Registry Editing Tutorial

What is the registry?

The registry is a database of settings for the Windows Operating System.  If you ever wondered how windows remembers things such as your screen resolution, and all your device driver settings, they are stored in and read from the registry.  Other applications now use the registry rather than the older ini files.

Opening the registry editor

Windows comes with its own registry editor.  To start the registry editor, go to start>>run type regedit and press ok.

Backing Up the Registry

You may have heard that you shouldn't edit the registry, as making a mistake will mess up your computer.  This will only happen if you randomly start editing and deleting entries you shouldn't be.  But just to be safe, you should back up the registry when you are going to make major adjustments.

  Backup:
  (1) Export the Registry.

Start the registry as above.  Select Registry then select Export Registry File.  Choose a place to save it, somewhere you will remember, and save it as something like regback.  Using 8 or less letters is better in case you need to restore this (but file formats are another lecture:-p).

  (2) ScanReg backup - Recommended

Start a Dos Prompt.  At the prompt, type scanreg /backup .  This will backup the registry, don't expect a confirmation, it doesn't show you one.
OR
Start>>run.  Type scanregw .  Click ok.  It will now scan the registry, and offer to make another backup, select "yes".

Restoring the Registry

Remember this info, or print it for reference (click "print version" below for a printer friendly version (no menu or big titles, or footers)).
If you manage to load windows, open the registry editor as above.  Select Registry then select Import Registry File.  Select the file you saved earlier, and select open or import or save.  This only restores previous settings.
If the error is due to a setting you added, or you can't get into windows: If not already, get into a dos window.  Type scanreg /restore .  This will restore the last backup, which if not played with, windows does each startup.

How to edit something

You may notice the registry editor looks like the windows file manager (Windows Explorer).  There are the top level ROOT KEYs, like HKEY_CURRENT_USER then there have keys, such as Software, which has sub keys such as Microsoft.  To expand a key, click the cross next to it, do the same to close it again.

Each key, be it a root key, key or sub key has a set of values on the right.  
To edit a value, double click it, and enter the new value.  You can also right click, and select Modify.
To delete a value, click it, and press the delete button, or right click, and select Delete.
To rename a value, right click and select Rename.  This gives you the space to rename it. 

You can do the above for the keys (down the left) too.

Adding a Value

A lot of tweaking can be done by adding values to the registry, there are three types of data:

String Value: This is just plain text, like "hello".  String meaning a string of characters.
Binary Value: This is as plain data as you can get, either 1 or 0.  A binary value may look like this: 00001001.
Dword Value: This a 4 byte value for storing numbers.

To add a value, select Edit, New, and then the type from above.  The key adds a new subkey to the selected key on the left.

Next

You can now do various things, such as enable things, disable annoying screens, add advanced options to some programs.  For a list of various things, try this site which is full of them:

http://www.winguides.com/registry/

It only provides the keys to edit and add to, so you can apply your knowledge from above!  It also provides a further in depth guide.