Microsoft Windows XP Registry Guide

by Jerry Honeycutt

Book Overview

This title for power users and IT professionals is the authoritative source for information on the Windows XP registry and how to modify it to suit your administrative and personal needs. The Windows... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0735617880
• ISBN13: 9780735617889
• Release Date: October 2002
• Publisher: Microsoft Press
• Length: 497 Pages
• Weight: 2.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 7.4" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

the best reference book on the subject

I bought it when it was published and have been referring to it regularly. It is not for the computer novice but anyone new to Windows XP should learn a lot about how the registry is organised. If you are after extensive registry tweaks this book has limited scope but there are a lot of excellent guides on the internet. The same author wrote a Windows 2000 registry guide and anyone familiar with Windows 2000 would not find it so daunting.The strengths of the book are: (1) presentation; (2) chapters on deployment; (3) backing up and (4) Group Policy mapping to registry keys (but containing some errors). Such information is hard to find elsewhere unless you set the policy and find out what changes (but there are hundreds of policies to verify).The section on scripting is only introductory and does not tell you how to read or write REG_BINARY values in hexadecimals. There are four significant and quite unnecessary section repetitions: (1) autologon; (2) IE SearchURLs; (3) IE History Lists and (4) IE Toolbar background. Some sections like those on customising group policy templates and *.inf files are for IT professionals rather than home users but the advanced home users might benefit from reading about them.It compliments rather than competes with another registry book by P. Hipson (from Sybex, but the Sybex falls behind by some margin in terms of usefulness.)

Finally, a sensible Registry book

I've been reading Registry books ever since the registry started in Win311, and, although I have painfully figured out a lot of things about it, none of the books I read helped me in doing so. This book explains organization and function of the registry in a clear, no obfuscation way. Although the registry remains a complex and sometimes contradictory beast, this book, with a little work, will make it understandable, and no longer mysterious. Don't allow the sections aimed at IT porfessionals put you off. "XP Registry Guide" is chock-full of good tips, good advice, and over-all good information.

Jerry Honeycutt's XP Registry Guide Has it All

Jerry Honeycutt's, Windows XP Registry Guide, is an invaluable resource for any XP user. Two "registry guides" I read for previous Windows operating systems were a total waste of money. This book, however, is worth buying at any price.I was a die-hard Windows 2000 user and disliked XP for many reasons. The new user interface, new services-running by default, hidden application settings, and generally, decisions Microsoft made based on marketing data for users who wanted someone else to make decisions for them.I never wanted anything to do with XP, but when I needed two new computers earlier this year, I had no choice. I bought Jerry's book because I hoped to learn some basics about where Microsoft had hidden certain settings; I didn't know it would make me a Windows XP lover.Not only were the basics like data types and key locations discussed, but also complex registry manipulation and deployment through scripting, Answer files, and Windows Installer.The Windows XP Registry Guide takes a systematic approach to learning and using registry tools to get the most out or your XP system. Novice users will learn enough to make the book worthwhile by reading just the first section (five chapters), but once you get that far you will want to read it all. Jerry is careful to warn about careless hacking and thoroughly covers backing up and restoring the registry using tools already included in Windows XP and several third party tools. I was surprised to learn how useful Microsoft's Word application is in managing changes made to the registry. If you already use TweakUI to manage your XP system, a complete mapping of every change is included in Chapter 5. Are you an IT professional? This book will show you how to work around IT problems in Chapter 15. Also for the professional is detailed information about disk "cloning" using Sysprep. Using Group Policy settings, and deploying User Profiles. Registry based security and security templates information in Chapter 7 will show you how to manage and control access in computers from "Simple File Sharing" in your home network or the control needed in a computer available to the public.Another chapter I found particularly useful is the Office XP registry-based user settings covered in Chapter 15.This book has it all, and to help even further are links to very important whitepapers and documentation available at Microsoft's Web site and additional third party resources. Add to this the four appendices; (A) File Associations, (B) Per-User Settings, (C) Per-Computer Settings, and (D) Group Policies, and you have exposed the heart and soul of the Windows XP operating system.Buy this book!

Registry and More

Anyone who administers XP should get this book. All one has to do is try to manage multiple computers and it quickly becomes obvious that the GUI is not the easiest way to go. This title does an excellent job of mapping standard system policies and Tweak UI settings to specific registry settings giving you the ability to manipulate outside of the standard interfaces.Beyond the policy mappings, the book also covers topics associated with the registry, such as creating your own group policy templates, managing deployments of user profiles, managing the way systems such as Office XP and the Windows Installer work, and providing recommendations as to ways to manage these settings via scripting. That said, keep in mind that the purpose of the book is to provide information on the registry and configuration settings, not to be an introduction to management utilities such as Resource Kit components or the WSH. The appendices are an extremely valuable resource, providing at-a-glance table reference of user and computer settings, group policy mappings and file associations. Very handy.The book is not meant for casual users of XP, or those that do not administer XP desktops, but for Administrators and developers, this is a recommended title.

Highly Recommended

First, I am NOT affiliated with Microsoft, the publisher or the author. I highly recommend this book for anyone wanting to learn about the registry. It can be used both as a reference and a learning aid. Two points of major emphasis: 1) There are no significant errors in the text and 2) support provided by the author. The few errors that are documented can be found, as documented in the book, can be found on the website. I personally sent e-mail to the author and while I did not expect to necessarily receive a reply, I did in under 2 days! While it would be nice to have a CD-ROM with the samples, they can be found on the website along with a forum that does receive replies from the author. I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn about the registry. I would say that it is for true Power Users or Administrators, but a novice should have no problems as enough background is given... Did I mention no errors? This is critical especially for the topic being discussed. Incorrect statements can lead to problems with machines as well as hinder the learning process.