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WIN 98 REGISTRY

Add Attribute Column to Win 98SE Explorer
After installing Win 98SE, you will find that there is no Attribute column in Explorer. You can add this by launching RegEdit (click Start/Run, enter RegEdit in the “Open:” field, and click OK) and then selecting HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/
CurrentVersion/Explorer/Advanced. Double-click on ShowAttribCol and change the “Value data:” field from 0 to 1.

Change the default for REG files
If you export a Registry key to disk or create a special RegEdit script, double-clicking the file automatically merges its content with the Registry. You can prevent inadvertent merging of REG files by changing the default action to display a REG file in Notepad. Select View/Options/Filetypes (Folder Options in Win98). Then select Registration Entries from the Registered Filetype list and click Edit. Choose Edit and Set Default. When you do want to merge a file into the Registry, right-click it and select Merge from the popup menu.

Changing the Registration Information After Installing Windows
If you have installed Windows NT 4.0 and you want to change the registration information (what you see when you right click My Computer/Properties), you can do so by editing the system registry. Open the registry (Start/Run, type regedit and click OK) and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/WindowsNT/CurrentVersion. Be sure to click on the folder icon next to the CurrentVersion key entry to display the values in the right pane. Scroll down to RegisteredOwner, double-click on it, and enter the new information. You can use this same technique to change the RegisteredOrganization value. This procedure also works in Windows 98, except that the registry entry is ../Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion.

Customize Win98 ScanReg
ScanReg is a built-in utility that, by default, monitors and backs up the Windows 98 Registry at least once a day. The default behavior of ScanReg can be controlled through settings listed in SCANREG.INI. It allows you to increase or decrease the number of saved Registry backups on disk (the default is five), change where Registry backups are stored, specify additional files (such as AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS) to be saved with each Registry backup, and disable automatic backups or automatic optimization.

Dial-Up Somewhere Else
The log-in, telephone number and IP address information for all your Dial-Up Networking profiles are stored in the Registry. You can back these settings up or transfer them to another Win98 computer. Open RegEdit to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\RemoteAccess key and highlight it in the left pane. Use the Registry/Export Registry File command to back up this branch of the Registry. (Choose the Selected branch option and assign a name, such as MY DUN.REG.) You can use this trick to transfer your Dial-Up Networking profiles to a second PC. Copy MY DUN.REG to a diskette, run RegEdit on the second machine and import this file into the second computer’s Registry.

Disabling Screen Savers During Defrag
You should always disable your screen saver before running the Defrag utility. If you forget to do this, you're forced to move your mouse every few minutes to keep the screen saver from activating. An easier solution is to run REGEDIT (Click Start/Run, enter RegEdit in the “Open:” field, and click OK)and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Applets . Create a new key called DEFRAG. Within this key create a subkey called Settings. In the Settings subkey create a string value and label it "DisableScreenSaver" (without the quotes). Edit the value "Default" and change it to YES. This tip will keep the screen saver from activating when Defrag is running but will turn it back on again at exit.

Forge a New Installation Path
When you make modifications to Windows 95 or 98, such as adding new programs or hardware, the OS always looks in the original source path for the CAB installation files. If you copy the files to a new location, you can modify the internal pointer to the directory that contains all of the CABs. Open RegEdit, and use the Edit/Find command to search for the text string Sourcepath, or go directly to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup. Double-click the Sourcepath entry in the right RegEdit pane and enter the new location for the Windows 98 installation files.

Repair Your Windows 98 Registry
Normally, if ScanReg detects a corrupt Registry at boot time, the bad version is replaced with a good backup. This can sometimes be inconvenient. If your Windows 98 setup is missing recent configuration changes after a Registry replacement, you can attempt to repair and reinstall the corrupted version. Create a temporary directory (for example, C:\TEMP), then open Explorer to the WINDOWS\SYSBCKUP folder. Right-click RBBAD.CAB (the archived version of your old defective Registry) and select View. Select all the files in the RBBAD.CAB window. Right-click and choose Extract. Extract the contents of RBBAD.CAB to the temporary folder you’ve created. Exit Windows to MS-DOS mode.

Go to the \WINDOWS directory and issue the DOS command: ATTRIB -R -H -S *.DAT. Copy the corrupted versions of WIN.INI, SYSTEM.INI, SYSTEM.DAT. and USER.DAT from the temporary directory to the \WINDOWS directory. Don’t worry about losing the “good” Registry. If the repair attempt fails, ScanReg can unpack and restore it again. Enter SCANREG /FIX at the DOS command line. ScanReg will examine the “corrupted” SYSTEM.DAT and USER.DAT files you’ve placed in the \WINDOWS directory and attempt to repair them. After ScanReg completes its work, reboot the computer.

Right-Click Backup
Add a right-click command that performs a quick file backup on any selected folder. Open RegEdit to the HKEY_CLASSES_ ROOT\Directory\shell\ key. Create a key under Shell called Backup. Create a subkey under Backup called Command. To back up the folder to a hard disk directory or floppy drive, modify the default value for the Command key to read COMMAND.COM /C XCOPY /S %1 C:\BACKUPS or COMMAND.COM /C XCOPY /S %1 A:. You can append XCOPY parameters to customize a backup by date, reset file attributes and so forth.

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