Chapter 5: Mapping Tweak UI

Chapter 5

Mapping Tweak UI

Microsoft Tweak UI is a must-have tool for anyone customizing Microsoft Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 (Windows). It allows users to customize settings that wouldn't be available in the operating system's user interface without editing the registry. Tweak UI started as a grassroots utility built by a handful of rebellious programmers and ended up one of the most popular downloads on the Internet. Microsoft has released versions of this tool for every version of Windows since Windows 95. Microsoft even included it on the Windows 98 CD. And now it's available for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, and it includes even more customizations.

You can download Tweak UI from http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx. (Microsoft split apart the original Microsoft PowerToys programs–utilities for enhancing Windows.) The file you download is called Tweak-UiPowertoySetup.exe. Run this program to install Tweak UI on your computer. To run Tweak UI, click Start, All Programs, Powertoys for Windows XP, and then click Tweak UI. In the left pane, click a category, and then in the right pane, edit the settings you want to change. The program is mostly self-explanatory; you see a description of each setting at the bottom of the window. Pay attention to the bottom part of the window. It tells you whether the settings in that category are per-user or per-machine. In order for them to take effect, per-user settings sometimes require that you log off and back on to Windows. Per-machine settings affect every user who logs on to the computer.

This chapter isn't about using Tweak UI–that's too easy. Instead, I'll tell you where in the registry Tweak UI changes each setting. Information like this is powerful. You can script Tweak UI customizations. For example, power users can write a script for applying their favorite Tweak UI settings and then, simply by running the script, can apply all those settings to every computer that they use. The process is streamlined–compare one double-click with dozens of clicks and edits–and it helps with consistency too. IT professionals can write a script for deploying useful settings to users or can include those settings in default user profiles for new users. (See Chapter 12, “Deploying User Profiles.”) Scripting these settings is amazingly easy, and you learn how to do that in Chapter 11, “Scripting Registry Changes.”

The sections in this chapter correspond to the major categories in Tweak UI. (I skipped the About, Access Control, and Repair categories because they have little to do with the registry. You should look at all three, though. The About category contains useful tips for using Windows. The Access Control category can configure various ACLs. The Repair category can fix a variety of small problems, including those affecting icons, fonts, and folders.) Each section in this chapter contains a brief description of the settings in that category and how to change them in the registry. In most cases, each section contains a table that describes each setting's value name, value type, and value data. Each table contains subheadings that show the key for the values following it.