reating icons
The icon of a bitmap file can be set as the file image itself. To effect this setting, navigate to the key HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT/Paint. Picture/ Defaultlcon and set the value of ‘Default entry’ to ‘%1’. Also navigate to the key HKEY_CLASSES_ROOV.bmp and set ‘Default entry’ to ‘PAINT.PICTURE’. The flip side of this tweak is that folders with a lot of bitmap files might take longer to load. In such cases, try increasing the icon cache to make the folders load faster. The icon / cache can be increased using the ‘MaxCachedlcons’ entry (type string) in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer key. Increase the value of this entry to increase the icon cache; use any value between 100 and 4,096.
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Start Menu scrolling
When your Start menu overflows, it isn’t possible to list all the entries in a single column. Then, Windows either creates a second column or a scrolling menu. You can control this through the registry. Navigate to the HKEY_CURRENT_ USER\Software\Microsoft\ Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced, and select the entry called ‘StartMenu ScrollPrograms’. If it’s not present, create a new String value called ‘StartMenuScroll-Programs’. Specify the ……value as ‘Yes’ if you want the Start menu to scroll, and ‘No’ if you need the Start menu as multiple columns.
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IE Title bar text
Internet Explorer installations distributed by companies other than Microsoft might have their names in the title bar. If you want to change this, navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\lnternet Explorer\Main, and edit or create a string value entry called ‘Window Title’. Double-click the entry and enter any string you want. Leave it blank if you want to remove the default string. You’ll need to restart Internet Explorer for the change to take effect.
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Size of desktop icons
Using the Control Panel display settings, icons in Windows can be displayed in only two different sizes. Tweaking the registry allows you to have any size for icons. Go to HKEY_CUR-RENT_USER\Control Panel\Desk-top\WindowMetrics, and create or modify the string value ‘Shell Icon Size’. Give the value of your desired icon size, in pixels.
Extracting the product key
The Windows product key is sometimes forgotten or misplaced after the Windows installation. This serves as a blockade during the inevitable Windows reinstall. In case of Windows 95, the product key can be obtained from the system properties window (Windows key + [Pause\ Break]). For Windows 98, it’s possible to extract the key from the registry. Select the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ Software\Microsoft\Windows\ CurrentVersion key, and in the right pane, the value of the entry ProductKey will give the product key of the current Windows installation.
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Logon message
To create a personalised logon message in XP, go to HKEY_ LOCAL_ MACHINE\ SOFT-WARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\ CurrentVersion\Winlogon . In the right pane, double-click the string entry ‘Legal-NoticeCaption’, enter the string ‘My Windows XP Machine’ and title bar click OK. Next, doubleclick the ‘LegalNotice Text’ string entry, and enter the message to be displayed.
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Screensaver grace period
If you’ve set a screen saver password in Windows 2000 or XP, and the screen saver activates, there is a grace period before which Windows doesn’t prompt for a password when you press a key or move the mouse. For security reasons, it is advised that you remove this grace period. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft \WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon, create a string entry named ‘ScreenSaver-GracePeriod’ and give it a value of ‘0’. If the key exists, modify its value to ‘0’, or else create a DWORD entry, with the above details
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Display Administrator in logon screen
Like the root user in Linux, Windows XP has a default user called ‘Administrator’. This user is not displayed in the logon screen where all the users in the system are displayed. To view this account, go to “HKEY_ LOCAL_MACHINE \Software\Microsoft\Windows-NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\ SpecialAccounts\UserList”. If the binary Administrator key does not exist, create it. Assign its value to ‘1’ to see the Administrator, or ‘0’ to hide it.
Change the welcome screen
Windows XP displays three different screens during boot-up. The second screen is the one that says “Welcome”. To change this, navigate to HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop. Under this key, you will find an entry named ‘Wallpaper’; double-click it and enter the path of the image file you want displayed. The file can be a BMP or JPEG image. If you want to tile the image, set the value of the ‘TileWallPaper’ entry to 1. If you want to stretch the wallpaper, set the value of the ‘WallPaper-Style’ entry to 2.
Colour of encrypted and compressed files
Windows XP displays encrypted and compressed files and folders in a different colour. To change the default colour, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer. Under this key, create a binary entry named ‘AltEncryptionColor’. Set its value as the RGB ratio of the desired colour for encrypted files; the format is RR GG BB 00. The last two digits are always ‘00’. Similarly, to change the colour of com-pressed files and folders, create or modify a binary entry named ‘AltColor’. Specify its value as mentioned above. For this tweak to work, the ‘Show encrypted and compressed folders in color’ must be enabled via the folder options window.
Detailed information in the device manager
When this tweak is applied, the device manger in Windows 2000 and XP will show an extra tab called ‘Details’. Selecting this tab will provide additional information about the device. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_ MACHINE\SYSTEM\Current-ControlSet\Control\Session-Manager\Environment. Here, you’ll find a string entry with the name ‘DEVM-GR_SHOW_DETAILS’; if there isn’t one, create it. Assign this entry a value of ‘1’ if you want the system to display the details tab; to hide the tab, assign it a value of ‘0’.
Prevent access to specified drives
Use this tweak to prevent access to drives to certain users. Remember, once this is applied, the prohibited user can’t access the drive by any means. Log into Windows using the user account that you want to restrict access to, open the registry editor and go to HKEY_CUR-RENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Cur-rentVersion\Policies\Explorer. Create a DWORD value with the name ‘NoViewOn-Drive’. Double click this entry and in the dialog box that appears, select the radio button named ‘Decimal’. In the value data field you need to enter a number that depends on the drive that needs to be hidden. Use the formula ‘2 n-1 ’, where n is 1 for your A drive, 2 for B drive, and so on until 26 for drive Z. If you need to hide more than one drive, add the respective drive numbers and enter it into the value data field. For example, to hide drive C you need to enter 4 (2 3-1 ); to hide drives D and E you need to enter 24 (2 4-1 +2 5-1 ). To apply the change to all users in the system, follow the same method, but use the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ Software\Microsoft\Win-dows\CurrentVersion\Policies\ Explorer instead. To remove all restrictions, just delete the entry.
Know your real writing speed in Nero
While writing a CD using Nero 5.5, only the average speed is displayed in the burn status dialog box. To force Nero to display the actual writing speed, navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_ USER\Software\ahead\ Nero-BurningRom\Recorder. Under this, open the DWORD entry ‘ShowSingleRecorderSpeed’ (create one if it doesn’t exist). Change the value of this entry to ‘1’ to display the actual writing speed, and ‘0’ to display the average writing speed.
Other Guides of this series
Techbulb’s Registry Guide 2 : MS Office Register Tweaks
Techbulb’s Registry Guide 3: Enhance the Performance
