Registry Tweaks

Before you tweak (introduction)

Tweaks listed below are simple modifications to the registry. Neither of them will have any serious impact on your system's performance, but may make life a lot easier for you.

To apply a tweak, download and save the linked .reg file, and double-click it from Explorer. This will enter the new information into the registry. Note there's no uninstall available for these items.

The .reg files are plain text files, you can edit them and see what they do using a text editor like NotePad.


Windows NT Tweaks

  • No Watson. If an application crashes, a memory dump is created, and the system's default debugger (default Dr. Watson) is run. This sets this option disabled, saving a lot of time when an application crashes, and only runs the debugger on demand.
  • See more text files. This registers .res, .log, .h and .c files as text/plain files, so you can directly view them from a browser window. Modify the file if you want more types registered.
  • Autocomplete. UNIX users have missed this feature from the early days on: The ability to auto-complete a filename from the command line. While the command line isn't a popular tool, it's a neccesary evil now and then. Applying this patch allows you to use TAB to auto-complete a filename from an NT command prompt.
  • No hidden shares. Prevents the hidden shares ADMIN$ and C$ from being created automatically. Makes your workstation or server less vulnerable. Note that remote administration will also be hindered by this tweak.
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 tweaks

  • Increase maximum connections to 8. By default, IE opens max 4 connections to HTTP and FTP servers. After this tweak, the number is increased to 8. This may increase your performance. In some cases, performance actually drops. The tweak is very efficient for downloading lots of small files from HTTP/1.0 servers using a relatively fast (LAN) connection.