Learn Windows tweaking with Gpedit and Regedit – Part 1 & 2 merged

[riteshtechie]

If you like Tweaking Windows than you must be aware of Regedit, it’s the best way to change the settings of Windows, like its operation, its behavior, for instance, you can disable access or hide any drive using Registry Editor (Regedit). But the problem with editing registry is that you need to know where, which key and of what type should be created to perform a following job.

But this is not the case with Group Policy Editor, in fact you can say it is an inbuilt Tweaking Tool from Microsoft which let you tweak various configuration, and you don’t need to do any thing, all you have to do is to identify what you want to do and then enable or disable it. As simple as that.

In this tutorial I will show you how you can know what Key name and Key Value you should use in Regedit to change a particular setting which is already defined in Group Policy Editor. The following tutorial is divided into two parts this part will show you how to Tweak Windows Settings using Gpedit and the second part will show you how to do the same by using Regedit.

Tutorial Part-1 begins:

To tweak into Windows you need to first open Group Policy Editor (GPEDIT), to open it click Start, type gpedit.msc in the Start Search box, and then press ENTER.



Now you can use GPEDIT to tweak windows various configuration like you can tweak Windows Explorer, Internet Explorer, Taskbar etc.

For the sake of the tutorial I am using a simple tweak – How To Hide any drive from My Computer.

Step 1. Open Group Policy Editor (Press Win+R and type Gpedit.msc and press Enter)

Step 2. Navigate to User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Component > Windows Explorer

Step 3. Now on the right Hand side i.e Settings Pane look for Hide these specified drives in My Computer.

Step 4. Double Click on it and Enable it, now choose from the drop down box which drive you want to hide (I choose All – Restrict All Drives)



Step 5. Now click on Apply and click OK, now you can see that Hide these specified drives in My Computer is Enabled.



Step 6. Now logoff and login back to see changes.

So this is how we tweak into system, now when you open My Computer next time you will see nothing, all drives were hidden, in order to get them back go to Gpedit and set the Hide these specified drives in My Computer setting to Disable. That’s it.

In the next part we will see how to obtain a Registry Key Name, its Type and its Value Data to do the same thing with it.

Note

Local Group Policy Editor is available in Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Ultimate, and Windows 7 Enterprise. For more information, [url="http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=139815"]visit here

[safeguy]

Great tutorial....I'm looking forward to reading more. To be honest, I rarely use Gpedit.msc...I usually tweak Windows by using regedit.exe instead or with .reg files. All comes from Googling...and stumbling upon sites such Kelly's Korner and TweakHounds, etc.

Not to forget, I'm one of those who love using all-in-one Windows tweakers tools. Gets the job done quickly...

[riteshtechie]

Great tutorial....I'm looking forward to reading more. To be honest, I rarely use Gpedit.msc...I usually tweak Windows by using regedit.exe instead or with .reg files. All comes from Googling...and stumbling upon sites such Kelly's Korner and TweakHounds, etc.

Not to forget, I'm one of those who love using all-in-one Windows tweakers tools. Gets the job done quickly...

Hey SafeGuy you are gonna love this tutorial.

Because after the tutorial is completed you will most probably figure out tweaks by your own, without GOOGLING :P

[kavinraja]

Nice tutorial ritesh. Though i use use regedit much, i use gpedit.msc some times too especially when i am in my college PC's
(Get little time to finish up tweaking before catching attention of my professors).
Registry editing is much effective, but gpedit is much noob friendly to play around.

[sujay]

Guys I noticed that gpedit is missing in xp home version. It is in xp pro, vista/7 ultimate. can't tell about other versions of vista/7.
Here is a patch to make gpedit work in xp home.
http://www.persianhub.org/general-help/168889-add-gpedit-msc-win-xp-home-edition.html
but

PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK.

else use Windows® XP Security Console
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_securityconsole.htm

And although I don't want to spoil this tutorial... here are some original tutorials on Group Policy
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307882/en-us
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc758350(WS.10).aspx
http://www.theeldergeek.com/group_policy_editor.htm
http://www.theeldergeek.com/group_policy_for_windows_xp_prof.htm

[Alboguy]

Good job sujay!! I'm gonna read it carefully later.

[sujay]

me too...

[Alboguy]

A cool...it's awesome to have such devoted users in this forum

[KaYaN]

Wow..it's great..Wait for the next one.

[sujay]

A cool...it's awesome to have such devoted users in this forum

Thanks.......