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Windows Registry Tips **WARNING*** THIS PAGE IS FOR ADVANCED WINDOWS USERS ONLY!! If you have NO experience whatsoever with the Registry, I highly recommend you buy this inexpensive e-book that will have you tweaking the registry to your heart's content in no time!!
For more advanced Registry Tweaks, see Vic Ferri's column in my ABC Newsletter. or subscribe to his Registry Answers Newsletter. Scan your registry to check for errors here. Read my review of Registry Booster here. HOW AND WHY TO BACKUP YOUR REGISTRY BEFORE YOU MESS WITH IT: Because your Registry controls just about everything Windows needs to know to manage your computer, making changes to it can sometimes cause Windows to malfunction. Therefore, whenever you see instructions for editing your Registry, you will usually see warnings to BACKUP YOUR REGISTRY FIRST. If you don't know how to do that, read Vic Ferri's detailed instructions here. Or, easier yet, try Uniblue's free Registry Scan, which will backup your whole registry for you. OK, if you've gotten this far and feel confident you can backup your registry and restore it to its original state without problems, it's time to start learning how to tweak it. ***Linda is NOT liable for anything you do from here on***
Notice how your Start Menu adds new items to the end of the list and you have to constantly re-alphabetize them by right clicking and choosing "Sort by Name"? Well, here's how to tell Windows to always alphabetize them. Navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows \CurrentVersion\Explorer\MenuOrder\StartMenu Click the Menu folder, then right-click Order in the right pane and select Delete from the pop-up menu. You can do the same for your Favorites, located in the same MenuOrder folder. After you close Regedit and reboot your system, the Windows Start menus will always appear in alphabetical order.
If you are the only one using your computer and you don't want this cluttering up your start menu, you can remove it by navigating to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ Current Version\Policies\Explorer. Right-click in the white area of the right window and select New, DWORD Value. Name this value NoLogOff and press Enter. Then double-click this entry and enter 1 under Value. Exit RegEdit and restart Windows. Log Off User will be gone.
If you have uninstalled a program but it remains on the list in Add/Remove Programs, you can manually remove it by navigating to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\ Windows\ Current Version\Uninstall. You'll see a list of all the programs available in your Add/Remove Programs Control Panel. You can simply select an entry from the list on the left, press the Delete key, and confirm to remove it. Close the Registry Editor and restart Windows; the item will be gone from your Add/Remove Programs list.
If you have forgotten the password you created for the Content Advisor and want to disable it so you can get into the Content Advisor again, navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\ Windows\ Current Version\Policies Click Ratings, look to right, Click line below Default, press delete, enter. Leave default line only in right pane. Close registry editor. Next click start, find, files and folders, type "ratings.pol" (without the quotes) in top line, C: in bottom, find now. When this file is found, delete it. This will remove password set, and leave content advisor fully operable. Next time, choose a password you can remember.
Let's say you inherit a computer from someone else and it has their name and/or organization listed as the licensed owner in Windows and now, it's yours, so you want to change this. Navigate your way to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\ Windows\ Current Version. (navigate by doubleclicking each of these.) In the right pane, you'll see RegisteredOrganization and RegisteredOwner in the Name column. Right-click the one you want to change, select Modify, and on the Value Data line of the resulting dialog box, type the correct information. Click OK, repeat these steps for the other value, if desired, and close the Registry Editor.
Did you download a free ISP and now IE's title bar says "Internet Explorer Provided by <blah blah blah>"? Wanna get rid of it? Navigate to:
(by clicking once on the plus signs beside each of these). Once you get to Internet Explorer, doubleclick on "Main" to expand its contents in the right pane....now scroll down til you see "Window Title" and you will see it says "Internet Explorer provided by <blah blah blah>". Double click on the words "Window Title" and a box will come up where you can change the title to anything you like.....get creative! Why stick with Internet Explorer? Name it something like "My Personal Browser" or anything you want. Close the Registry Editor ***A visitor to my site sent me an email telling me that she couldn't do this in Windows XP because "Window Title" isn't there...and she's right. XP doesn't put the value there by default, but you can add it. Here's what you do. Navigate in your registry to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main. Double click on the Main folder so you see its contents on the right. Right click in a blank white space on the right and choose New>String Value. Name it Window Title (you must name it EXACTLY that) and hit Enter. Double click on Window Title and a box comes up...in the Value box, type whatever you want IE's title bar to say. Open Internet Explorer and there you are :-).
This one is similar to the above one referring to IE but it's in a different location in the registry. Navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Identities\{looooooong, long number}\Software\Microsoft\Outlook Express\5.0 (or whatever version you have) .....in here, look for Window Title in the right pane and you will see "Outlook Express provided by <blah blah blah>"......that's where you change it. If you have Windows XP, you won't see "Window Title", but you can add it. See instructions above for changing the title bar in Internet Explorer.
Did you delete stationery and it still shows up in the list in the Format Menu? Get rid of it by navigating to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Identities\{long number inside these brackets...if you have more than one identity, you will have to check each one}\Software\Microsoft\Outlook Express\5.0 (or whatever version you have). Want to meet one of the best Registry Tweakers I know? Subscribe to Registry Answers and meet Vic....this man knows his way around the registry very well and can make Windows do most anything...here's a sample of his style: "This one tells any programs that hang when windows is shutting down to automatically shutdown! Very simple - go to this key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ Control Panel\ Desktop and create a new string value named: AutoEndTasks Double click it and give it a value of 1 And that's it." want more info on the registry? try these: Bob Cerelli's "Working With the Registry"
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