July 26, 2003

IF you are a regular PC user, you would have always wanted to have a personal touch in your so called Personal Computer, like having your name on start button, having your picture as an Internet Explorer’s skin, etc. The fact remains that you can edit or customize anything under the Windows platform. This amazing feat can be achieved via “Registry editing.” Today, we will explore what windows registry really is.

The registry is a database used to store settings and options for the 32bit versions of Microsoft Windows including Windows 95, 98, ME and NT/2000. It contains information and settings for all the hardware, software, users, and preferences of the PC. Whenever a user makes changes to the control panel settings, file sssociations, system policies, or installed software, the changes are reflected and stored in the registry.

The physical files that make up the registry are stored differently depending on your version of Windows. Under the Windows 95 and 98 it is contained in two hidden files in your Windows directory, called USER.DAT and SYSTEM.DAT, while for Windows Me there is an additional CLASSES.DAT file. Under Windows NT/2000 the files are contained separately in the %SystemRoot%\System32\Config directory. You cannot edit these files directly; you must use a tool commonly known as a “Registry Editor” to make any changes.

 

Structure

The registry has a hierarchal structure, which is similar to that of Windows Explorer. Each branch of the registry (which is denoted by a folder icon in registry editor) is called a Hive. Hives contain keys. Each key can contain further keys (which are sometimes referred to as sub-keys), as well as values. The actual information in the registry is stored in values. There are three types of values: Binary, String and DWORD. The use of these values depend on the context.

There are six main branches in the registry, each containing a specific portion of information is stored.

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT: This branch contains all of your file association mappings to support drag-and-drop feature, OLE information, Windows shortcuts, and core aspects of the Windows user interface.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER: This branch links to the section of HKEY_USERS appropriate for the user currently logged onto the PC and contains information such as logon names, desktop settings, and Start menu settings.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE: This branch contains computer specific information about the type of hardware, software, and other preferences. This information is used for all users who log onto the computer.

HKEY_USERS: This branch contains individual preferences for each user of the computer. Each user is represented by a SID sub-key located under the main branch.

HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG: This branch links to the section of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE appropriate for the current hardware configuration.

HKEY_DYN_DATA: This branch points to the part of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, for use with the Plug-&-Play features of Windows, this section is dynamic and will change as devices are added and removed from the system.

 

Editing the registry

Usually, windows ships with a utility called ‘REGEDIT.EXE’. You can view, search and edit the data within the registry, with it. To launch regedit.exe, go to Start>Run and type ‘regedit’. This will open Registry Editor for you. Just for the sake of information, you can also launch it from your root folder (usually ‘C:/Windows’ in 95/98/ME versions and ‘C:/WINNT’ in NT/2000) by double clicking on the regedit.exe. The registry editor should look like the neighbouring figure.

NT Users should note that an alternative Registry Editor (REGEDT32.EXE) is also available for use with Windows NT/2000. This includes some additional features not found in the standard version, including; the ability to view and modify security permissions, and being able to create and modify the extended string values.

Once you have started the registry editor successfully, you will notice that, on the left hand side there is a tree with folders, and on the right the contents (or values) of the currently selected folder.

Just like the windows explorer, to expand a certain branch click on the plus sign [+] to the left of any folder, or double-click on the folder. To display the contents of a key (folder), just click the desired key, and look at the values listed on the right hand side. You can add a new key or value by selecting “New” from the Edit menu, or by right-clicking your mouse and choosing the kind of key you want to add. Plus you can always rename any value and almost any key with the same method used to rename files; right-click on an object and click rename, or click on it twice (slowly), or just press F2 on the keyboard. You can delete a key or value by clicking on it, and pressing Delete on the keyboard, or by right-clicking on it, and choosing Delete. Once you have created a new key, you have to put some information into it, just double-click your newly born key (or any of your desired key) and insert your desired value. You can also do the same by right-clicking the key and click ‘Modify’ to change its value. Whenever you make some changes to Registry, you need to refresh the registry before changes takes effect. You can refresh the registry by pressing F5 key. If the changes do not seems to take effect, restart your computer.

Before proceeding further a word of caution: Backup your registry before making any changes to it. It can be intimidating to a new user, and there is always the possibility of changing or deleting a critical setting causing you to have to reinstall the whole of Windows.

 

Playtime

Now it’s time to play with the registry, but before that please backup your registry.

Ban Shutdowns: Launch the regedit.exe and go to the key [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]. Now there look for the key ‘NoCloseKey’, if it’s not there then create it by right clicking in the right pane. Click New>String Value and name it as ‘NoCloseKey’. Make sure you type as given because registry editing is case sensitive. Now double-click it to modify its value and put ‘1’ in the box (without quotation marks). Now this will ban Shut Down in Windows 98 and gives an error message in Windows 95. To enable Shut Down, change the key’s value to 0 or simply delete it.

Pop a message every time Windows starts: You can make windows greet you with a pop up message each time you start windows, or play this trick with your friends for fun! Go to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WinLogon]. Now create a new string value with the name ‘LegalNoticeCaption’ and modify its value to your message caption. Create another string value and name it ‘LegalNoticeText’ and insert your text through the modify option. Now this message will greet or ungreet you every time windows starts or boots.

Screen saver trick: You can activate and deactivate the screen saver whenever you want, by this simple registry edit. Go to [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ScreenSavers].Now add a new string value and name it ‘Mouse Corners’ and in its value put ‘-Y-N’. Now if you place the mouse cursor at the upper right corner of the monitor, the screen saver will become active and if you bring mouse cursor to the bottom left cornet, the screen saver will deactivate.

Hide drives in My Computer: This edit hides drive icons in my computer! Go to [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]. Here create a new DWORD value and name it ‘NoDrives’ and set its value to ‘3FFFFFF’ (a hexadecimal number). Now refresh the registry and go to my computer. Where are all your drive icons?

IE & Explorer skins: How would you feel about having your own picture or your favorite wallpaper as an Internet Explorer skin? if you think that is cool then go to the following key[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\ Internet Explorer\Toolbar]. In the right pane create a new string value and name it ‘BackBitmap’ and modify it’s value to the path of your bitmap image you want to use as Internet Explorer’s Skin. Refresh the registry and launch Internet Explorer, you’ll definitely be impressed by the results.

IE5 hidden features: Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 has several hidden features which can be controlled using the Windows Registry. Open your registry and scroll down to the following key: [HKEY_CURRENT_ USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Restrictions]. Create a new DWORD and modify its value to 1 to enable it and to 0 to disable it. This way you can have the features given below: NoBrowserClose, NoBrowser ContextMenu, NoBrowserOptions NoBrowserSaveAs, NoFavorites, NoFileNew, NoFileOpen, NoFindFile, NoSelectDownload Dir, NoTheaterMode.

Naming the start button: Would you like to change the Start button to say something else, perhaps your name or any other word? Manually changing the Start button requires the use of a binary file editor (Hex editor) and it is therefore not recommended for inexperienced users. As mentioned before you will need to have a hex editor installed, there are many different products available and if you don’t have one already a quick search of a shareware site should provide many choices, for this edit we only require basic features.

1. The file that needs to be changed is Windows Explorer, and it is essential to make a backup before you modify anything. “Explorer.exe” can be found in the Windows directory, usually C:\WINDOWS for Windows 95, 98, Me & XP and C:\WINNT for Windows NT/2000. Make a copy of “Explorer.exe” and place it into another directory( C:\BACKUP might be a good choice).

2. Make another copy of the original “Explorer.exe” and name it “Explorer1.exe”, then open “Explorer1.exe” in your hex editor.

3. You now need to find the word “Start”, although there are many entries for “Start” in the file only one is used for to label of the Start button. Use the search function in the hex editor to find all the strings equal to “S t a r t” which is represented as “53 00 74 00 61 00 72 00 74” in hex values. As there are many different “Start” strings keep searching until you find one located just before this text “There was an internal error and one of the windows you were using has been closed.” Below is a list of offsets to help you locate the correct text.

— Windows 98

Offset: 0x00028D6E - 0x00028D76

— Windows ME

Offset: 0x00033DDE - 0x00033DE6

— Windows XP

Offset: 0x000412B6 - 0x000412BE

The result should look similar to the neighbouring image, depending on the display from your hex editor.

4. Once you have located the string, you can then replace the letters in “Start” with five other characters. You must use exactly five characters, if the word you want to use is lesser in characters, replace the remaining characters with the space key. Alternatively, a three-letter word would look like “A B C” (note the spaces).

5. Now save the modified “Explorer1.exe” in the Windows directory, and confirm that you now have the two Explorer files in the Windows directory, they both should be the same file size but have different modified dates. The next step is different depending on your operating system. The following steps are only for Win 9x systems..

For Windows 95, 98 & ME, exit to DOS (or use a boot disk for Windows ME) and at the command prompt go to the Windows directory and rename “explorer.exe” to “explorer.old”. Then copy the newly modified Explorer “explorer1.exe” to “explorer.exe”. Do a directory listing and confirm that “explorer.exe” has the most recent modified date and time. Restart the computer and Windows should reload along with the new Start button text.

The writer is a young geek

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