Windows Registry

By:- Gaurav Verma

Microsoft Certified
Professional (MCP)

HCL Certified Ethical

Hacker
 The Windows Registry is
a hierarchical database that stores
configuration settings and options
on Microsoft Windows operating
systems. It contains settings for low-
level operating system components as
well as the applications running on the
platform: the kernel, device
drivers, services, SAM, user
interface and third party applications
all make use of the Registry. The
registry also provides a means to
access counters for profiling system
performance.
 There are six Root Keys:

* HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
* HKEY_CURRENT_USER
* HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
* HKEY_USERS
* HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG
* HKEY_DYN_DATA
 HACKING THE

REGISTRY
 Modify the Windows
XP System Properties
In this tip you canlogo
learn how you can insert
your own logo in the system properties
dialog and complete it with your own contact
information.
To invoke the system properties dialog, click
the Start button, right-click "My Computer"
and select "Properties".
This will open up your general system
information dialog.
 If you want to put your own graphic in there, you
should create your image in a .bmp graphic file. It's
also a good idea to create this bitmap image with the
same background shade of gray (RGB: 192, 192, 192)
used in the Properties dialog. Otherwise, you risk
letting Windows make its own judgments regarding
color contrast and background shading.

The next thing to consider is the image size. The

system properties dialog only offers enough real estate
for an image of about 180 (wide) x120 (high) pixels.
Make sure that you can fit your logo in this area.
Once you have created your logo and saved it as a
.bmp file, copy it over to the system32 subfolder of
your Windows system folder. If you don't know where
your system folder is :
Click the Start button and select
"Run"
In the "open"field, enter "cmd"
(without the quotes) and click ok
Windows will open up a dos
command window
In the command window, type "set
system" (without the quotes)
Look for the line that contains
"SystemRoot", this is where your
system directory is (generally, the
Windows XP system folder is
c:\windows)
Now that you know where your system folder is, copy your
logo image file over to the system32 subfolder of your system
folder. Then rename your logo image file to oemlogo.bmp
Additionally you can create a new file in this same folder and
name the new file oeminfo.ini
In this file you can enter your contact information like in the
example below :
[General]
Manufacturer=Windows Help Central
Model=ShowCase
[Support Information]
Line1=" "
Line2=" For support, sales, upgrades or questions:"
Line3=""
Line4=" Some text to demonstrate the XP System Properties
logo"
Line5=" Windows XP Tips and Tricks "
Line6=" yadayada"
Line7=""
Line8=" +1 (888) 888-888 (voice)"
Line9=" +1 (888) 888-889 (fax)"
Line10=""
Line11=""
Line12=" http://www.windows-help-central.com/"
Save and close the file and you are ready.
From now on, if someone opens up the
system properties dialog, your own Windows
XP System Properties logo is in there.
 Want to remove shared
documents folder
from My Computer
window tip:  
Some don't like my shared documents
folder option. If you are one of that,
here is a trick to remove it.Open
registry editor by going to START-RUN
and entering regedit. 
Once in registry, navigate to key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \
Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \
Explorer \ My Computer \ NameSpace \
DelegateFolders You must see a sub-
 How to remove
recycle bin from your
desktop Tip:
Open Regedit by going to START - RUN and type
Regedit and hit enter. Then you should navigate
to following entry in registry
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Wind
ows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\
Desktop\NameSpace\{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-
00AA002F954E} and delete it. This action should
remove recycle bin from your desktop. 
Open Registry by going to START-RUN and typing REGEDIT.
Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\CONTROL
PANEL\DESKTOP and look for AutoEndTasks. On my
computer default value is 0. Change it to 1. Thats all.
Further more you can reduce the time it takes for Windows
to issue kill directive to all active/hung applications. 
In doing this only constraint that you should make sure
exists is that HungAppTimeout is greater than
WaitToKillAppTimeout. Change the values of
WaitToKillAppTimeout to say 3500 (since default value for
HungAppTimeout 5000 and for WaitToKillAppTimeout is
20000)
How to improve on shutdown
 Speedup boot up
sequence by
defragmenting all key
boot files tip:
Open Registry by going to START-RUN
and typing REGEDIT. Navigate to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Micr
osoft\Dfrg\BootOptimizeFunction. In
right hand panel look for Enable. Right
click on it and set it 'Y' for enable. This
is the way I have it set on my
computer. This will help speedup boot
time.
WINDOWS - 7 (tricks)

Add network support

 
By default Windows Live MovieMaker
won't let you import files over a
network, but a quick Registry tweak
will change this. Run REGEDIT, browse
to
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Micros
  

Find bottlenecks
 

From what we've seen so far Windows 7 is

already performing better than Vista, but if
your PC seems sluggish then it's now much
easier to uncover the bottleneck. Click Start,
type RESMON and press Enter to launch the
Resource Monitor, then click the CPU, Memory,
Disk or Network tabs. Windows 7 will
immediately show which processes are
hogging the most system resources.
  
 

By default Windows 7 will permanently

consume a chunk of your hard drive
with its hibernation file, but if you
never use sleep, and always turn your
PC off, then this will never actually be
used. To disable hibernation and
recover a little hard drive space,
launch REGEDIT, browse to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Current
 Extend Windows 7
from 30 days to 90
Days trail -
Follow the procedure below to extend your trail period

1.Firstly, Download Windows 7 Pre-Beta M3 Build 6801 from here.

2. Burn it on a DVD, and install windows 7.

Note: This hack will work after every days of use, so try these commands 2
times just some days before your 30 days trail is going to end.

3. When installation is complete, open Command Prompt.

Type any of the three commands below:

sysprep /generalize
slmgr.vbs –rearm
rundll32 slc.dll,SLReArmWindows

This is how you can get 90 = 30+60 days of Windows 7 trail period.
 Remove Watermark
from Windows 7 beta
1 Desktop -
WIndows 7 is in its beta version
and you can realize it well with the
lapses in the operating system.
One such annoying feature with the
OS is the water mark embedded in
the desktop. To remove the
watermark you can follow the steps
below. Before beginning with the
 Use Virtual Hard Disk
Files -
You can now create and manage virtual
hard disks files in Windows 7 as if they were
real disks. This can allow you to use a live
Windows installation on the virtual disk
without the need to boot the virtual
Computer. To create a virtual disk you have
to press the Windows Key, right-click on
Computer, then go to
Manage
-> Disk Management
-> Action
 The Windows 7 beta has a pack
of hidden and locked themes.
Let's see how you can unlock
the hidden themes -
Step 1: Open the Explorer (Windows + E) and
go to C:\Windows\winsxs
Step 2: Enter *.theme into the search field.
Alternately you can use the * sign on the
number block.
Step 3: You'll get the Click me prompt
Step 4: Double-click the themes ZA, US, GB,
CA, AU to install them.
ANY QUERIES ??
 THANK YOU

GAURAV
(gaurav@h4ck3r.in)