Copyright: Registry Commander help by Anders Jakobsen.   Friday, June 07, 2002 13:15:32.


Help Contents
Help Contents:

Aezay Registry Commander v1.02

3rd Version Released: Friday, June 07, 2002.

[Introduction]

License Agreement (Please read this!)

What is Registry Commander?

What's new in this version and the previous?

Features in Registry Commander

[Getting Started]

Open Registry Commander...

Registry Commander Shortcuts

[Information]

Credits and Bug List
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Technical Registry Information

[Contact]

Please visit www.aezay.dk for the newest version of Registry Commander.

Comments, questions or suggestions are always accepted by mailing to support@aezay.dk.


What is Registry Commander?
What is Registry Commander?:

[Information]

This help file will try to help you use Registry Commander, which I see as a replacement for the low level functioned Registry Editor that comes with windows (REGEDIT.EXE). It will also try to answer some of the questions you might have about it.

If you just updated Registry Commander to a newer version, you might want to check out the new features and error that has been fixed in this or previous releases on the What's New in Registry Commander page. This will also help you learn some of the things that Registry Commander can do, which aren't explained elsewhere, but for a more simple and less technical list you should see a list of the Main features.

If you have some questions about Registry Commander you should see the Frequently Asked Questions before mailing me the question. On the Credits and Bug List you can also see who helped me in the creation of this tool, plus the currently known errors in this application.

[About Registry Commander]

I started to create Registry Commander because I saw a lot of other replacements for the windows registry editor available on the Internet, but all of them really didn't change how it worked, they still had a window to the left with the keys and window to the right with the values! Registry Commander changes all of this by putting all the keys and values in the same window, discarding the key tree to the left, which I can see no use of. This is also why I use Windows Commander (www.wincmd.com) instead of Explorer as a file browser (can you guess why I called it Registry Commander?).


License Agreement
License Agreement:

- BY INSTALLING AND/OR USING THIS APPLICATION, YOU AGREE NOT TO HELD THE AUTHOR RESPONSIBLE, IF ANY DAMAGE IS DONE TO YOUR FILES AND/OR COMPUTER, AS A RESULT OF USING THIS APPLICATION!

- IN OTHER WORDS, YOU RUN THIS APPLICATION AT YOUR OWN RISK!

- THIS APPLICATION EDITS A VITAL PART OF WINDOWS, NAMELY THE REGISTRY!
ANY CHANGES DONE TO THE REGISTRY CAN COURSE YOUR SYSTEM TO FAIL, SO IF YOU DO NOT DARE TO RUN THIS RISK, DO NOT USE THIS APPLICATION!

- IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THIS STATEMENT OR YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND IT, YOU MUST UNINSTALL THIS APPLICATION RIGHT NOW!


Registry Commander Shortcuts
Registry Commander Shortcuts:

Page Information
If any of these shortcuts are in conflict with other shortcuts, or some of them don't work, please tell me so.

Some functions in Registry Commander can only be access through a shortcut not from a menu item, others are currently only explained on this page, so you should really study this list.

File menu
Ctrl+R	Read the current key again

Ctrl+T	Open the Key Tree
Alt+Q	Close Registry Commander

Show menu
Alt+F7	Search Dialog

Ctrl+G	Jump to Specific Path

Alt+F1	Popup Registry Roots

F12	Show Registry Roots List

F9	Bookmarks

F10	Search Results

F11	Copied Items

Mark menu

Ctrl+Num+ or Ctrl+A	Select all Keys and Values

Ctrl+Num-	Unselects all selected Keys and Values

Num*	Invert Selection

Ins	Select next Key or Value

Options menu
F2	Configuration Dialog

Help menu
Shift+F1	This neat help file

F1	Show About Box

Right-Click menu
F7	New Key

Shift+F4	New Value

Ctrl+F4	Change Value Data Type

F4	Edit Value

F5	Copy to specified name or key

F6	Rename/Move to specified name or key

Ctrl+E	Export Key to .REG file

Shift+F6	Rename Key or Value

Ctrl+B	Bookmark Key or Value

Ctrl+X	Cut Key or Value

Ctrl+C	Copy Key or Value

Ctrl+V	Paste Key or Value

Other Shortcuts
Backspace	Jump to Parent key

Backspace (from the root)	Jump to Registry Root List

Ctrl+<	Jumps to the Root

Ctrl+< (from the root)	Jump to Registry Root List

Space	Show the size of all values in the selected key

Shift+Alt+Enter	Show the size of all values in all keys

Ctrl+Left	Go back in history

Ctrl+Right	Go forth in history

Ctrl+Down	Show history list

Ctrl+1	Jump to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT

Ctrl+2	Jump to HKEY_CURRENT_USER

Ctrl+3	Jump to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

Ctrl+4	Jump to HKEY_USERS

Ctrl+5	Jump to HKEY_PERFORMANCE_DATA

Ctrl+6	Jump to HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG

Ctrl+7	Jump to HKEY_DYN_DATA


What's New in Registry Commander
What's New in Registry Commander:

Registry Commander v1.02 - build 2284 - 02/06/07

- By pressing [F12] you can show all the roots directly in the listview, it can also be accessed through the Show menu. If you're in a root, you can press [Backspace] or [Ctrl+\] this will also show it. You can still use the [Alt+F1] shortcut to show a popup list of them.

- You can now change the font in the ListViews from the configuration dialog.

- The Jump to Path function [Ctrl+G] can now jump to more places, meaning that you can specify two dots (..) to jump to the parent key, and backslash (\) to jump to the root.

- You can show the full size of values in a key by pressing [Space] over one, or for all keys [Shift+Alt+Enter].

- Integrated the bookmark dialog into the main window, why didn't I do this in the 1st version, duh!

- Added a "Connect Registry" item in the File menu, it doesn't work correctly, but if any tries it out I would really like to know the result it shows, since I haven't got any network myself.

- Found another place in the code where I forgot to call RegCloseKey, so it should be more kind to Windows now!

- You can now Copy [F5] and Rename/Move [F6] both keys and values to a specified name or key. This works a bit like the cut/copy to clipboard function, except that it does it immediately you do not have to paste afterwards.

- Some shortcut keys has been changed, refer to the shortcut list.

- Fixed a very nasty bug that didn’t preserve the values within a key when it was renamed or moved. I’m really sorry if any of you lost data due to this!

- In the last version I fixed an error that ignored whether or not the "Key Word Filter" option was set. But it still compared the filter to "Key Names" which happened because I simply oversaw this when I made the "Value Names" and "Value Data" options check the "Key Word Filter" option. This has been fixed now!

Registry Commander v1.01 - build 1468 - 02/04/19

- Eliminated an access violence that could occur when you jumped to a non-existing key and RegCmd automatically jumped back to the root.

- Added a dialog that shows a key tree of the entire database, rather slow though.

- When you delete keys and/or values it will try to select the nearest key or value that wasn't deleted, instead of selecting the first item.

- Made it possible to create a new string value with no name (the default value), if you did that before RegCmd said that a value with that name already existed! But because Windows always says that the default value exists, even though it doesn't, it no longer checks if it exists, and it could be overwritten, so be careful when adding a default value!

- You can now export a key out to a .reg file, just like in Regedit. There are some limitations and the function is rather slow.

- RegCmd should try to close more key handles, but it still has some flaws in that area!

- Added help file "RegCmd.hlp" for better explanations.

- Fixed an error where you couldn't delete a key on Windows 2k/XP if it had subkeys (hopefully, I don't have Win2k to test it).

- When writing MultiString values, it will no longer append an extra line.

- Could only load data from an external file if you edited a binary value, not an unsupported type that is edited like binaries.

- When searching, I fixed an error that would ignore that you have unchecked the key word filter option, meaning that it acted like it was checked at all times.

- When cutting keys/values they get blurred out like in explorer.

- The bookmark lister will make sure the selected item is always visible.

Registry Commander v1.0 - build 1141 - 02/02/02

- This is the first version, more functions are to come!


Credits and Bug List
Credits and Bug List:

[Credits]

Anders Jakobsen - anders_jakobsen@hotmail.com - www.aezay.dk

The programmer of this application, the one to write bug reports to.
Aagade 36
9620 Aalestrup
Denmark

Christian Ghisler - www.ghisler.com

For making such a great program as Windows Commander, from where I got a lot of neat ideas to this application.

[Currently Known Bugs]

- I've heard from some users that there is a problem about Registry Commander doesn't close all registry key handles, but I don't know how to access information on how many key handles that are opened on ones computer. Anyway, I don't find this to slow the computer or Windows, so it's properly not that big a problem.

- Since this is one of the first versions there might be some bugs within the code, so if you find any please help exterminate them, by telling me of their presence!

[Limitation List]

- You can't copy or move a key from one registry root to another, support for this will be added later.

- When you edit binary values, you'll see that the editor for this isn't as good as other registry editor applications (not really a limitation).


Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Frequently Asked Questions:

I was trying to change a binary value into a string but it said there was an error?
That is properly because the binary value's size was zero, since a string's last byte *must* be a zero you can't change a value that doesn't even have a last byte, which they don't since their size is zero.

How do you reset the configurations?
Just delete the "RegCmd.ini" file that is in the same directory as the .EXE file. Yes that's right an application that manages the registry doesn't even save its configurations there!

I have an idea, which I think should be in Registry Commander?
That's great, just mail it to me and if it's a good idea, I'll put it into the next version.

Registry Commander doesn't close all key handles, can this slow down Windows!?
I know about this, but I don't know how to access the information about the number of open key handles in Windows 98, but it can be done in Windows 2k/XP. So it's difficult to optimize Registry Commander to close more key handles without this information. When it comes to whether or not this can slow down Windows, I don't know? I would say no since I can't feel that Windows gets slower. In v1.02 I've tried to call the RegCloseKey function more places, but I don't know if it helped. If you have comments or have tested the newest version not to have so many key handles open please contact me.

Have you made other programs?
Yes, but most of them are a lot smaller than this application. Check the list of all the application I've made, if you want to see more, take a visit at www.aezay.dk!

W'right Pad	Enhanced Notepad with more functions.

LAN File Searcher	Search through the local network for files!

Registry Commander	Enhanced registry editor!

File Formats	Read header info for a lot of file types!
VCD Database	Database application to Video CD's.
Nifty Worker	Shortcut handler to execute files and more.

SplitMania	An advanced file splitter.

PC Speaker Music	Write music for the PC Speaker!

Computer Info	Get information about your computer.

hWnd Monitor	HWND Debugging tool.

Worm	Classic game, known as Nibble or Snake!


Features in Registry Commander
Features in Registry Commander:

Page Information
This page shows the main features in Registry Commander.

Features in Registry Commander v1.02

- Registry Commander uses some standard shortcuts defined from back in the DOS days in applications such as Norton Commander.

- Supports all 11 data types in the registry, defined in the "winnt.h" header file.

- Copy or Rename/Move entire keys and values from one key to another.

- A history list has been added to quickly jump from current key to a previously key.

- Cut or Copy keys and values from one key and paste them into another, using the clipboard.

- Able to change a value's data type. E.g. you can change a string into a binary value without changing the contents of the data.

- Search part of or the entire registry database, not only can you search by a keyword, but you can also search by size or data type.

- Registry Commander allows you to bookmark keys or values so you can access the quickly.


Technical Registry Information
Technical Registry Information:

The registry always has some key handles open, these are the ones defined in the "winreg.h" header file. Some of these keys point to sub keys in others some don't. Here is the list of all defined open key handles:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT

HKEY_CURRENT_USER

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

HKEY_USERS

HKEY_PERFORMANCE_DATA

HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG

HKEY_DYN_DATA

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT points to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\CLASSES\ it contains file association information and other shell data.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER points to the profile in HKEY_USERS of the user currently logged in. If no user is currently logged in, it points to the HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT key. Therefore will settings stored in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER key only apply to the current user.

The HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE key stores information about the current computer and global configurations.

All specific user configurations are stored in a sub key in HKEY_USERS by the name of the user. The key name .DEFAULT is used if no users are logged in.

I don't know what the HKEY_PERFORMANCE_DATA key is for, because you cannot open it, but it's properly reserved for future use.

HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG contains information about the current configurations. This key is only defined from Windows 95 and above.

I don't know what the HKEY_DYN_DATA handle is used for. You cannot create sub keys here. This key is also only defined from Windows 95 and above.