Some Useful Windows Registry Tricks

Windows registry is a powerful windows component using which we can change lots of windows settings and can make our computer better and fast also. So I'm sharing some windows registry tricks which might be useful for you all.

1. Improve Security

If other people can access your computer, then they can easily steal your data through pen drives. So, to stop them, you can enable write protection for USB drives. It can be done by opening registry editor (open run, type regedit and press enter) and going to HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies. Now create a new DWORD value and name it as WriteProtect and double click on it and set it's value to 1. Now, you will be able to read USB drives but will not be able to write any data in them.

2. Tame User Account Control

You can disable annoying alerts in Windows Vista by changing the UAC behavior through registry. To do this, set HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System\ConsentPromptBehaviorAdmin to 0. To restore the settings, set it to 2.

3. Change the Owner Name of the Computer

While installing windows on a computer, it asks for the owner and organisation name. You can check it by opening Run and typing winver and pressing enter. If you want to change the owner name and organisation name, navigate to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion and there, you will see RegisteredOwner and RegisteredOrganisation values. Double click on them and change the names.

4. Sort Files Properly

To restore regular ASCII file ordering, navigate to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Currentversion\Policies\Explorer in registry editor and create a new DWORD value and name it NoStrCmpLogical and set it's value to 1. Delete the key to restore the standard Explorer approach.

5. Troubleshoot Windows Startup

If windows is taking long time in startup and shutdown, then it may be a problem. Navigate to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System in registry editor and create a new DWORD value and name it as verbosestatus and set it's value to 1. Now Restart your PC and Windows will tell you what it's getting up to.

6. Manage Folder Types

Windows automatically changes the folder type according to the contents of the folder, it means that if you contain photos in any folder, the folder type is automatically changed in the type pictures. But if we have any folder which contains mixed contents, such as music, photos, documents etc, then folder type is changed into music folder. To fix this problem, navigate to HCU\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell in registry editor and delete the Bags subkey. Now create a new key Bags in the same location. Now create two more keys named AllFolders and Shell. Now navigate to HCU\Software\Classes\LocalSettings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\ Bags\AllFolders\Shell and right click in the right hand panel and create new string value. Name this new string value as FolderType and double click over it. Now set it's value to NotSpecified.

7. Encrypt Files Easily To Secure Them

Navigate to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced and create a new DWORD and name it as EncryptionContextMenu and set it's value to 1. Now right click on any file and click Encrypt to secure the file.