My aim in this section is to give you experience, confidence and satisfaction
of making changes to the Windows registry.
There are times when you read about a Windows Server 2003 feature but there is no
icon to implement it. So the only way to test the item is to change a setting in the
registry. Another reason to master registry editing is so that you
can remotely troubleshoot a machine via Regedit.
The executables to hack the registry are Regedit (or Regedt32).
The newer versions of Regedit remember the last place you visited which is extremely useful.
If you have not been to the registry before, go to the START (Button), Run,
regedit, OK.
How Dangerous is Editing the Registry?
People give dire warnings about changing the registry. My view is that
changing settings via the registry is no more hazardous
than say - configuring the monitor refresh rate through the Control Panel. You may hear that if you make a mistake you can cripple your system;
I find that if you type in the wrong key value nothing happens! However I
once saw a 'gung-ho' individual delete a whole section of the registry. This would have been disastrous if
I had not exported the relevant section, so we just imported it and solved the
problem.
Guy
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Before you make any changes to the registry settings, get into the habit of exporting at
the branch of the registry that you are working with.
Backup the system state before you try anything radical in the registry.
Check out the .sav files in the \system32\config folder.
Research Volume Shadow Copy, and test how it restores a previous version of your registry files.
If your computer has a serious problem, which requires pressing F8 at boot-up, remember to try Last Known Good as your first recovery option.
Seek alternative methods; think laterally. Instead of risking making changes with your registry editor, what else could you do? I urge you to consider configuring a Group Policy rather than
tweaking the registry. Occasionally
Vista may provide a new GUI to configure a setting, for
example, instead of launching regedit and changing the value for AutoAdminLogon, you could launch the Control Panel --> Users and un-tick the setting called, 'Users must enter a user name and password.'
Learn how to perform a remote registry edit with: Connect
Network Registry.
As you work through my registry examples, make a point of studying each page's 'Key Learning Points'.
Here below is an example of a registry hack, for more ideas see the side
menu.
Navigate to: HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ Policies\System\DontDisplayLastUserName Set: DontDisplayLastUsername = 1
Tip: In regedit, click on the Edit menu, 'Find':
DontDisplayLastUsername
To see the
effect, try a
Logoff / Logon to the Vista Machine
Double check the logic of 'don't display the last username' (1 = Yes: don't. Whereas, 0 = No: Do)
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HKey\Users\??\ControlPanel\Desktop\WaitToKillAppTimeout default is 20000
milli seconds so try about 5000
As you may guess from the name this sets the timeout on processes that are
hanging. Technically this an interesting hack as you have to set it two or
thee times in the registry - keep pressing F3 (Find next). The reason is
that this setting is found on the Current user, Default user and maybe another
user where you see a SID value.
Learning Points
Particularly with the HKEY_USER registry settings, you have to
make the changes three times; remember F3 to 'Find Next'.
Time values are in milli seconds e.g 1000 = 1
second
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