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Improve Your Windows 7 Registry With 7 Easy Tweaks
Take more control of your Windows 7 system with these quick and easy Registry tweaks.
By Marco Chiappetta, PCWorld
Apr 4, 2012 6:00 pm
The Windows Registry is a powerful but confusing component of the Windows
operating system. In earlier editions of Windows, editing the Registry was fraught with peril; if the user
edited it with the wrong tool or altered a critical key, the result could be an inoperable Windows
installation. Windows 7, however, is far more forgiving than its predecessors when it comes to modifying
the Registry, if you use the built-in Windows 7 Registry Editor (Regedit).
The Windows 7 Registry is a massive database of settings and configuration data for the operating
system and for all of the applications and drivers installed on your PC. When you tweak the Registry, you
edit (or create) database entries to customize how your OS works. Before making any changes to the
Windows Registry, you should be sure to back up your important data, as missteps in the Registry could
impair your PC or even render it inoperable. That said, if you stick to modifying the appropriate entries--or
keys--there's little to worry about.
Getting Started
There are five
main registry keys, or hives, visible on Windows 7 systems when using the OS's built-in registry editor.
To perform any of the Registry modifications outlined in this article, you must first access Windows 7's
built-in Registry Editor. To do so, click the Start button, type regedit in the search field, and press Enter.
The Windows Registry Editor will open and present you with what looks like a never-ending tree of
expandable menu items.
Five main keys (also called hives) are visible in the Windows 7 Registry (a sixth key, which holds
performance data, remains hidden when you use the Registry Editor):
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT (HKCR) stores settings for all applications, utilities, and programs installed on a
system.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER (HKCU) stores settings for the user who is logged in.
HKEY_USERS (HKU) stores settings for all of the user accounts on a given system.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE (HKLM) stores settings specific to the system that Windows is installed on.
HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG (HKCC) stores settings gathered or determined at runtime, generally when
the system boots up.
The name of each main key indicates fairly clearly the settings it governs. If you want to tweak a specific
piece of hardware in your system, the setting is probably saved in HKLM; settings for your user account
usually appear in HKU or HKCU.
Before you make any changes to the Registry, update your backup files. The Registry Editor makes
backing up specific keys, or even the entire Registry, very easy. To back up the whole Windows Registry,
highlight Computer in the left pane of the Regedit window, go to the File menu, and click Export. Name
your backup file in the resulting window and click Save, and the entire Registry will be saved in one
massive file. Keep this file handy on a separate hard drive; if something goes wrong, you can always reimport it to restore your old Registry settings.
You probably won't need a backup of the entire Registry, however. Over the course of this article, we'll be
altering only a few keys, so you can limit yourself to creating backups for just those keys. Backing up
specific keys follows the same process as backing up the entire Registry, except that instead of
highlighting 'Computer' in the left pane of the Regedit window, you select the key that you plan to alter,
and export it to a safe place. To restore the backed-up Registry key, double-click the file--it will
automatically update your Registry with the old key.
Edit Your Context Menus
Removing
extraneous options from context menus is a simple matter of deleting a few keys from the Registry.
Over time, as you install more and more applications and utilities on your Windows system, some rightclick context menus (the little menus that pop up when you right-click icons or your desktop) may become
cluttered with options. In contrast, most right-click context menus on a clean system list only a few
options. If your context menus have become cluttered, it's time to clean house.
Typically, the options listed in your context menus are stored in these five Registry keys:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AllFileSystemObjects\ShellEx
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers
If you'd like to remove a context menu option, look for its listing in one if these keys. To remove it,
highlight the specific key, right-click it, and choose Delete from the menu. Be sure to highlight only the
specific key for the context menu item you want to remove, and not the main ContextMenuHandlers,
Shell, or ShellEx keys; otherwise, you'll delete the entire menu.
Add 'Open Command Prompt Here' Option for Any Folder
Though they have fewer and fewer reasons to do so, some users (including me) like to perform tasks from
a command line. Unfortunately, navigating the myriad folders on a Windows 7 system from a command
prompt can be a pain, especially if many of them have long file names.
But it's easy to arrange for Windows 7 to open a command prompt window automatically in the directory
being viewed. To do this, open the Registry Editor and navigate to the HKCR\Directory\Background\shell
key. Highlight shell; right-click it; and choose New, Key from the menu. Name the new key Open
Command Prompt Here. Once you've created the new key, highlight it and again choose New, Key from
the menu. Create another key named command. Highlight the newly created command entry, and you'll
see in the right Regedit pane that a default string value has been automatically created. In the right pane,
highlight (Default), right-click it, and choose Modify from the menu. In the Edit String window that opens,
type cmd.exe, click OK, and close the Registry Editor. When you're done, right-click the background of
your desktop (or any folder in Windows Explorer) and choose Open Command Prompt Here to open a
command prompt with a command line pointing to that directory.
Add a Defrag Option When Right-Clicking Hard Drives
For most Windows users, defragging a hard drive entails opening the Computer menu or the Libraries
menu, right-clicking the drive, selecting Properties from the menu, clicking the Tools tab at the top of
Properties window, and finally clicking the Defragment Now button. Here's how to arrange to launch the
Windows Disk Defragmenter simply by right-clicking your hard drive.
Open the Registry Editor and navigate to the HKCR\Drive\shell key. Highlight shell; right-click it; and
choose New, Key from the menu. Name the new key runas. After you create it, a default string value
should be automatically appear in the right Regedit pane. Highlight the runas key in the left pane, rightclick (Default) in the right pane, and choose Modify from the menu. In the subsequent Edit String window
that opens, enter Defragment and click OK.
Next, highlight the newly created runas key again, right-click, and choose New, Key from the menu once
more. Create another key named command. Highlight command and, in the right pane, highlight the
(Default) value that was automatically created; then right-click it, and choose Modify from the menu. In the
Edit String window that opens, type dfrgui.exe, click OK and close Regedit. Now, when you right-click a
drive in the Computer window or the Libraries window, the Defragment option should be available.
Pin Applications to Your Background Context Menu
You can set up quick access to your favorite
applications by making some simple tweaks to the Windows Registry.
Windows 7 affords users multiple areas to pin shortcuts for their favorite applications. But what if you have
an application or utility that doesn't warrant a prime piece of real estate in your Taskbar or Start Menu?
Well, you can neatly tuck those apps away in your right-click context menu for quick access.
To pin an application to a context menu, open the Registry Editor and navigate to the
HKCR\Directory\Background\shell key. Highlight shell, right-click it, and choose New, Key from the menu.
Name the key whatever you like; we chose CCleaner, since we decided to add a shortcut to that handy
cleaning utility to our menu. Once you've created your new key, highlight it, and again choose New, Key
from the menu. Create another new key named command.
Next, highlight command and once again you'll see that an automatically created default string value now
appears in the right Regedit pane. In the right pane, highlight (Default), right-click it, and choose Modify
from the menu. In the Edit String window that opens, enter the path to the executable for the application
that you'd like to run; in our case we entered "C:\Program Files (x86)\CCleaner\CCleaner.exe"
(including the quotes). Click OK, and then close Regedit. Henceforth, anytime you right-click your desktop
or the background of a folder, you can launch the application with a single click.
Disable Notification Balloons
Few things are more annoying to experienced users than the balloon tips that pop up in the notification
area on a freshly installed copy of Windows. Thankfully, they are easy to disable with a quick Registry
hack.
Open the Registry Editor, navigate to the
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced folder, and highlight Advanced.
You'll see a number of strings and DWORD values listed in the right Regedit pane. Right-click a blank part
of the right pane; choose New, DWORD Value from the menu; and name it EnableBalloonTips. After
creating the new DWORD value, highlight EnableBalloonTips, right-click it, choose Modify from the menu,
and enter a value of 0 (the value will probably be set to 0 automatically). Close Regedit, restart your
machine, and the balloon tips should be gone for good!
Have Disk Cleanup Delete (Virtually) All Files
By default, Disk
Cleanup deletes only files that are at least seven days old. With a quick Registry mod, you can reduce the holding period to one day.
By default, when you run a disk cleanup on a Windows 7 system, the operation will limit itself to deleting
temporary files that are at least seven days old. Since there are few reasons to keep temp files for that
long, however, let's look at how to arrange to delete any temp file that's at least one day old.
Open the Registry Editor and navigate to the
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VolumeCaches\Temporary Files key.
Click the Temporary Files key to highlight it, and in the right Regedit pane you'll see a DWORD value
named LastAccess that has a value of 7 associated with it. Highlight LastAccess, right-click it, and choose
Modify from the menu. In the edit window that opens, change the Value data to 1, and click OK. Exit
Regedit, and you're done. After you've made that change, a disk cleanup will delete any temporary file
that is more than one day old.
Add 'Take Ownership' to Right-Click Context Menu
Sooner or later you'll probably come across a file that you can't access for some reason, despite being
logged in as an Administrator. In situations like this, taking ownership of the file or directory can help you
gain access to the file, but the process is somewhat tedious. With some Registry editing, however, taking
ownership of a file or directory is just a right-click away.
Instead of walking you through this process, though, we'll explain how to complete it in one fell swoop.
First, select and copy all of the text listed below:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\runas]
@="Take Ownership"
"NoWorkingDirectory"=""
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\runas\command]
@="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F"
"IsolatedCommand"="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\runas]
@="Take Ownership"
"NoWorkingDirectory"=""
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\runas\command]
@="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" /r /d y && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F /t"
"IsolatedCommand"="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" /r /d y && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F
/t"
Once you've copied all of that text, paste it into a new Notepad (or any basic text editor) document, and
save the file with a *.reg extension; name it take-ownership.reg, for example. After saving the file,
double-click it, follow the on-screen prompts, and add all of the keys to the Registry. Now you can rightclick a file or folder and choose Take Ownership from the menu if you can't access or edit for some
reason.
Congratulations, you're now a Windows 7 power user! If you find these Registry hacks useful, check out
"9 Easy and Powerful Windows 7 Registry Tweaks" for more ways to customize the way your Windows 7
PC operates.