Windows stores its configuration settings in a database called the registry. These settings are constantly modified by the many different programs running in Windows. Users can also make changes to the registry by using the Windows registry editor, regedit. Making changes to the registry is a common way to correct problems and change the way Windows looks and acts.
However, making the wrong registry changes can cripple your Windows system. So before you start hacking away with regedit, you should learn a little about it. This tutorial will explain some of the features in regedit and tell you how to use it safely.
Backing up the registry
Back up the registry before you make changes. One convenient way to do this is to use Windows System Restore. Here's how to use System Restore. Another method for backing up the Windows registry is using a free utility named ERUNT, and here is how ERUNT works. Make sure you understand one of these methods before going any further.
Launching regedit
Unlike most other system tools, regedit will not appear in any of your menus when you click the Start button. That means you'll have to launch it some other way. I'll tell you how to start it using the Run dialog.
To bring up the Run dialog, hold down the Windows key and tap the R key.
Now type regedit into the command entry box and click OK.
Using Regedit
Once launched, regedit will pop up pretty quickly. Here's what it looks like:
First, I'll mention that you can see a Helpmenu in regedit and you'll find plenty of information in it that I won't cover in this tutorial.
The navigation pane (on the left) is showing the 5 main hivekeys, which always start with the word HKEY. To navigate deeper into the registry, you need to click on the plus (+) signs next to a hive key. The same applies the further into registry you go. Once you click on a plus, it will display all the sub-keys under that key and the plus will change into a minus (-) sign. Clicking on the minus sign will collapse the structure back to the way it was.
In the view below, you can see that I've located the key for a piece of software that I had installed.
At the bottom of the window you can see the registry path to this key. Right clicking on a key will bring up a menu showing several actions.
Here you can see that I've navigated down into the Current User hive to take a look at my mapped network drives.
In this view, I have the Zkey open. In the right pane (data pane), you can see the entries for the data values under this key. Each piece of data under a key has a name, type and value. The data name can be almost any string of letters as long as it doesn't contain a space. There are several types of data, as shown above, and you can learn more about them in the regedit help file.
Right clicking into an empty area in the data pane will bring up the Newmenu, as shown above, which allows you to add new data entries. Right clicking on one of the data entries, as shown below, will allow you to modify its value or delete it entirely.
Importing data into the registry
Above I mentioned that you can export a key to save all the sub-keys and data under it. When you export a key, you will see that it wants to save as a REG file.
A .reg file is actually a plain text file and you can open it up in Notepad to see what's inside of it. Here's a look inside of one:
That's good to know, because you will often find registry tweaks published online in plain text as shown in the image above. All you need to do is to copy the text, paste it into Notepad and then save it as a .REG file.
Once you have a REG file that you want to restore or add to the registry, all you need to do is double click on it, or right click on it and Mergeit into the registry. When you do this, you'll get a message asking you to confirm this action.
After you confirm, you'll get a message telling you that the information was entered.
Notes:
Summary
I've told you what the registry is, how to back it up, make changes to it, and finally, how to add to the registry using REG files. Now you have enough information to safely make registry changes, and you can learn even more about these topics in the regedit help file and other places online.
regedit
go to start>run. then type regedit and press enter. or if you dont like this then go to start>programs>Accessories>command prompt. a window will be opened then type regedit in it and press enter. this way you can openRegistry Editor.
There are only two command line tools for setting and viewing NTFS permissions in XP. They are CACLS.exe for "change ACLs", and XCACLS.exe for "extended ACLs".
I believe "regedit" is what you want. Just type that into the "Run..." box or Command Prompt (CMD.exe). If that doesn't work, you can also try editing through Command Prompt, using the reg command. to get started, just put "/?" after a command, like "reg add /?". This will give you all the information you will want to use the commands.
Regedit is the registry editor for your operating system.
Use "exit" command..
You might want to stay out of the regedit if you have no clue what your doing, messing around in there can mess up your computer. If you want to go in there anyways go to Start > Run and type in regedit. You can also go to C:\WINDOWS\regedit.
microsoft xp ___________ is an operating system version designed for use with a tablet PC
its a command prompt shell, must be there if you want to use command prompt
You should be able to use regedit, which can be accessed three ways. You can do any one of these:Click Start and type in to the search box (Win 7) "regedit" and press enter. If you are using an earlier system like XP, you will need to click Start then click "Run..." to type it in.Click start and find Command Prompt (CMD.exe). Launch that, then type this exact string in: "start "" regedit" and press enter.Open Windows Explorer and browse to C:\Windows\System32 and find and run one of the following: regedit.exe regedt32.exe or regedt64.exeIf regedit doesn't work, then you may need to read and edit through CMD, using the "reg" command. If so, type"reg /?" into Command Prompt to get started.
Windows XP home edition
Windows XP can be used at home. There is a specific XP Home version, but you could use one of the other versions of XP on a home computer too.