Chapter 4: Hacking the Registry

Chapter 4

Hacking the Registry

This chapter covers hacking the registry to make Microsoft Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 (both referred to throughout as Windows) look and feel the way that you want them to. Rather than showing you how Windows organizes the registry, which is covered in Part IV, “Appendixes,” 'll show you the hacks that immediately change the way you use Windows. To make these customizations easier, 've included scripts for many of them. Download these and new scripts at http://www.honeycutt.com.

I use the term hack loosely. These aren't security hacks or hacks that give you more features than you're supposed to have. By no means am I helping you hack product activation. Rather, these are hacks that help you customize the operating system in ways that you can't do through its user interface. For example, this chapter helps you customize the shortcut menus and the icons you see in the user interface and change how Windows works. It even describes how you can log on to Windows automatically, bypassing the Log On To Windows dialog box. You can find some of these hacks on various Web sites and FAQs, but hopefully, 'm giving you many new ones that you won't find anywhere else.

These hacks are for power users. If you're looking for customizations aimed at IT professionals, see Chapter 18, “Fixing Common IT Problems,” which has customizations that help IT professionals deploy Windows and solve particular IT problems. Though the chapter you're reading now is aimed at end users, IT professionals might also find that its customizations are a good fit for their enterprise users, and professionals can deploy those customizations in a variety of ways, including for default user profiles, policies, and scripts. For example, IT professionals frequently ask me how to simulate IntelliMirror features, like Folder Redirection, without using policies, and the first hack in this chapter shows you how to do exactly that.