Powering Up – Part 2

Hacking and honing Windows XP Registry.

Perhaps you know this. Perhaps you don’t. The Windows Registry is a database of the operating system’s settings and options. It keeps track of the settings for all your PC’s hardware, software, users, and associated preferences. Whenever you modify Control Panel parameters, install software, change file associations, or rework system policies, the amendments are stored in the Registry. Therefore, tuning and tampering with the Registry can have a major impact on the workings of your PC. Here are a few moves you gotta groove to.

Flush It Clean
We talked about this before. We’ll say it again. Keeping the Registry squeaky clean is very important for an optimized PC. Litter left by uninstalled proggies, broken shortcuts, erroneous paths, unemployed file extensions, and various dead ends all bog down efficiency. For a good Registry cleaner, try a freeware called CCleaner (www.ccleaner.com). This sanitises your Registry by killing unused file extensions, ActiveX controls, ClassIDs, ProgIDs, uninstallers, shared DLLs, fonts, help files, paths, icons, shortcuts etc. It also creates a Registry back up and cleanses your browser. Non-XP walas can try RegClean (www.createwindow.com/wininfo/regclean.htm). And RegMon (www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/Regmon.html) is a good tool for monitoring your Registry.

Speedy Start Menus
If you’ve got XP crawling on a slower relic, you’ll definitely want to quicken things up. Well, here’s a tiny tweak that makes the Start menu and its submenus scurry along as swiftly as it possibly can. Click on Start > Run. Type “regedit” in the box. Hit Enter to launch the Registry Editor. Locate HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop and select it. In the right pane, double-click on MenuShowDelay. Then change Value data from its default of 400 (that’s milliseconds) to 0. Hit Enter. Prankster pape, I can hear your evil mind ticking… Yeah, you can make the menus on your pal’s PC really plod by changing the value to 3000 or 4000!

Killing Dead Apps
XP’s delay in displaying the End Program dialog to force a frozen program to close can be agonizing. I could almost feel my toenails grow while waiting for it to return control until I discovered that I could end hung processes automatically. For this, load regedit, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop and select it. In the right pane double-click AutoEndTasks. Alter Value data to 1 and hit Enter. Then, in the same pane double-click HungAppTimeout. Reduce the Value data field to number of milliseconds you want to wait for an unresponsive app to die. (The default is 5000 ms—that is, 5 seconds).

Personalising IE
Want to see your name (or your current mehbooba’s) imprinted up there in your Internet Explorer title bar? Click on Start > Run and launch Regedit. Now navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main and select it. In the resultant right pane, double-click the Window Title icon. (Can’t spot this icon? Right-click in the right pane and pick New > String Value. Type “Window Title” here. Hit Enter.) Type in the name of your dil ruba (or kutta/billi/kachua). And this is what will appear in IE's title bar when you reload it henceforth.

Backing Up Reggie
Playing with the Registry is like playing with fire. So it’s best to have a backup in place. Fortunately Windows backs up the Registry automatically when you create a System Restore point. For this, Click on Start > Programs (or All Programs) > Accessories > System Tools > System Restore. This initiates the System Restore Wizard. To back up the Registry, select Create a restore point. To restore the Registry, choose Restore my computer to an earlier time.

Ideally you should also make a CD copy of the Registry. For this, click on Start > Run. Type in “regedit”, press Enter and open the Registry Editor. Now click on My Computer in the left pane. Click on File > Export. Type in a file name and choose a location to store the back up file. And dump this on a CD.