Registry PowerTips #2
AutoRun
Your Floppy Drive!
Yes, believe it or not, you can AutoRun floppy disks
just as you can CD-ROMs and audio CDs (as well as hard drives). The only
difference is that, by default, Windows won't look for an Autorun.inf
file on a floppy - not unless you edit the Registry.
Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer,
and notice that NoDriveTypeAutoRun is 95 00 00 00 by default
(or 9d 00 00 00 if hard drive AutoRun is disabled too). If you change
this to 91 00 00 00, you can AutoRun floppy disks - as long as there
is an Autorun.inf file in the root directory of the disk telling
Windows to do something.
Remove
"Shortcut
to" Prefix
If you want to get rid of the "Shortcut to" prefix for any
new shortcuts made, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
and create a New/Binary Value called Link. Double-click it (to Modify
it), and type eight zeros (when entered, this will look like 00 00 00 00).
To get the prefix back, you can either delete the Link binary value,
or just rename it so Windows won't recognise it. With both enabling and
disabling, you will need to restart Windows before the changes take effect.
Hide
Network
Neighbourhood Icon
Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer,
and have a look at the NoNetHood binary value. NoNetHood
is 00 00 00 00 by default, but should be 01 00 00 00 to hide
the Network Neighbourhood icon from the Desktop.
Disable
Beep On Errors
Open HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Sound and change
the Yes next to Beep to a No.
Wrap
Icon Captions
Want to wrap your icon captions instead of seeing them as
"Shortcut
to Microso....."? Open HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics
and change the default of IconTitleWrap from 0 to 1.
Non-Blinking
Cursor
The blink-rate for cursors is usually around 500 milliseconds,
but you can stop it blinking altogether. Open HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control
Panel\Desktop, and note that CursorBlinkRate is set to 500
or so. Change this figure to 65535 to disable the blinking.
Sub-Menus
That Need To Be Clicked
As you know, when you click on a menu, any other menus within
it (sub-menus) will open to reveal their contents as soon as the cursor
passes over them. But this can get those who are learning to use computers
into all sorts of problems, as many will end up clicking on an item just
to stop menus popping up all over the place. You can, however, edit the
Registry so that sub-menus have to be clicked before they open. This way,
novices will only get into sub-menus if they deliberately click on them.
Just go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop,
and notice MenuShowDelay is set at 400 (400 milliseconds
is the default time it takes for Windows to recognise that your cursor
is over a sub-menu). Just change this figure to 65535.
Clear
Find History
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Doc
Find Spec MRU is where the Find history is stored. A
REG file can be created to clear this MRU list. Simply select the key,
choose Export Registry File from the Registry
menu, make sure Selected branch is checked, and save it under
the name of your choice. Then edit the file in Notepad, and set the value
data of the String values to blank. In other words, get rid of the names
next to the strings a to j, then save the file. When you
Merge
the REG file with the Registry, the list will be replaced by blanks, effectively
wiping the list clean.
If you would like to save yourself the hassle, click
here for the text, which you can then copy and paste into a text
file (which you can rename with a REG extension and then Merge with
the Registry).
Clear
Run History
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\RunMRU
is where the Run history is stored. A REG file can be created
to clear this MRU list. Simply select the key, choose Export Registry
File from the Registry menu, make sure Selected
branch is checked, and save it under the name of your choice. Then
edit the file in Notepad, and set the value data of the String values to
blank. In other words, get rid of the names next to the strings a
to z, then save the file. When you Merge the REG file
with the Registry, the list will be replaced by blanks, effectively wiping
the list clean.
If you would like to save yourself the hassle, click
here for the text, which you can then copy and paste into a text
file (which you can rename with a REG extension and then Merge with
the Registry).
E-mail Me if you have any cool tips or Registry questions...
