Appendix B: Per-User Settings

Overview

Chapter 4, "Hacking the Registry," and Chapter 15, "Working Around IT Problems," described numerous useful registry settings. This appendix continues by describing the most interesting settings in the Microsoft Windows XP registry.

The settings in this appendix are per user; they're in HKCU. The root key HKLM contains similar settings, but the settings in HKCU are more interesting because these are often useful for deployment and customization. Also, many of my favorite IT hacks are in HKCU rather than HKLM because they affect per-user behaviors instead of the overall computer configuration. I'm not able to describe every setting in HKCU, incidentally. Even if I could figure out every setting, documenting them all would require hundreds of pages. Instead, I'm focusing on the most interesting and useful settings in the registry with a dab of just-plain-cool settings thrown into the mix.

The resources that I used to discover these settings vary. Many times I just know what a setting does from experience. Other times, I used Microsoft's Developer Network, Knowledge Base, or resource kits. If I get really desperate to figure out a setting, I'll install the Windows Software Development Kit and then search for the setting in the header files, which yields surprisingly good results.

The headings in this appendix follow the organization of HKCU to make finding information easier. Thus, you'll see top-level headings for HKCU\Control Panel, and so on. This appendix doesn't describe the relationship of HKCU to HKU and the profile hives that the operating system loads, though. For more information about this relationship, see Chapter 1, "Learning the Basics."