlUpdate
3. Set the value name "UpdateMode" to 1
To disable password caching, which allows for the single Network login and eliminates
the secondary Windows logon screen. Either use the same password or:
1. Open RegEdit
2. Go to the key
Policies Network
3. Add a Dword value "DisablePwdCaching" and set the value to 1
Changing the MaxMTU for faster Downloads
There are four Internet settings that can be configured, you can get greater throughput
(faster Internet downloads) by modifying a few settings.
1.Open RegEdit
2.Go to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESystemCurrentControlset Services Class net 000x

(where x is your particular network adapter binding.)
3.Right click on the right panel
4.Select NewString Value and create the value name IPMTU
5.Double click on it and enter then the number you want. The usual change is to 576
6.Similarly, you can add IPMSS and give it a value of 536
(Windows 9X)You can set DefaultRcvWindow, and DefaultTTL by adding these string
values to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE System CurrentControlset Services VXD
MSTCP
Set the DefaultRcvWindow to"5840"and the DefaultTTL to "128"
Note: These settings will slow down your network access speed slightly, but you will
probably not even see the difference if you are using a network card. If you are using
Direct Cable you should see a sight difference.
1.Open RegEdit
2.Go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTDirectoryShell
3.Right-click on Shell and select New Key
4.Type in the name of the key and press the Enter key
5.In the Default name that shows in the right hand panel, you can add a title with a "&"
character in front of the letter for a shortcut
6.Right-click on the key you just created and create another key under it called command
7.For the value of this command, enter the full path and program you want to execute

8.Now when you right click on the Start Button, your new program will be there.
9.For example, if you want Word to be added, you would add that as the first key, the
default in the right panel would be &Word so when you right click on the Start Button,
the W would be the Hot Key on your keyboard. The value of the key would be
C:Program FilesOfficeWinwordWinword.exe
Remove Open, Explore & Find from Start Button
Open shows your Programs folder. Explore starts the Explorer and allows access to all
drives.
Find allows you to search and then run programs. In certain situations you might want to
disable this feature.
To remove them:
1.Open RegEdit
2.Go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTDirectoryShellFind
3.Delete Find
4.Scroll down below Directory to Folder
5.Expand this section under shell
6.Delete Explore and Open
Caution: - When you remove Open, you cannot open any folders.
Removing Items from NEW Context Menu
When you right-click on the desktop and select New, or use the File Menu item in the
Explore and select New a list of default templates you can open up are listed.

1. Open RegEdit
2. Do a Search for the string ShellNew in the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT Hive
3. Delete the ShellNew command key for the items you want to remove.
Changing Telnet Window
You can view more data if you increase the line count of Telnet. By Default it has a
window size of 25 lines. To increase this so you can scroll back and look at a larger
number on lines:
1. Open RegEdit
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftTelnet
3. Modify the value data of "Rows"
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoft Windows CurrentVersion
explorer Tips
1.Open RegEdit
2.Go to

HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftware Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion Policies
Explorer
3.Add a New DWORD item and name it NoDrives
4.Give it a value of 3FFFFFF
5.Now when you click on My Computer, none of your drives will show.
Changing the caption on the Title Bar
Change the Caption on the Title Bar for OutLook Express or the Internet Explorer:
For Outlook Express:
1. Open RegEdit
2. Go to
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOutLook Express
For IE5 and up use:
HKEY_CURRENT_USERIDENTITIES {9DDDACCO-38F2-11D6-93CA-
812B1F3493B} SOFTWARE MICROSOFT OUTLOOK EXPRESS5.0
3. Add a string value "WindowTitle" (no space)
For no splash screen, add a dword value "NoSplash" set to 1
The Key {9DDDACCO-38F2-11D6-93CA-812B1F3493B} can be any key you find
here. Each user has his own Key number.
The Key 5.0 is whatever version of IE you have
For Internet Explorer:

1. Open RegEdit
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftInternet ExplorerMain
3. Add a string value "Window Title" (use a space)
Normally, when you right button click on the Start button, it allows you to open your
programs folder, the Explorer and run Find.
In situations where you don't want to allow users to be able to do this in order to secure
your computer.
1.Open RegEdit
2.Search for Desktop
3.This should bring you to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTDirectory
4.Expand this section
5.Under Shell is Find
6.Delete Find
7.Move down a little in the Registry to Folder
8.Expand this section and remove Explore and Open
Note: - On Microsoft keyboards, this also disables the Window-E (for Explorer) and
Window-F
(for Find) keys.

See the section on Installation in the RESKIT to see how to do this automatically during
an install.
In areas where you are trying to restrict what users can do on the computer, it might be
beneficial to disable the ability to click on My Computer and have access to the drives,
control panel etc.
To disable this:
1.Open RegEdit
2.Search for 20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D
3.This should bring you to the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTCLSID section
4.Delete the entire section.
You might want to export this section to a Registry file before deleting it just in case you
want to enable it again. Or you can rename it to 20D0HideMyComputer4FE0-3AEA-
1069-A2D8-08002B30309D. You can also hide all the Desktop Icons, see Change/Add
restrictions.
By default, when you click on the My Computer icon, you get a display of all your
drives, the Control Panel etc. If you would like to have this open the Explorer:
1. Open RegEdit
2. Go to
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTCLSID {20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}
Shell

3 . Add a new Key named "Open" if it does not exists by right clicking "Shell" and
selecting new.
4. . Add a new Key named "Command" by right clicking "Open" and selecting new
5. Set the (Default) value for the Command Key to "Explorer.exe" or
"C:WindowsExplorer.exe"
Recycle Bin Edits
Fooling with the recycle bin. Why not make the icon context menu act like other icon
context menus.
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTCLSID {645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}
ShellFolder
ShellFolder
ShellFolder
Restore the recycle bin to Windows defaults including un-deleting the icon after
deletion:
Restore the icon.
explorer

DesktopNameSpace{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}
@="Recycle Bin"
Reset Windows defaults.
ShellFolder
ShellFolder
"Attributes"=hex:40,01,02,20 ... a different shortcut arrow
"Attributes"=hex:40,01,04,20 ... and still another shortcut arrow
For Windows XP and 2000 also edit HKEY_CURRENT_USER Software Microsoft
Windows CurrentVersion Explorer CLSID {645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-
00AA002F954E}
For Windows ME also edit HKEY_CURRENT_USER Software Classes CLSID
{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}
1.Open RegEdit
2.Go to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE SOFTWARE Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion
Policies Network

3. Now, choose the Edit/New/Binary value command and call the new value
MinPwdLen. Press Enter twice and Assign it a value equal to your minimum password
length.
Adddelete programs to run every time Windows starts
You can start or stop programs from executing at boot up by adding or deleting them
to/from the run Keys in the Registry. Windows loads programs to start in the following
order; Program listed in the Local Machine hive, then the Current User hive, then
theWin.ini Run= and Load = lines. then finally programs in your Start Up folder.
To add or remove programs in the Registry
1.Open RegEdit
2.Go to the desired Key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows CurrentVersion Run
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows CurrentVersion
RunServices
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows CurrentVersion Run
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows CurrentVersion
RunServices
3. Add a new String Value and name it anything you like
4. For the value data, enter the path and executable for the program you want to run.
By adding the value to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER hive instead allows the program to
start only when that user is logged on.
If you add the value to the RunOnce key the program will run once and be removed from
the key by Windows.

1.Open RegEdit
2.Open the Key HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
3.Open the Key LNKFILE
5.Open the next Key PIFFILE
7.Restart the Windows
You can shut off the animation displayed when you minimize and maximize Windows.
1. Open RegEdit
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USERControl panel Desktop WindowMetrics
3. Create a new string value "MinAnimate".
4. Set the value data of 0 for Off or 1 for On
1.Open RegEdit
2.Go to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESystemCurrentControlSet Services Class Modem 0000
Init
3.Change the settings to the new values
If your modem it is timing out during file transfers or loading Web Pages, you might try
increasing the timeout period. To change the Time Out::
1.Open RegEdit
2.Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESystemCurrentControlSet Services Class
Modem XXXX Settings Where XXXX is the number of your modem
3. In the right panel and double click on Inactivity Timeout
4.The number of minutes for a timeout should be entered between the brackets.
5.For example, a setting could have S19=<10> to set it to 10 minutes.
Removing Programs from Control Panel's Add/Remove Programs Section
If you uninstalled a program by deleting the files, it may still show up in the
Add/Remove programs list in the Control Panel.
In order to remove it from the list.
1.Open RegEdit
2.Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE SOFTWARE Microsoft Windows
CurrentVersion Uninstall
3.Delete any programs here.
If you have a problem locating the desired program open each key and view the
DisplayName value

The Fix for Grayed Out Boxes
The File Types tab in Explorer's View / Options menu lets you edit most of your file
types, but certain settings cannot be changed. The default action for a batch file, for
instance, runs the batch file instead of opening it via Notepad or Wordpad. Thus, when
you double-click on AUTOEXEC.BAT, a DOS window opens, and the file executes. If
you want to change this default action and edit a batch file when you double-click on it,
however, the File Types tab does not let you do so; the Set Default button for the file type
called MS-DOS Batch File is always grayed out.
The button is grayed out because HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT's batfile key contains an
EditFlag value entry. Such entries are used throughout the Registry to prevent novice
users from altering certain system settings. The binary data in batfile's EditFlag reads d0
04 00 00. If you change this value to 00 00 00 00, you can then change any of the batch
file settings. Do not, however, indiscriminately zero out EditFlag; if you do so in a
system ProgID such as Drive or AudioCD, it completely disappears from the File Types
list. For ProgIDs that are linked to extensions, set all EditFlags to 00 00 00 00. For
system ProgIDs, replace EditFlag data with 02 00 00 00.
If you wish to have access to some buttons while leaving others grayed out, you must
know the function of each EditFlag bit. The last two bytes of data are always zero, but
most bits within the first two bytes have a specific effect:
Byte 1, bit 1: Removes the file type from the master list in the File Types tab (select
View / Options under Explorer) if it has an associated extension.
Byte 1, bit 2: Adds the file type to the File Types tab if it does not have an associated
extension.
Byte 1, bit 3: Identifies a type with no associated extension.
Byte 1, bit 4: Grays out the Edit button in the File Types tab.
Byte 1, bit 5: Grays out the Remove button in the File Types tab.
Byte 1, bit 6: Grays out the New button in the Edit File Type dialog (select the Edit
button in the File Types tab).

Byte 1, bit 7: Grays out the Edit button in the Edit File Type dialog.
Byte 1, bit 8: Grays out the Remove button in the Edit File Type dialog.
Byte 2, bit 1: Prevents you from editing a file type's description in the Edit File Type
dialog.
Byte 2, bit 2: Grays out the Change Icon button in the Edit File Type dialog.
Byte 2, bit 3: Grays out the SetDefault button in the Edit File Type dialog.
Byte 2, bit 4: Prevents you from editing an action's description in the Edit Action dialog
(select the Edit button in the Edit File Type dialog).
Byte 2, bit 5: Prevents you from editing the command line in the Edit Action dialog.
Byte 2, bit 6: Prevents you from setting DDE (Dynamic Data Exchange) fields in the Edit
Action dialog.
The EditFlags value for Drive, for instance, is d2 01 00 00 in Hex (1101 0010 0000 0001
in binary). Bits 2, 5, 7, and 8 are on in byte 1, and bit 1 is on in byte 2. The EditFlag for
batfile is d0 04 00 00 in Hex or 1101 0000 0000 0100 in binary. In this case, bits 5, 7, and
8 are on in byte 1, and bit 3 is on in byte 2.
Bits 4, 5, and 6 of byte 2 apply only to actions that are protected. EditFlags with action
keys (such as HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTbatfileshellopen) determine protection. If byte
1, bit 1 of such an EditFlag is 0 (or if there is no EditFlag), then the action is protected. If
byte 1, bit 1 is 1, then the action is unprotected.
Protection on system files
To enable protection on system files such as the KnownDLLs list, add the following
value;
1. Open RegEdit

2. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESystemCurrentControlSet Control SessionManager
3. Create the a Dword value and name it "ProtectionMode "
4. Set the Value to1

Windows Registry Tips & Tricks

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