Advanced Windows 11 tips: Registry Editor
IF YOU’RE LOOKING TO GET MORE from your Windows 11 setup, you’ve come to the right place. In this issue, we’ll take a deep dive into your Windows Registry, which has been a vital component of Windows since the days of Windows 95. Basically, it’s a glorified database stored across several files (known as ‘hives’) containing various configuration settings that cover all aspects of your PC: its hardware, the apps you’ve installed, and—of course—Windows itself.
To simplify matters, most Registry changes can be made via other Windows tools such as Settings or Device Manager, or within an application’s own dialog boxes. However, other settings are hidden more deeply. Many Windows tweaking tools such as Ultimate Windows Tweaker ( www.thewindowsclub.com) offer an easy way to make meaningful Registry changes without risk but doing so means you never understand what’s going on beneath the hood.
At some point, you’ll need to access the Registry directly, whether it’s to change an annoying feature or fix a problem, and that’s where this tutorial comes in. We’ll take you on a crash course of the Registry—how it works and how to edit it, plus reveal some useful tweaks that can make your Windows experience that bit better. –NICK PEERS
1
START WITH A BACKUP
Before you start making wholesale changes to the Registry, make sure you have a fallback. It’s technically possible to bring down your entire Windows installation from a botched Registry setting, although in most cases, you’ll merely break a specific part of your system or the application you’re trying to tweak. While you can undo most Registry edits, it pays to have a failsafe in place—personal experience says you’ll thank us later.
>> Backups come in various shapes and sizes. If your drive image tool supports differential or, better still, incremental backups, then create your failsafe backup here. Macrium Reflect Free ( www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx) supports the former.
>> You can also take a System Restore point, which backs up the Registry in its current state as well as other system files. Type ‘system restore’ into the Search panel and click ‘Create a restore point’. Check System Restore is enabled for your system drive (click Configure if not) and then click Create to make a manual restore point. Give it a suitably descriptive name such as ‘Pre-Registry tweaks’ and click Create again [ Image A].
>> If you run into problems, either roll back your drive image or return to the ‘Create a Restore point’ dialog and click System Restore… to undo your changes. In the unlikely event Windows won’t boot, wait until it brings up the recovery screen, then choose Troubleshoot followed by Advanced and System Restore.
2
ACCESS AND NAVIGATE THE REGISTRY
Windows offers its own built-in tool for accessing the Registry: Registry Editor ( regedit.exe). It has all the tools you need to view and edit the Registry, although check the box over the page for a third-party alternative that makes Registry editing even simpler.
>> The fastest way to access Registry Editor is to press Win + R, type regedit and press Enter. Administrative access is required, so click Yes when prompted. You’ll see a two-paned window appear — the annotation reveals the key components of regedit’s user interface.
>> Registry Editor stores data as a series of values, organized into keys and subkeys as revealed in the Registry 101 box. To navigate, use the left-hand navigation pane like you would File Explorer: click a key to select it, or double-click a key to expand it and reveal any subkeys inside.
>> Select a key or subkey and you’ll see a list of its associated values appear in the right-hand pane. You can edit or delete existing values and keys—be careful, as deleting a key destroys all its values too—or create new ones from scratch.
>> Given how easy this is to do, let’s explore one final backup option: Registry Editor itself. Regedit allows you to export individual keys (and their values) as text-based .REG files—simply right-click the target key or subkey
in the left-hand pane and choose Export [ Image B]. Give your backup a suitable name (and save it to your backup drive) before clicking Save.
>> You can restore a backup via File > Import inside Registry Editor or by simply double-clicking the .REG file and clicking Yes twice when prompted. These settings will overwrite whatever is current in the Registry (including any changes you’ve made), restoring things to how they were.
3 YOUR FIRST REGISTRY TWEAK
Let’s start with a simple example of how you can change a Windows setting using the Registry. This first example merely requires you to create a single Registry value, then alter it. First, navigate to the following subkey in Registry Editor’s left-hand pane: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ Software\Microsoft\Windows\ CurrentVersion\Explorer\ Advanced.
>> You’ll see a host of values appear on the right, all of which refer to some aspect of the Windows user interface. Choose Edit > New > DWORD (32-bit) Value and name the new value TaskbarAI (that’s a lowercase ‘l’ at the end, not a capital ‘I’).
>> As soon as the value is created, it will be assigned a value of 0, and you’ll immediately see the taskbar icons align to the left as per previous versions of Windows. Double-click the value and change it to 1, and they will return to being centrally aligned.
4 REMOVE THE NEW CONTEXT MENU
Now for something more complicated. If you’re fed up with having to click ‘Show more options’
whenever you right-click an item in File Explorer to bring up the classic context menu, you can disable this new, dumbed-down menu using the Registry.
>> First, navigate to the following key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ Software\Classes\CLSID. Now right-click the CLSID subkey and choose New > Key from the pop-up context menu. Now comes the tricky bit, you need to rename this key to the following: {86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}
>> Once done, select this newly created subkey, right-click it and choose New > Key again. Name this new subkey InprocServer32 [ Image C] and then with InprocServer32 selected, double-click the solitary (Default) value in the right-hand pane. Simply click OK and its data will change from (value not set) to blank, which is enough to trigger the tweak.
>> Our previous Registry tweak was applied instantly, but others only come into effect when you restart Windows Explorer or, in some cases, your entire PC. The context menu tweak requires you to restart Windows Explorer, which is done via Task Manager: select Windows Explorer on the Processes tab (if it’s not under Apps, you’ll find it under Windows processes) and click the Restart button.
>> Once done, open a File Explorer window and right-click an item, you should now see the classic menu pops up immediately. To undo this tweak, simply delete the {86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8ba509-50c905bae2a2} key you created, then restart Explorer again.
5 GO DIRECT TO A SPECIFIC KEY
Navigating the Registry can be a time-consuming process as you move between keys, subkeys, and values. A recent addition to Registry Editor is the Address Bar, which works in a similar way to the folder path bar in File Explorer or the URL bar in your web browser. This allows you to jump directly to a specific subkey by typing in the address manually – for example: HKEY_ LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows.
>> Don’t worry about including the ’Computer\’ bit, Registry Editor knows to add this. It’s still quite a complex process, but thankfully you can use shortcuts in place of the lengthy HKEY_ part of the address: for example, use HKCU for HKEY_CURRENT_USER and HKLM for HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.
>> Even better, the Registry’s Address bar supports copy and paste from other sources, so you can paste in full Registry addresses from text documents, websites, or wherever you happen to find them.
6 MAKE USE OF FAVORITES
Another way to speed up access to frequently accessed sub-keys is to use Regedit’s Favorites feature. Select the key you want to access and choose Favorites > Add to Favorites. By default, the sub-key name is given as its entry, you can tweak this to make it easier to identify and click OK. In future, jump back to the key by selecting it from the Favorites menu [ Image D].
>> There are more useful shortcuts when navigating Registry Editor. Open a key containing dozens of subkeys and you can quickly jump to one of these by typing the first two or three letters of its name. You can also use the cursor keys to navigate around the Registry, using the left arrow to collapse previously opened sub-keys.
7 TIME-SAVING TWEAKS
Other tweaks involve adding features to make options more accessible or removing unwanted steps in processes to speed things up. Let’s start by speeding up application switching using the taskbar.
>> If an app has more than two windows open, you’ll be forced to select your chosen window after clicking the app’s taskbar icon, but you can save a click and simply restore the last active window, by navigating to HKCU\ Software\ Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ Explorer\ Advanced.
>> Make sure Advanced is selected and choose Edit > New > DWORD ( 32-bit) Value. Name this LastActiveClick, then double-click it and change its value to 1. After restarting the Windows Explorer process, you should find clicking the program’s taskbar icon always takes you back to the last window you’d opened.
>> Adding custom entries to the File Explorer context menu allows you to copy or move selected files to a specific folder from a single dialog. First, navigate to HKCR\ AllFilesystemObjects\ shellex\ContextMenuHandlers. Create a subkey inside this called Copy to Folder, then double-click its (Default) value and set it to {C2FBB6302971-11D1-A18C-00C04FD75D13} before clicking OK.
>> Next, create a second subkey inside ContextMenuHandlers but this time, name it Move to
Folder and change its (Default) value to {C2FBB631-2971-11D1A18C-00C04FD75D13}—note the subtle difference between the two values. The change is immediate, and you’ll find both options on the classic context menu (the one that appears when you select ‘Show more options’ if you haven’t performed the tweak from step 4).
8 MAKE CHANGES WITH BATCH SCRIPTS
Why get your hands messy with Registry Editor when you can make changes to the Registry directly from Notepad? By creating special script files using any text editor, then saving them with a .reg file extension you then simply double-click the .reg file to merge your changes into the Registry.
>> To do this, open a blank document in Notepad. Now type the following line at the top:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
>> This identifies the script as a Registry file. Add a blank line beneath this, then type below that:
[Regpath]
>> Keep the square brackets but replace Regpath with the Registry key you wish to edit (any sub-keys that don’t already exist will be automatically created, so you don’t need manually create them in regedit first). Beneath this, type each of the values you wish to create or modify on separate lines using the following syntax:
“ValueName”=Valuetype:Value
>> Valuetype should be ignored if the value is a string; otherwise, enter ‘binary’ for hexadecimal values, ‘dword’ for dword values. The example [ Image E] creates a system profile you can apply when gaming to squeeze more performance out of your PC.
>> You can edit multiple Registry keys within a single document. Leave a blank line between each [Regpath] entry. Once done, choose File > Save, change ‘Save as type:’ to ‘All Files’ and remember to save your file with a .reg extension. Then back up and double-click the file to merge it into the Registry, or rightclick and choose Edit to make further changes in the text editor.
9 WHO NEEDS GPEDIT.MSC?
When surfing the net for useful tweaks—particularly when it comes to securing your PC—you’ll often find a reference to gpedit.msc, or Group Policy Editor. This tool makes it easy to set various security and privacy policies in Windows, and while it’s aimed at enterprise and business users, it’s often handy for us mere mortals too.
>> The only problem with gpedit.msc is that it’s not available in Home editions of Windows. But don’t worry, because Group Policy Editor is basically a neat front end for various Registry settings—it doesn’t apply them directly, but they’re eventually translated via special “local policy” files that are applied after a reboot. All you need to know is which tweak applies to which Registry setting, and thanks to a handy Excel file from Microsoft, you can do just that—download the Windows 11 21H2 ADMX spreadsheet.xlsx file from www.microsoft. com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=103506 for the translation you need.
10 GET MORE TWEAKS
The internet is awash with Registry tweaks for you to try out, just make sure that you trust the website in question and have taken a recent backup before you begin.
>> Start your search with SpeedGuide’s Gaming Tweaks ( www.speedguide.net/articles/gaming-tweaks-5812). Tweaks from older versions of Windows should work in many cases, particularly those for Windows 10, but it’s worth Googling the tweak in question with “Windows 11” to see if there are known compatibility issues.
>> As we stated, most tweak tools for your PC basically provide you with a user-friendly front end to tweak various Registry settings. One such tool, Winaero Tweaker ( https://winaero.com/winaero-apps/), goes further than most in allowing you to understand what exactly it is the tweak in question does.
>> When selected, click ‘See in detail how this tweak works’ [ Image F] and you’ll be whisked to a page detailing what the tweak does and, if applicable, what Registry settings are changed.
YOU’LL NEED THIS
A COPY OF THE NEKO PROJECT
http://nenecchi.kirara.st/
THIS MONTH’S COMPUTER may be unfamiliar, but NEC’s PC-9800 series, usually shortened to PC-98, was arguably Japan’s most important computer and played an integral part in developing both Japanese language computing and video games. Despite the potential gaming fun offered by this system, there are technical hurdles to be overcome. So after a brief history of the PC-98, let us show you how to emulate the machine as easily as possible. –JOHN KNIGHT
1 DEVELOPMENT AND LAUNCH
The PC-98 was a strategically brilliant move by NEC, beating Western competition by exploiting their inept support for Kanji: the complex characters inherited from Chinese, used in any formal writing. NEC recognized the limitations of Western rivals and designed its machine from the ground up to provide solid Kanji rendering and input.
>> NEC based its new computer around Intel’s 8086 processor, but don’t be fooled—even though these machines are powered by x86 CPUs (and can run modified versions of DOS and Windows), these are not “IBM-Compatible” PCs. This is a proprietary platform with a different BIOS, I/O ports, graphical system, expansion slots, and even different floppy drives.
>> NEC wanted its computer to run Microsoft BASIC and be code-compatible with the N88-BASIC of its previous PC-88 line. However, NEC was unable to reach a deal with Microsoft, and simply reverse-engineered N88-BASIC, re-writing it to work on x86 processors.
>> The first model, the PC-9801, launched in October 1982, for ¥298,000 (worth around $1,200 then). Its 8086 CPU ran at 5MHz and came with a base 128KB of RAM, expandable to 640KB.
>> While IBM PCs were still lumbered with four-color CGA, NEC’s μPD7220 twin video chips ran at a much higher 640x400 resolution, with eight colors. However, like IBM PCs, the sound was basic, with only a simple beeper.
>> For storage, customers were offered 8-inch 1.232MB external floppy drives, though 320KB 5.25-inch models followed.
2 SOFTWARE
The PC-98 was designed to be a work machine and doesn’t feature the kind of sprite or blitter processing that action games demanded. The most popular applications were word processors, and the platform also received ports of serious business operating systems, such as CP/M-86, OS/2, and Unix variant PC-UX. Nevertheless, despite its all-business intent, its market share ensured the PC-9800 had a thriving game scene.
>> Its high-resolution graphics spawned countless interactive graphical novels, dating simulations, and huge amounts of Hentai (cartoon pornography). These games usually featured a point-and-click adventure-style interface, with high-resolution images and occasional animations.
>> The machine’s extra clock speed and memory also made it a great platform for simulators, like AirManagement (1992), and strategy role-playing games, such as the Sangokushi series and Brandish games. The machine also had its share of “bullet-hell” shoot-'em-up titles, such as the famously bizarre Touhou series!
>> Of course, the main issue is finding games that don’t require a working knowledge of Japanese. You can guess your way around simple arcade titles, like the shoot-'em-up RudeBreaker (1996). Plus, there were ports of Western games that had an English language option, such as AD&D:Dragon Strike (1992), SimCity (1990), Wizardry3 (1987), and The Bard’sTale (1988).
>> However, there is now a much better source for English speakers (see the box).
3 LEGACY
Although the PC-98 never sold outside of Japan, NEC’s computer dominated sales in its home territory, with a market share of between 60-70 percent.
>> As the x86 architecture continued to develop and evolve, the PC-98 platform evolved with it. Each new generation of Intel processor would bring new PC-98 models. Some machines had Intel CPUs, some had NEC’s “V” clone CPUs, and some even had both.
>> Although the original machine had only simple beeper audio, proper sound cards soon followed. The main sound chip of note is the Yamaha 2203, or “OPN”. This chip was quite basic but predated cards like the Sound Blaster or AdLib, and still has fans today.
>> Data storage was quick to upgrade. Customers soon had the option of 640KB Double Density 5.25-inch drives or 1.232MB High-Density 3.5-inch models. The PC-98’s SCSI hard disk interface was much faster than most PCs and was easy to install due to the machine’s special C-Bus expansion system.
>> Over time, the PC-98 series grew closer to IBM’s standard and its software library. The factory-installed OS moved away from NEC’s BASIC to ported versions of MS-DOS and Windows. Later machines were updated to VGA standard with 256 colors and a 640x480 resolution.
>> The PC-98 eventually began losing sales to cheaper machines running IBM Japan’s DOS/ V: a DOS variant capable of rendering Kanji through standard VGA.
>> However, the PC-98’s reign was ultimately brought to an end by Windows 95. Although NEC supported the system, IBMCompatibles now had proper Japanese support and provided the same essential functionality for a lower price, with much better backward compatibility.
>> By 1997, the “PC-98” line had devolved into straight IBMCompatibles, which is where we’ll call the PC-98’s end. The final machine with a PC-98 badge was released in 2000 with a 433MHz Celeron CPU before the name was discontinued in 2003. By the end of its reign, the PC-98 series had sold over 18 million units.
4 EMULATION
There are a couple of choices of emulator, but the Neko Project is the most used. Linux users can try old packages of the native port “XNP2”, but the main Windows version is more up to date and runs well through Wine.
>> To download the Neko Project, go to the project homepage at nenecchi.kirara.st. The website is in Japanese but simply click on the link “np2fmgen.7z” under the PC-98 heading, which will download the emulator.
>> Extract the package and open the new folder. There will be a collection of executable files: they all basically work and function the same, but emulate different machines—anything with an “sx” in the filename will emulate a machine with an SX processor. We recommend starting with np21nt.exe, but if something doesn’t load under one program, try another.
5 LOADING PROGRAMS
To load a floppy image, the most common format, from the main menu, choose FDD1 > Open, then select your floppy image and click Open.
>> Many floppy images are in .fdd format, which Neko’s file browser won’t recognize. When browsing, change your file type from “All Supported Files” to “All Files”.
>> Once your floppy image has been chosen, reset the emulator by clicking Emulate > Reset. Most software should automatically boot.
>> If your program needs mouse input, middle-click to toggle the capture of mouse input. Alt + Enter will toggle full-screen mode.
>> There is a chance your games will require ‘disk swapping’, so remember, there are two floppy menus, FDD1 and FDD2, and an Eject button under each menu.
>> If you want to try hard disk images, you may have to learn your way around DOS. The “Harddisk” menu is divided into IDE and SCSI menus. IDE hard drive images can be in .hdi, .thd, or .nhd formats. SCSI hard disk images must be in Virtual98 .hdd format.
>> Remember to reset the emulator once your hard disk image is selected.
6 FIXING FONTS
When you first load Neko Project, the Japanese text will be garbled nonsense. To experience this computer properly, you need a Japanese font.
>> Head to https://46okumen.com/pc-98-emulation, to find English patches plus an excellent tutorial for taking Neko Project further.
>> Download the font file, called FONT.ROM, then from the main menu, click Emulate > Font, and open the font file. When you click Emulate > Reset, any Japanese text should now display properly.