Windows Registery tweaks

Windows Tweaks

When you install windows or buy a new computer that comes with windows you move the
icons around the desktop and place them where you want them and add and delete programs change the desktop theme and so on.
Why???? Simple you want windows to be the way you want it to be. So why not tweak it and make it the way you want it to be I am going to show you how to customize windows with a few very simple Registry tweaks

Before doing any modifying of the registry you should back it up

Windows 98: Click on Start Run then type Scanreg in the dialog box that comes up and press Enter. When a window tells you that there are no errors, click on yes to back up the registry, and then click on ok. To restore the registry, click on start shutdown then click on restart in MS-DOS mode, and select OK.
At the C:\WINDOWS> prompt, type Scanreg /restore (there is a space before the slash) and press Enter. Select a backup from the list and press Enter again.

Windows 2000: You use Regedit's Export feature to do this click on start then run and type regedit in the dialog box that comes up and at the top click on Registry then select export registry file a new window will come up and you will have to put in a name for the back up I would name it "Registery Backup" then click on the save button and at the top click on the yellow folder that has a arrow pointing up to change where you want to save the backup file I recommend making two copies one on the hard drive and one on a floppy or Cdr/Cdrw CD (if your computer has a rewriteable drive)

Windows Me and XP: Click on Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, System Restore to bring up the System Restore Wizard. To back up the Registry, choose create a restore point
To restore the Registry, follow the steps above and select restore my computer to an earlier time

For those of you who don’t know what the registry is I have put it here.
***The registry contains profiles for each user of the computer and information about system hardware, installed programs, and property settings. Windows continually references this information during its operation.***

To do these changes we use a program called Regedit it comes with windows to access regedit click on the Start button then click on the word Run a dialog box will popup and in that box you type regedit and press enter. A new window will come up this is the Registry editor and one of the first things you will see is these five important keys

1.+Hkey_Classes_Root
2.+Hkey_Current_User
3.+Hkey_Local_Machine
4.+Hkey_Users
5.+Hkey_Current_Config



Change the name of your recycle bin

The key we want is Hkey_Classes_Root
then expand the tree to \CLSID\{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}
or Click on edit then select find and type Recycle bin in the dialog box and it will find the string for you, the string you want to change is the one called Default you will see the name recycle bin in it double click on it and a dialog box will come up In the dialog box type the name you want the recycle bin to be called. Close the registry editor and go to your desktop and press F5 or right click on the desktop and select refresh.


Change that the computer is registered to
First I will explain how to do this in windows 98
Open up regedit and highlight Hkey_Local_Machine
then expand the tree for each of the names select Software\Microsoft\windows\current version then double click registered owner and put what ever name you want in the dialog box close the registry editor then go to your control panel double click system and the name will have been changed to what you had put in.

Windows 2000 and Xp

Open up regedit and highlight
Hkey_Local_machine\software\Microsoft\windows NT\current version double click registered owner and put what ever name you want it to be

To change the name Internet Explorer in your web browser

Open Regedit and select HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main
NOTE: In Windows NT\Xp, the value should be of type REG_SZ instead of String

Click on Edit\New then select string value and a new entry will be in the right hand box at the bottom and it will be highlighted with the
name New Value #1
You should change this to "Window Title" and press enter then the next step is to add the value data this is where you type in what you want to appear at the top of the browser Click on edit then select modify then type in what you want at the top of your web browser to see the changes you will have to close Internet explorer and then reopen it then it should read something similar to this

Antionline – Computer Security – Name you put in

To change or delete what you put in the title bar you can either delete the value name “Window Title” or highlight it and select modify and change the name
To delete it you highlight it, right click and select delete and "Microsoft Internet Explorer" will become the default window title again


Hide all of your desktop icons

This could be used as a April fools prank or it could be used to hide icons that you don't want prying eyes to see.
Open up regedit and select Hkey_current_user
then expand the trees to \software\microsoft\windows\current version\policies\explorer
Now we go to the menu and select Edit - New DWORD value
A new entry will appear and give it the name “No Desktop” with out the quotes
Then double click the no desktop entry and give it a value of 1
Close the registry editor and reboot the computer
To bring the icons back change the value of No desktop to 0


Change your desktop icon spacing

To change the size of your icons on your desktop right click on empty spot on your desktop and select properties. A dialog box will come up with the following tabs Themes - Desktop - Screen Saver - Appearance and Settings the tab we want is Appearance you will see three drop down boxes you want the one in the middle if you are using windows Xp click on the advanced tab and a another drop down box will appear now you want to chose either the horizontal or the vertical to make them closer or farther apart and while you are there you can make them larger or smaller.

Nice tutorial thanks for writing it. now I can change a few things in Microsoft windows that I am tired of seeing like the recycle bin

hehe... if you REALLY start messing with the registry, you can change a TON of stuff.. just be careful and do what DeadAddict warned, BACKUP YOUR REGISTRY FIRST!!

Nice little tutorial.

If you are one who doesn't like messing about in the registry... check out X-teq.
The most popular and most useful reg. tweaks are in this and you can update it to get more tweaks. Just be careful. It will warn you when there is a possibility of messing something up.

It is one of my favorite tweaking tools though. Its def. worth it to check it out. I've been using it for at least 5 years on all of my personal windows desktops.

http://www.xteq.com/
http://www.xteq.com/downloads/#xset

Oh yeath... its free.