Sometimes there are certain features of the windows which are annoying or they are just simply useless. There is no way to remove them unless you dig deeper into the windows settings and modify them.
In this article we will look at some of the best registry hacking tips that will allow you to modify your windows to your liking.
1. Removing Programs From Open With Menu In Windows Explorer:
Most of the time in the open with menu of windows explorer contains file name with which you have accidentally opened a totally different file. It gets annoying so here is how you can remove them:
- Open start menu and type in the search bar regedit and press enter
- Before you start modifying the registry make a back up
- Click on file and then click on export
- Now browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER Software Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion Explorer FileExts
- You will see a list of file extensions that are available in your PC
- Browse to the extension you want to edit and click on white triangle beside it to see the subfolders
- Now if you look at the right side of the window right click on the value for program you don’t want to see in the open with menu and delete it.
2. Adding Defragment to Right Click Menu For A Drive:
- Open regedit.exe from start menu and enter HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTDriveshell
- Create a new key under the shell runas and then set the default value to Defragment
- Now create a key called command and set its default value to the following defrag %1 –v
- Now every time you right click a drive you will see the defragment option.
3. Making Windows 7 taskbar Switch to Last Active Window
The Windows aero is really awesome thing which will allow you to see all the open windows in the same category. It would be awesome if you could directly open the last active window just by clicking on the icon in the taskbar. Here is the hack to do it:
- Open regedit.exe through the start menu and go to the following registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerAdvanced
- Create a 32-bit DWORD value on the right side of the window and give its name as LastActiveClick and set its default value to 1
- After you are done restart your windows or kill your explorer.exe through taskmanager and restart it.
4. Removing Unwanted Items In The Control Panel
In this hack you will be able to remove the unwanted shortcut from the control panel which you rarely use. By doing this you can reduce the cluster of program options in your control panel.
To Hide The Items In The Control Panel Do The Following:
- There are some files for which you can’t delete the CPL if it’s a windows related file. In such cases you can hide the items.
- Open regedit.exe through start menu and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesExplorer
- After you have reached that place create a DWORD value
- Name the DWORD value to Disallow.Cpl and give it a value of 1
- Create a new key and name it DisallowCpl
- Now in disallowcpl key create a string value for the items that you don’t want to see in the control panel.
- For example to remove the Sync center from control panel name the string value sync center and value data also same name and click ok.
- Now close and open the control panel and you will no longer see those items in the control panel.
To Remove The CPL file Associated With The Icon Do The Following:
- You need to have administrator access and navigate to C:WindowsSystem32
- After you enter ystem32 folder type in the search bar *.cpl
- After it displays the CPL files you can scroll down and the find the one you want to remove for example RTSnMg64.cpl is for Realtek Sound Manager
- Before you delete the CPL file make sure to create a backup
- After you have deleted it go to the control panel and you will see that the entry has been removed.
Hopefully these tips were helpful to you and by editing the registry you can control your windows behavior but be careful when you are editing the registry it can lead to the crashing of your windows. So always make a backup before editing the registry.
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