and welcome to another episode of ES Repair. I am your host, Mr. Fix-It. In this video, I'm going to discuss the Windows Registry and show you around and how to make a copy of the registry.
I'm going to show you the different aspects of the registry and how to maneuver. And I'm going to show you how to find keys to change settings and stuff. Now, to get started, go down here and click your start.
What you'll need is the run command, which should be down here in the bottom right hand corner. Now, if you do not see it, as you do here, what you need to do is right click the task bar, choose properties. You'll need to go to Start Menu and then choose Customize Now, you'll come down with this list. Windows XP and Windows Vista works the same principles, except the dialogs are a little bit different.
What you need to do is scroll down to Run Command, and then click on it, and it'll bring a checkmark next to it. This signifies that it's turned on now. Choose OK at the bottom, choose Apply, and then choose OK again. Now when you click on the start menu again, you should now see your run command.
Click on it. and it will bring you to the Run Command dialog type in regedit, one word, R-E-G-E-D-I-T and then press enter, or press ok, or click ok now you'll come up with a user account control, choose yes and now we have the registry and we'll see what happens Now, when you come up to the registry program, this is the registry editor. If you look over here to the top left-hand corner, you'll see where it says computer, where my mouse is. If that's all you see, you'll see this little arrow next to it.
click on that and it will bring out the sub keys. Now what you see here is all the connections or all the configurations dealing with your computer, ranging from program behavior, user account profiles, hardware configurations, everything is in here. And keep in mind, this is the heart of Windows.
The slightest mistake of changing something in here can render Windows useless. So, you must be careful. Now, you have...
And these are known as hives in a heresy. These are in the top of the heresy. You have classes root, you have current user, local machine, users, and current configuration or current config. These are the top of the heresy of the hives. Now let me explain what you're looking at.
Now the top one here, which is the very first one. This is the class's root. Now, here you... All this does is if you open it by double clicking This contains all kinds of information Now believe it or not the registry can contain as many as 10,000 keys and settings or more That's a lot! Now this is an improvement from the autoexec batch files and the config.sys files and initialization files and all that stuff back before Windows XP.
well this simplifies it for this section here for classes route this is where you find all the file types, your file name extensions uh... your OLE objects which is the object linking and embedding features uh... your class definitions this right here pretty much tells how windows to handle printing and your opening files this even has uh...
of settings for context menus and stuff. For instance, if you right click on a background or something, you'll see a little menu pop up. Well, this is context menus. Now next you have your current user.
This contains all the information, profiles, printers, software, everything to the current user who is logged in. This has everything from desktop settings, your appearances, how Windows looks and appears, all your network connections, your printers, personal preferences, even your security rights. are listed in here.
And when you look through my videos for improving Vista and XP's performance, you'll see a lot some of the configurations that we change is under here. Now, let me close this one out. Your local machine, now as you can see here, it contains all your hardware, your security, software, even system. Now, this contains all the information about the computer itself and the operating system.
Now, it includes your hardware setup, all the software that you have installed, security, your start up, Startup features and all the programs that are going to be starting up when Windows starts. Your drivers, all your drivers are listed in here. What it does is it shows the drivers locations and configurations to operate certain hardware. You also find services in here such as wireless zero configurations and remote assistance and all kinds of other services. And those firewalls.
there. And this is all the stuff you'll find under the local machine. So when you're going under one of these hives to make a change, the top hive will give you an idea what kind of stuff you're going to be changing.
Next you have the users. All this is is a storage database basically. This stores information for each user account on the operating system. If you have one or two or three or four, however many accounts you have on the operating system.
This stores each account's profile, which is basically the same thing as the current user hive was. Except this just stores the information. So when you come up to the welcome screen, you click on your account, you log in.
The operating system... system comes to this hive, looks up your account information, and then loads it to the current user hive. And then this is what you see as you log in.
Now finally we have the current configuration. Now again, this contains all the current hardware configuration. And this is based upon who is logged in.
and how to they have their account set up. Well these are the top five hives in the heresy for the Windows registry. This is where they're all grouped. Now they can contain thousands of keys. contains sub keys and then so on and so on and The registry, you know, this ain't for the faint-hearted The slightest error can screw up windows and make it useless Now before you do anything to the registry You want to make sure that you create all your backup for your Software and your drives Windows XP home Home edition does not come with a backup utility to backup your system.
XP Professional does. Now for some reason Microsoft didn't feel that Home edition required a data backup. Why? I don't know.
But Windows Vista and Hire do come with a backup restore utility. So before you tinker with the registry be sure you backup your data. Another thing you can do is create a restore point.
That would be another thing that you can do before you start tinkering with the registry. So in case there's a mishap, you can actually restore back to the previous restore point. What I'm going to show you now...
is how you can save a copy of the registry. Go to File, and you'll see the two commands up here at the top, Import and Export. What you want is Export.
Now, here we have the export registry file. All you need to do is create a name for it. You can use registry backup, you know, whatever you want to do.
Now this will come in handy in case you know you put the wrong number in or you change the wrong key and you know if Windows becomes useless you can go into safe mode and be able to restore the registry by using this backup. Now once you create a name for this, then choose save. Now when you go on there, you'll notice down here in the bottom. Up here you see it saved it. Now when you come to this, make sure you look down here.
It will say export range. Choose all. Let me highlight that. Choose all. This will configure or save every single hive.
When you choose all, then choose save. I'm going to replace the one that was already on there. Now it can take a few seconds while it saves the entire registry.
So, just in case there's a mishap, you can go back to safe mode, replace it, because you can also go back to file and choose import, and then select the registry backup and then choose open. And this will replace the keys and put the keys back to the original configuration. So this is how you can save a copy of the entire registry.
And it's a good idea to because nobody's perfect and you may accidentally hit the wrong key or change the key. your wrong subkey, you know, mistakes happen. But this is a good way to correct the errors.
Now to move around, it's fairly simple. You can use your keyboard. and your arrow keys.
You can go up and down Let me get over here to the hive You can go up and down where you see they're highlighted Now to open a hive use the right arrow key. To close the hive use the left arrow key Now, let's go to the local machine and open it using the right arrow key. You can scroll down.
Let's go to software and you'll notice the arrows next to it. You can use your mouse. You can either double click like so or you can click on the arrow on the left hand side.
If there's an arrow it means it can be extended. If there's no arrow such as that, that means there is no sub keys. uh...
or you know and again you can use your arrow keys to move down as such uh... if you look to the right when you click on one you'll notice on the right hand side in the pane you have all your sub keys now here you have all different kinds you have uh... uh... different version where you can open up and you know they can have several hundred sub keys now you can also if you hit the right arrow button you can see how it goes back to the parent uh... key and closes it.
If you do it again, it goes back to the top, as you see here on software. Hit it again, and it will close it. Like so. Now, you'll find different aspects of the hive to where we can go in and change. Now, let's go down to Current Control Set, Control.
Now, you'll notice right down over here on the right-hand side, all the different keys that we can find. Now, here, I'm under File System. under the local machine and system.
Now, if you're not sure what key you're editing, look down here to the very bottom in the status bar, and it will show you exactly which key you're looking at. Here it shows its HKEYLOCALMACHINE slash SYSTEM slash CURRENTCONTROLSET slash CONTROL slash FILING SYSTEM. So if you're not sure where you're at or what you're editing, this down here will show you.
And then if you highlight this side, now it shows you what you're looking at. Now, if you don't see anything down here in the bottom, go up here to View, and then check the Status Bar. Then that way you can see what you're editing down there in the bottom.
Now, as you can see, there's a lot of configurations that we can do down here. And what we're going to do, I'm going to show you the different aspects of this registry. Now, you can create a D word, which I do show. You can choose write.
Then you'll see new. And then it wants to know if you're going to do a key. A string value, a binary value, a D word, which in most of the settings that I show you are D words.
Now, you can go to key. And as you can see, what happens, it inserts a new key. Now, let me delete that.
Now you can also choose string values such as this. These are the strings. You can also, this is how you create a D word.
Now, a lot of the things that I show you in Vista and Windows XP's performance videos, this is exactly what we're going to do. You know, you're going to create a D word. Some of these D words aren't available. Let me go ahead and delete it.
But this is how you create something. Now, let me explain to you what these are over here. You have the name, which is a string. You have the type. This tells you what kind of string it is.
If it says DWORD, this is data represented by numbers as you see on the right. You have the right side over here, this is the data that the key contains. This, the type, tells you what kind of data it contains.
Now, these are just numbers. If it says REG DWORD, it's represented by numbers. If it says REG SZ, this contains plain text and numbers.
numbers, and this is one of the most commonly used data types. An example would be this one up here. You'll see where it says under type, reg.sz.
Now it don't have a value set to it, so it says value not set. Now the other one is called the reg.multi. Now this would contain several strings of plain text and numbers. You cannot create one, but you can edit them.
the other one you have the reg expand SZ which does contain data to point windows to file locations and the last one is the reg binary now you will find these if you right click and choose new you will find them on here. This is a string value, a binary value which deals with ones and zeros, the DWORD which is commonly used in my Windows XP and Vista videos, a keyword. The keyword is similar to the D word except the D word is 32 bit and the Q word is 64 bit. You also have the multi-string value and you have an expandable string value. which I've just discussed.
The binary value, which is reg binary. Now, this contains nothing but binary data, which is zeros and ones. You can't create them, and you cannot edit them. Now, as you've seen, the registry editor is, you know, it's relatively easy to use.
It don't require much. It doesn't have much functionality. all this is basic editing now the thing to keep in mind is any change that you make it is saved on the fly meaning as soon as you change it it's saved now keep in mind there is no undo there is no save I've showed you how to save a copy to registry There's no save commands.
This is all done on the fly. If you make a mistake, there's no undo commands. These changes are automatically saved on the fly.
So please use caution. I've shown you how to get around and stuff. Now let's say you want to look for a key.
Now, what you can do is, let me exit out and close. Now when you come to the main screen here and let's say you're looking for a key that I've suggested that you can change, the fastest way that you can do it is you can either press control F on the keyboard. That will bring up your fine dialog.
Or you can come up here to edit and choose find. And as you can see, it shows that you can press control F. This will bring up the find dialog. Now, you can type in a key or a value or, you know, a data string.
And like what I have highlighted, it says disable deletion notification. This refers to the NTFS filing system. Now, if I'm not sure where it's at. But I do know what the key's name is, or the string name. If you're not sure, just select all three.
And if you're positive as to what it is, you can match the whole string only. And it will match the entire string that we have typed. Now this one here is called Disable Delete Notification.
So what this does is if I delete something, you get that notification. Well, this will disable it. Well, let's see...
if we can find it. I don't know where it's located, but we'll choose find next. It's going to search through the registry to see if it can find it. Now depending on how large the registry is, it could take some time.
Now, as you can see, it has found my key that I was looking for. I didn't know where it was at, but I knew what it was called, and here you go. It found it.
And as you can see, it does. have it highlighted for me. Now again, you'll notice down here in the bottom, this is where it's found it. This shows the key that you're configuring.
It says it's set to the default It's under HKEY LOCALMACHINE slash SYSTEM slash CONTROLSET 001 slash CONTROL slash FILING SYSTEM. This identifies exactly where I'm at in the hives. Now all you have to do now is double click it. It will bring it up and then you can change your value.
And choose OK. Well, I don't want to change it. But that's how you do this.
You can right click, choose new, and you can choose a key, which brings it out here. You can do string values, binary values, D words, which I've done a lot of D word, because some of these aren't listed. And then you can choose what you're going to create.
And basically that's all there is. to the registry. I've shown you how to move around, how to find a key, I've shown you how to save or export a copy of the entire registry. Before you do these, be sure that you back up all your data, you do create a restore point, and that you do create a copy of this registry as I've shown here. Now, again, Windows XP Home Edition do not have the Backup and Restore Utility. You will have to use a third party backup utility.
XP Professional and Windows Vista and higher do come with the built in backup and restore utility. Now, All you have, you know what I mean, like I said, you have 10,000 of these keys that you can go through. If you're not confident enough about doing these changes, I do have my website from Windows XP. It will show you exactly what to type and where to go.
And, well, that concludes the registry. Keep in mind that, you know, the slightest mistake can render it useless. So, please, use caution.
Well... That concludes this episode. I've shown you about the registry and how to move around and stuff and how to change things. Now, keep in mind, some changes that you do make, you may have to restart the computer. computer for it to make changes.
Other changes that you make happen on the fly, so use caution when you edit the registry. Well, I'm your host Mr. Fixit. Thank you for watching.