PCTechNotes :: PC Tips, Tricks and Tweaks » registry editing

How to Change The Default Location For Installing Applications

slavezero — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:36:05 +0000

When you install a certain software or game it normally installs them to the default location of installed programs which is C:\Program Files. Most application installer gives you the option to change the location where you will place the software, but some applications don’t give you the luxury to do that.

You may want to change the program installer location if you have several partitions or hard drive and want to put all the installed programs on another disk while leaving the primary disk with only windows files installed. This is also useful for computer shop/Internet cafe owners and most of them of them specially here in our place use this trick. They place all the PC games on another partition then freezes the primary disk to protect the windows system files from being damaged any viruses.

Here is a simple guide on how you can change the default location for installing applications. This trick involves registry editing so I highly suggest that you make a backup first on your registry before proceeding with this guide.

1. Run your registry editor by going into Start –> Run –> type regedit

2. Browse to the following keys

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion

3. On the right hand pane Look for the value named ProgramFilesDir. It’s default value is c:\Program Files. Change it to your preferred location. ex. d:\Games or d:\Programs.

How to Remove Recycle Bin Icon on Desktop

slavezero — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 17:05:16 +0000

If you don’t use your Recycle bin to store deleted windows files then you might want to remove it from your desktop. Here is a quick trick to remove it. This trick involves registry editing so I highly suggest that you make a backup first on your registry before proceeding with the steps below.

1. Click on Start –> Run –> type Regedit

2. Browse down to the following values.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/explorer/Desktop/NameSpace

3. Click on the Recycle Bin on the right hand pane then press delete.

4. Say goodbye to your Recycle Bin Icon on your desktop

How to Remove Shutdown Button on Logon Screen

slavezero — Wed, 20 May 2009 14:54:35 +0000

Having the shutdown button displayed on your Windows XP logon screen can be very inconvenient at times. Your kids or any people that are sharing your computer can accidentally turn off your computer and close all you programs. To prevent this from happening you can just easily disable the “Turn off computer” button.

You can do this in two ways. One is through the Administrative Tools and and second is by editing some registry value.

If you don’t own a Windows XP professional machine then editing the registry will be your only choice. But before you do that make sure that you make a backup of your registry.

Step 1: Disabling using the Local Policy Settings

1. Go to Control Panel

2. Click on Administrative Tools

3. Click on Local Security Policy

4. Under Local Security Settings Go to Local Policies then Security Options. Scroll down, look for “Shutdown: Allow system to be shut down without having to log on”

5. Double click “Shutdown: Allow system to be shut down without having to log on” then select “disabled”

Step 2: Registry Editing

1. Click on Start, Go to Run then type Regedit

2. Navigate to the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\policies\system

3. Change the value of ‘shutdownwithoutlogon‘ to ’0′.

How to remove W32:Navidad (Navidad.Exe)

slavezero — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 06:42:08 +0000

This Internet trojan spreads via email as an attachment (NAVIDAD.EXE). This worm also displays a message box upon execution and maps the opening of Windows executables so that it is executed instead of the executable that is called. This causes most Windows programs to not work.

Ways to remove the Navidad Trojan

The easiest way is to download Navidad Fix This is a program that can clean up the registry entries and delete the dropped file, WINSVRC.VXD.

After cleaning the system, restart it and run an anti-virus program to detect and clean any other infected files.

How to Manually remove W32:Nvidad

To delete this trojan Registry editing is needed.

Click on Start, Find, Files or Folders

Search for REGEDIT.EXE

Rename REGEDIT.EXE to REGEDIT.COM

Run REGEDIT.COM

In the left panel of the Registry Editor, click on the “+” at left of the names to go to the registry below: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shell\open\command

In the right panel, double-click on the entry with the data

(Default) = “%systemdir%\WINSVRC.EXE”%1″”%*”

where %systemdir% is the Windows system directory; e.g., \WINDOWS\SYSTEM for Win 9x, and \WINNT\SYSTEM32 for NT/2K.

In the Edit window that appears, delete the entire first part of the string, leaving behind “%1″%*”

As in step 5, go to the registry entry below:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

Click on the entry below, then press “DELETE”

Win32BaseServiceMOD = %systemdir%\WINSVRC.EXE

Go to the registry entry below:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Navidad

Delete this key

Reboot your system

Scan your system with an up-to-date virus scanner

Rename REGEDIT.COM back to REGEDIT.EXE

How to individually remove typed URL’s

slavezero — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 12:39:44 +0000

Everytime you type an address on every browser the URL history is automatically saved. These are very helpful to easily access the previously visited sites. But what if while you were surfing on the internet looking at things you suddenly stumbled a site you should not have been looking or you visited a site you don’t want any of your family members or friends to know that you visited such sites. The quick answer is “clear all private data”. yes that will work but then again what if you just want to remove a specific url, here are the steps to do that.

How to remove URL history on Internet Explorer

Removing typed URL’s on Internet Explorer requires Registry editing. Before editing your registry I strongly advice to first Backup your registry

Click on Start, Run

Type REGEDIT and press Enter or Click OK

Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Internet Explorer/TypedURLs

On the right column right click on the url that you want to remove then click delete

Open Internet Explorer and check if the unwanted URL’s are successfully removed.

How to remove URL history on Mozilla Firefox

Removing typed URL’s in Firefox is a walk in the park. Simply drop down the address bar list and highlight the unwanted URL. Then press CTRL-DELETE on the keyboard to delete the individual unwanted address.

Removing histories is also important so no one can track your computer usages and all other proof of where you were..