Chapter 14: Third-Party Registry Utilities

Overview

Shall I refuse my dinner because I do not fully understand the process of digestion?

--Oliver Heaviside

Each new Microsoft operating-system version, including Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, provides a number of new configuration or administrative utilities. Each of these tools offers new and more convenient methods of editing the registry than those offered by the built-in registry editors (Regedt32.exe or Regedit.exe). Despite this fact, some of the registry tricks (including those discussed in the previous chapter) cannot be performed without editing the registry directly. Microsoft develops more and more advanced methods of registry editing, and most of these are in the form of Control Panel applets for new administrative utilities and wizards. But Microsoft is not alone. Third-party developers have also been active in this sphere.

If you are an experienced Internet user, you can find a large number of useful and handy freeware utilities to help you maintain and troubleshoot your registry.

In this chapter, we will examine a small list of registry utilities that run on Windows NT/2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003 that are generally the most helpful.