Working with registry:
Registry as its name indicates it is the central core registrar of
windows system. It contains all information about the programs
installed on the system and how to respond to inputs of the user.
Customizing windows is very easy by working with the registry. In
windows 95/98 the entire registry is stored in USER.DAT and
SYSTEM.DAT; in windows Me there is another file called
CLASSES.DAT. In windows NT/2000 the registry is stored in %system
root%\system32\config directory. But, you cannot edit these files
directly to change the values in registry. To change the registry
settings there is an utility in windows known as ?REGEDIT?. Using
this utility you can comfortably edit the registry to hack your
windoze.
The registry has a tree structure and it looks similar to windows
explorer. The entire registry is divided to six hives with further
have sub-keys and values. The six main hives in the windows
registry are
HKEY_USERS ? This hive contains all information about the settings
for each user on the system. If there is only one user then only
?.default? key will be present.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER ? This is the link to HKEY_USERS. It loads the
appropriate settings like desktop settings, start menu settings
etc. for the current logged on user.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE - This hive contains all information about the
system starting from the hardware settings, software etc. to
information about the users on that system.
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT ? This hive contains all information about
windows shortcuts, file associations.
HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG ? This is an alias to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and
stores information about the current hardware configuration.
HKEY_DYN_DATA ? In this hive, changes in the values of registry
take place dynamically. So, this key is known a ?Dynamic Data
Key?.
The values to the sub-keys in the registry are defined by three
types.
String: This type is used to represent human readable values
Binary: In this type the information is stored in hexadecimal
format. It mainly stores information regarding hardware
configuration.
Dword: This is a Boolean format. To disable a Key change its value
to ?0? and ?1? to enable the key.
When you right click on any key in the left pane of registry, the
following options popup:
Expand: To expand the tree.
New: Creates a new key
Find: To find a sub-key in that key
Delete: Deletes the key
Rename: Renames the key
Copy Key Name: Copies the entire key
When you click on a key in the right pane the following options
popup:
Modify: Modifies the value of the key
Delete: Deletes the selected key
Rename: Renames the key
Registry Editor is included with the windows operating system. To
launch Registry Editor, click start and select run. In the Run
dialog box, type ?regedit? (without quotes) and click OK. You will
now see the Registry Editor launched to the screen. In the windows
registry you can neither add nor delete the main hives. You can
add or delete keys to these hives and even modify the values to
the keys.
With this concept you can easily hack your windows system. But, be
careful while working with registry. Editing the registry could
crash programs and even the entire Operating System.
Now we shall see some tricks you can play on windows registry to
customize (hack) your Windows using registry.
Run a program every time Windows starts:
You can run a program every time when the Windows startup. To do
this go ?HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Run? and
create a new string Value and modify its value to the path of the
program (Example: C:\program files\winamp\winamp.exe) you want to
start every time when Windows starts and restart the Windows. Your
program should automatically start on Windows startup.
Note: You can stop a program from loading at Windows startup by
removing the appropriate value from the ?Run? directory in
registry.
Display a notice every time Windows starts:
You can use this trick if you want a message to be displayed every
time Windows starts. Go to
?HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Winlogon?. Create a
new string values as follows.
Name: LegalNoticeCaption and Value: Caption of the dialog box
here
Name: LegalNoticeText and Value: Your message here
After adding the values, restart your Windows, a dialog box should
appear before the Windows startup.
Remove the ?shortcut to?? on shortcuts:
To do this go to the following key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\windows\currentversion\explorer
Create a new Binary value with name ?Link? (without quotes) and
change its value to ?00 00 00 00?. Restart your system for
applying your new settings.
Automatically logon to Windows:
Using this operation you can logon to your personal settings
without every time typing your passwords. Go to the key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
And create a new string value with name ?Default Password?
(Without quotes) and modify its value to your exact password.
Note: The default username can be found at
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Network\Logon\username.
Mon Jun 11, 2007 5:00 am
