What??™s the point? Once you find the Registry value(s) responsible for a particular
setting, you can:
Find hidden settings. Not all application settings have tidy little checkboxes
in a Preferences dialog window; some things can only be changed
in the Registry. By finding out where an application saves its settings,
you can uncover others nearby and even learn how they work.
Reproduce settings. By finding the Registry keys and values responsible for
one or more settings, you can consolidate them into a Registry patch file
(described later in this chapter), and then apply them to any number of
other PCs. This is particularly useful for network administrators and
software developers.
Enter values not permitted by the software. For instance, say you??™ve configured
a virus scanner to scan your system once a week. You??™d rather
have it perform a scan every 10 days, but the program only lets you
choose a multiple of 7. If you find the Registry value responsible, you
may be able to enter any arbitrary number.
Fix bugs in software. If an application won??™t save a particular setting properly
in the Registry, you can fix it by hand if you know where it??™s stored.
Prevent changes to certain settings. Some programs??”including Windows
Vista itself??”have a habit of ???forgetting??? certain settings, reverting them
to their default values for no apparent reason. Once you know where
the setting is stored, you can change the permissions (more on that
later) to prevent further changes without your consent.
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