Best Way to edit Registery in XP Professional?

[Guest]

What is the best way to make registery tweaks in XP Professional?
1) Tweak UI 2.10
2) Group Policy Editor
3) Manual Edits

I have 3 computers but time is not the big issue, just safest and easiest.
In essence do all methods do the same thing (ie: I know manual and Tweak UI
make changes in the HKCU tree, does GPE do the same thing only with a more
detailed interface?)

Thanks in advance for any comments and advice.

 

[Wesley Vogel]

Yes. In the order that you had listed. Not everything that doesTweakUI is
in HKCU, some is in HKLM.

All of Ch 5 is included!!
Microsoft® Windows® XP Registry Guide
Chapter 5: Mapping Tweak UI
http://www.microsoft.com/mspress/books/sampchap/6232.asp

Don't miss the blue Next link at the bottom of the page! That link is the
equivelant of a 23 page Word doc.

Tweak UI for Windows XP Guide
http://www.winxpsolution.com/Tweakuixppro.aspx

---
Good listing of what gpedit.msc does where in the registry here >>>
Group Policy Registry Table
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/gp/gpref.asp

Some more info >>>

Managing Users and Desktops by Using Group Policy Extensions
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...windows/xp/all/reskit/en-us/prda_dcm_uskn.asp

About the Windows Registry
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...Serv/2003/all/deployguide/en-us/gloss_reg.asp

++++

If you're gonna be mucking about in the registry.
Get...

NTREGOPT NT Registry Optimizer
ERUNT The Emergency Recovery Utility NT
http://home.t-online.de/home/lars.hederer/erunt/

ERUNT [[Note: The "Export registry" function in Regedit is USELESS (!) to
make
a complete backup of the registry. Neither does it export the whole
registry (for example, no information from the "SECURITY" hive is
saved), nor can the exported file be used later to replace the current
registry with the old one. Instead, if you re-import the file, it is
merged with the current registry, leaving you with an absolute mess of
old and new registry keys.]]
http://home.t-online.de/home/lars.hederer/erunt/erunt.txt

NTREGOPT [[Similar to Windows 9x/Me, the registry files in an NT-based
system
can become fragmented over time, occupying more space on your hard
disk than necessary and decreasing overall performance. You should
use the NTREGOPT utility regularly, but especially after installing
or uninstalling a program, to minimize the size of the registry files
and optimize registry access.

The program works by recreating each registry hive "from scratch",
thus removing any slack space that may be left from previously
modified or deleted keys.

Note that the program does NOT change the contents of the registry in
any way, nor does it physically defrag the registry files on the drive
(as the PageDefrag program from SysInternals does). The optimization
done by NTREGOPT is simply compacting the registry hives to the
minimum size possible.]]
http://home.t-online.de/home/lars.hederer/erunt/ntregopt.txt

 

[Kent W. England [MVP]]

Lexus wrote on 25-Oct-2004 2:15 PM:

What is the best way to make registery tweaks in XP Professional?
1) Tweak UI 2.10
2) Group Policy Editor
3) Manual Edits

I have 3 computers but time is not the big issue, just safest and easiest.
In essence do all methods do the same thing (ie: I know manual and Tweak UI
make changes in the HKCU tree, does GPE do the same thing only with a more
detailed interface?)

Thanks in advance for any comments and advice.

I like Registry Explorer. www.regxplor.com It integrates into Windows
Explorer, so it doesn't require opening another application.

Another good way to make tweaks is to use other people's .reg or .inf
files. No typos (of yours) in this approach.