Jim Guckin

With almost any discussion we have about the registry, I always want to stress the same message.  Messing with the registry can cause you system to become unstable or not work.  Please make sure you backup the registry prior to making changes.  Now with that out of the way, I wanted to show you some cool registry changes that you can make in Vista or XPs  registry that you can’t do in a user interface.

1. Disable Autoplay

1. Windows Key + R (brings up the run command)
2. Type CMD (opens command prompt)
3. Go to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer.
4. Create a DWORD named NoDriveTypeAutoRun.
5. Set the value to 000000FF.

2. Increase the Maximum Number of simultaneous Downloads

When I am doing some research on a project, I download a lot of files and I always ran into the simultaneous download limit, and had to wait for one download  before starting another.  If you run into this, it can be frustrating, but there is way around this.

1. In Registry Editor  go to HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings.
2. Create a new DWORD named MaxConnectionsPerServer
3. Set a value of 0000000a.
4. Create a new DWORD named MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server
5. Assign it a value of 0000000a.

1. In Registry Editor go to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion.
2.  Change the values to the RegisteredOwner and RegisteredOrganization keys to reflect your desired info

4.Encrypt and decrypt from the shortcut menu

If you encrypt or decrypt files in files in XP Pro or Vista, you have to go through the properities of the file and the advance button. Then you get the the encrypt or decrypt options.  There’s of course a simpler way, justt add it to the menu when you right click on the file:

1. In the Registry Editor go to HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced.
2. Create a new DWORD called EncryptionContextMenu
3. Assign it a value of 1.

5.Disable User Account Control

Anyone who has Vista, has most likely complained about the User Account Control feature.  Where Administrators who attempt to perform an administrative action receive a prompt asking whether they initiated the action. I think that this prompt is a valuable safeguard against malware, but since a lot of people don’t like it, here’s how to use the registry editor to suppress the prompt:

1. In the registry editor go to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
2. Change the value of the ConcentPromptBehaviorAdmin key to 00000000.

Then reboot and poof now you’ve made the changes you wanted.  Are there any registry changes that you like that can only be done via the registry and not the user interface?  Let me know in the comments below.