ABC ~ All 'Bout Computers, Vol 4: Vic's Assorted Windows Registry tips

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WARNING! Altering your Registry can have devastating effects. If you do not know how to backup your registry, go here. If you do not know ANYTHING about the Registry, go here. There is also another page of registry tips here.

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Here are some of the command line options, along with examples for each, that can be used with regedit.exe in native DOS or in a batch file. Note that some of these options may not apply to all Windows operating systems.

/s
Using this option(as in the example above) imports the reg file without any confirmation. It hides the dialog box stating that your file has been successfuly imported into the registry.

/e
This option is used to export the registry or part of it to a file.
example: regedit.exe /e myfile.reg HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE

Note that it doesn't have to be a reg file you export to - it can be a text or document file, as well.

/L:system /R:user
This is to specify the location of the system.dat and user.dat files to use

Example:
regedit /l:c:\windows\system.dat /r:c:\windows\user.dat /e c:\windows\newreg.reg
This would be used in native dos to export the entire contents of system.dat and user.dat to newreg.dat

Example:
regedit /l:c:\windows\system.dat /r:c:\windows\user.dat /c c:\windows\newreg.reg

This would create a new registry from the contents of "c:\windows\newreg.reg"and is normally used in conjunction with the previous example. Note - your current system.dat and user.dat are destroyed during this process. New dat files are built from the contents of newreg.reg

regedit /l:c:\windows\system.dat /r:c:\windows\user.dat /d HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\McAfee

If you're using Windows 98, you can easily remove it by using TweakUI on the 98 cd. Click the IE4 tab and just put a checkmark next to "Show Favorites on Start Menu". Other tweak utilities give that option as well.

But, as I often say, tweak utilities don't teach you anything, so here's how you can do it yourself.

1.Click Start>Run and type in regedit and click OK.

2.Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies \ Explorer

3. On the right hand pane for Explorer, right click an empty area,choose New > DWORD Value and name it
NoFavoritesMenu

4.Double-click your new dword value and enter 1 as the value.

5.Exit the registry and reboot.

And that's it. No more Favorites folder in the Start Menu.
If you ever want it back, just change the value of 1 to 0.

Outlook 2000\2002 Allowing Attachments

With Outlook 2000(Service Pack 2) or the new Outlook 2002(that comes with Office XP) the Outlook Security Patch to block "unsafe" file types is built right in. What this means is that you can't open or save any attachments with extensions like exe, vb, vbs, com, bat, hlp, shs, scr, and many more. You also cannot forward any attachments with those extensions.

So what do you do if you want to send or receive a safe exe, screensaver, help file, etc?
With the patch self installed on Outlook 98 and 2000, there was no way for the user to customize these settings.

But with Outlook 2002 that has changed.
You can control which files to block and which to allow, by editing the registry.

Here's how:

1. Click Start>Run and type in regedit.

2. Go to this key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office
\10.0\Outlook\Security

3. On the right hand side for the Security key, create a new String value and name it "Level1Remove"(without the quotes)

4. Double click your new string value and begin entering the file extensions you wish to unblock, separating each with a semi-colon. Example:

scr;hlp;exe;

5. Exit the registry and to confirm you did it right, click Help>About>Microsoft Outlook. You should now see Security Mode: User Controlled stated.

And that's it - you will now be able to open those files BUT you have to save them to your hard drive first - the same as in the old Outlook 2000 SR1 with the Attachment Security patch installed

And here's some better news - the whole process has been automated byMicrosoft Outlook MVP Ken Slovak who created this file that will add an Attachment Security Options page to Outlook 2002 only. You would access it by clicking Tools>Options.

Also, another tip - if you need to send a desiginated "unsafe"attachment to someone you know has Outlook with the attachment patch installed, just rename it before sending. For example, say you want to send a screensaver(.scr). Simply rename it with .txt extension and then tell your recepient to rename it back to .scr after saving it to disk. Or you can just zip any file,
Zip files are not blocked, as far as I know.

Details View Fix

A common minor complaint in Windows is that Details View in Explorer doesn't display the file attributes of your files.

If this applies to you and you would like to have Details View show file attributes, you can fix this problem with a simple reg edit.

Launch regedit by clicking Start>Run and typing in regedit.

Go to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\
Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced

In the right hand pane for the Advanced key, right click a blank area and choose New>DWORD value and name it "ShowAttribCol"(without the quotes)

Double click your new value and enter a data value of 1 And that's it. Exit the registry, press F5 to refresh, and then see if the Details view now display file attributes. If not, reboot your computer to make the change come into effect.

Extensions - Forcing a Never Show

Windows uses a special flag to make sure that file extensions they really don't want you to see aren't displayed, even when you have your options set to show all extensions. They do this by adding a REG_SZ value to the root of the file extension. This example is straight from the registry, showing the flag cloaking SHS - Shell Scraps - extensions:

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.shs]
"@"="ShellScrap"
[ HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ShellScrap]
"NeverShowExt"=""

The "NeverShowExt" will cloak the extension type - no matter what

NoBrowserClose : Disable the option of closing Internet Explorer.
NoBrowserContextMenu : Disable right-click context menu.
NoBrowserOptions : Disable the Tools / Internet Options menu.
NoBrowserSaveAs : Disable the ability to Save As.
NoFavorites : Disable the Favorites.
NoFileNew : Disable the File / New command.
NoFileOpen : Disable the File / Open command.
NoFindFiles : Disable the Find Files command.
NoSelectDownloadDir : Disable the option of selecting a download directory.
NoTheaterMode : Disable the Full Screen view option.

Launch regedit and go to the following key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Restrictions

If for whatever reason you want or need to hide the drives shown in My Computer, here's how to do it. This will disable the display of both local and networked drives in My Computer.

Click Start>Run, type in regedit and click Ok, to launch the registry. Go to this key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows \CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
In the right pane for the Explorer key, create a new DWORD value by right clicking in a blank area and choosing New>Dword Value. Name it NoDrives. Now double click it and enter a Hexadecimal data value of 3FFFFFF And that's it. Exit the registry and press F5 to refresh. Open up My Computer - all your drives should now be invisible. To enable their display again,Computer, simply delete the DWORD value OR change it to 0.

You can automate the hiding and display of drives with two simple reg files as follows: To hide drives: REGEDIT4 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows \CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
"NoDrives"=dword:03ffffff
To show drives: REGEDIT4 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ CurrentVersion \Policies\Explorer]
"NoDrives"=dword:00000000

With DVD,s even a 450 mhz processor is considered on the slow side for playing DVD's smoothly without dropped frames, from your DVDROM drive. With that in mind, here's a reg hack that should greatly help boost performance of your DVD's.

Launch Regedit and go to this key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\ Control\FileSystem\CDFS. In the right hand pane you should notice the following three values with the corresponding default data values:

CacheSize = 0x0000026b (619)
Prefetch = 0x000000e4 (228)
PrefetchTail = 0x00000080 (128)

Double click each one of the above values and edit the data so it reads as follows.

CacheSize = 0x00000800 (2048)
Prefetch = 0x00000800 (2048)
PrefetchTail = 0x00000200 (512)

Reboot, and then try playing a DVD. Note - it's assumed you know how to enter the above values.

Assorted Windows Registry Tips