Registry tweaks can fix problems, boost performance and improve Windows features, and the risks are minimal – as long as you follow our advice. By Nick Odantzis
Published
on 07 May 2008
Beware of registry rip-offs
Is it really worth paying for registry cleaners?
Almost every application you install will add a bunch of new settings to your registry. These aren’t always removed by uninstall programs, though, and so over time your registry will become bloated from long-forgotten software. Some companies claim they can help. Install our registry cleaner, they’ll say, and it’ll remove these remnants, speed up your PC and stop it with crashing. Sounds great, right? But it’s not entirely true. For example, if I install, then remove, Adobe Photoshop, it will leave lots of registry entries behind, but my PC won’t crash. Windows and my applications are unlikely to look at the Photoshop settings, so they’ll have no effect at all. Even if I do find I have problems, a registry cleaner won’t necessarily help. If a registry entry is pointing to the wrong folder, a cleaner won’t fix it. It’s more likely to just delete the entry altogether, so the crashes might continue. I’m not saying registry cleaners are useless, they’re just not the miracle cures some claim. So if you want to try one, don’t pay big money: programs like Eusing Free Registry Cleaner (www.eusing.com) or Wise Cleaner (www.wisecleaner.com) all do an excellent job for free.
WISE UP Don’t pay for a company to clean your registry settings as there are programs that you can download for free
There are many ways to change your settings and your applications within Windows. You might click Edit > Preferences or Tools > Options, right-click on a system tray icon, or just poke around in your Control Panel. But the end result is almost always the same. When you’ve tweaked an option and clicked OK, the new setting will be stored in a central database called the registry.
Normally you don’t have to worry about low-level technical details of individual registry settings. But occasionally they can come in useful. If a program won’t start or can’t be reinstalled, for instance, it could be down to a corrupt registry setting: change it and you might fix the problem. Other applications have useful settings that can only be accessed from the registry, too.
There is a potential down side, though. If you delete the wrong registry setting you could corrupt an application, and even prevent Windows from loading on your next reboot. But then Windows Explorer can be dangerous, too, if you start randomly deleting things from the Windows or Program Files folders. Don’t worry though, as long as you’re cautious and sensible – registry editing actually poses very little risk.
JUST IN CASE Use System Restore to back up Registry settings before you start changing any
Editing the registry
It makes sense to back up the registry before you begin an editing session (see our guide, below). Once you’ve done that, click Start, type regedit in the Search box, and press Enter to launch the Registry Editor. Hit Home to jump to the top of the registry, and you’ll see it’s divided into five sections:
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HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT holds all your file associations.
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HKEY_CURRENT_USER holds personal settings for your applications, Windows desktop configuration and more.
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HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE has detailed system-wide information on installed applications, drivers, services and so on.
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HKEY_USERS holds all of your userprofile files.
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HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG contains your hardware setup.
Each section is divided into folders, and so each individual key (piece of information) is specified in something similar to a hard-drive folder. The registered user and company name you entered when installing Windows, for example, are stored at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion. If you want to change this, expand the tree by clicking the arrow to the left of each registry key name until you get to the right folder. Look for the keys RegisteredOwner and RegisteredOrganization on the right-hand side; to change one, double-click it and enter a new value.
See Also
It looks familiar, it feels familiar, but if you're still using Windows Vista in the same way you used Windows XP, you're missing out. Make the most of it by discovering its hidden features.
Use these tips and your Windows Vista experience will be more rewarding and safer as a result.
Recent items
The best registry tweaks are quick and simple but surprisingly useful. Do you wish the Recent Items menu held more than 15 documents, for example? Then launch REGEDIT again, and browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Microsoft > Windows > CurrentVersion > Policies > Explorer (the full path, ending in Explorer, should be displayed in the status bar at the bottom of the window). Click Edit > New > DWORD (32-bit) Value to create a new registry key, and call it MaxRecentDocs. Double-click the key, select Decimal, and enter 25 as the new value. Click OK, close REGEDIT and reboot. Continue to use your PC, and you should now find the Recent Items list will hold more documents, saving you the time and hassle of having to always track them down manually.
Sometimes you might even want to delete a registry key. For instance, does the Add and Remove Programs applet still list a program you uninstalled long ago? Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\
CurrentVersion\Uninstall and find the folder representing that application. If you’re really sure you don’t need it any more, right-click that folder and select Delete. But if you can’t quite decide, then leave it for now. There’s no Undo if you change your mind later, so never delete any registry key unless you’re confident that it’s entirely safe to do so.
Now all you need are some more registry tweaks to try out, and the best place to start is the How-To Geek web site (www.howtogeek.com/tag/windows-vista). It’s well documented, easy to use, and packed with tweaks to speed up your system, customise your desktop and improve security.
Give Internet Explorer a speed boost
Launch Registry Editor to get things moving
SPEED LIMIT You’ve discovered a web site that’s crammed with files you need, yet Internet Explorer only lets you download two at a time. Why? It’s a default setting, but not one you’ll find in the Tools > Options dialogue box. You can only change it through the Registry Editor.
MAKE A BACKUP Your PC is unlikely to be harmed by our registry tweak, but it’s still wise to back up the registry first, and the easiest way to do that is through System Restore. To produce a backup, Click Start, right-click Computer and select Properties > System Protection > Create.
REGISTRY EDITOR Click Start, type regedit in the Search box and press Enter to launch the Registry Editor. Press Home, then + and the right arrow, click the arrow to the left of HKEY_CURRENT_USER to expand the tree, and work down to Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion.
TWEAK AWAY Click Internet Settings in the left pane, then click Edit > New DWORD Value and call it MaxConnectionsPerServer. Double-click the value, set it to 8 and click OK. Create a DWORD Value called MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server, set that to 8, close the editor, reboot and enjoy simultaneous downloads.
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