Customer Reviews

Microsoft Windows XP Registry Guide (Bpg-Other)

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Jerry Honeycutt's, Windows XP Registry Guide, is an invaluable resource for any XP user. Two "registry guides" I read for previous Windows operating systems were a total waste of money. This book, however, is worth buying at any price.

I was a die-hard Windows 2000 user and disliked XP for many reasons. The new user interface, new services-running by default, hidden application settings, and generally, decisions Microsoft made based on marketing data for users who wanted someone else to make decisions for them.

I never wanted anything to do with XP, but when I needed two new computers earlier this year, I had no choice. I bought Jerry's book because I hoped to learn some basics about where Microsoft had hidden certain settings; I didn't know it would make me a Windows XP lover.

Not only were the basics like data types and key locations discussed, but also complex registry manipulation and deployment through scripting, Answer files, and Windows Installer.

The Windows XP Registry Guide takes a systematic approach to learning and using registry tools to get the most out or your XP system. Novice users will learn enough to make the book worthwhile by reading just the first section (five chapters), but once you get that far you will want to read it all. Jerry is careful to warn about careless hacking and thoroughly covers backing up and restoring the registry using tools already included in Windows XP and several third party tools. I was surprised to learn how useful Microsoft's Word application is in managing changes made to the registry.

If you already use TweakUI to manage your XP system, a complete mapping of every change is included in Chapter 5.

Are you an IT professional? This book will show you how to work around IT problems in Chapter 15. Also for the professional is detailed information about disk "cloning" using Sysprep. Using Group Policy settings, and deploying User Profiles.

Registry based security and security templates information in Chapter 7 will show you how to manage and control access in computers from "Simple File Sharing" in your home network or the control needed in a computer available to the public.

Another chapter I found particularly useful is the Office XP registry-based user settings covered in Chapter 15.

This book has it all, and to help even further are links to very important whitepapers and documentation available at Microsoft's Web site and additional third party resources. Add to this the four appendices; (A) File Associations, (B) Per-User Settings, (C) Per-Computer Settings, and (D) Group Policies, and you have exposed the heart and soul of the Windows XP operating system.

Buy this book!

Anyone who administers XP should get this book. All one has to do is try to manage multiple computers and it quickly becomes obvious that the GUI is not the easiest way to go. This title does an excellent job of mapping standard system policies and Tweak UI settings to specific registry settings giving you the ability to manipulate outside of the standard interfaces.

Beyond the policy mappings, the book also covers topics associated with the registry, such as creating your own group policy templates, managing deployments of user profiles, managing the way systems such as Office XP and the Windows Installer work, and providing recommendations as to ways to manage these settings via scripting. That said, keep in mind that the purpose of the book is to provide information on the registry and configuration settings, not to be an introduction to management utilities such as Resource Kit components or the WSH.

The appendices are an extremely valuable resource, providing at-a-glance table reference of user and computer settings, group policy mappings and file associations. Very handy.

The book is not meant for casual users of XP, or those that do not administer XP desktops, but for Administrators and developers, this is a recommended title.

I bought it when it was published and have been referring to it regularly. It is not for the computer novice but anyone new to Windows XP should learn a lot about how the registry is organised. If you are after extensive registry tweaks this book has limited scope but there are a lot of excellent guides on the internet. The same author wrote a Windows 2000 registry guide and anyone familiar with Windows 2000 would not find it so daunting.

The strengths of the book are: (1) presentation; (2) chapters on deployment; (3) backing up and (4) Group Policy mapping to registry keys (but containing some errors). Such information is hard to find elsewhere unless you set the policy and find out what changes (but there are hundreds of policies to verify).

The section on scripting is only introductory and does not tell you how to read or write REG_BINARY values in hexadecimals. There are four significant and quite unnecessary section repetitions: (1) autologon; (2) IE SearchURLs; (3) IE History Lists and (4) IE Toolbar background. Some sections like those on customising group policy templates and *.inf files are for IT professionals rather than home users but the advanced home users might benefit from reading about them.

It compliments rather than competes with another registry book by P. Hipson (from Sybex, but the Sybex falls behind by some margin in terms of usefulness.)

I've been reading Registry books ever since the registry started in Win311, and, although I have painfully figured out a lot of things about it, none of the books I read helped me in doing so. This book explains organization and function of the registry in a clear, no obfuscation way. Although the registry remains a complex and sometimes contradictory beast, this book, with a little work, will make it understandable, and no longer mysterious.

Don't allow the sections aimed at IT porfessionals put you off. "XP Registry Guide" is chock-full of good tips, good advice, and over-all good information.

First, I am NOT affiliated with Microsoft, the publisher or the author. I highly recommend this book for anyone wanting to learn about the registry. It can be used both as a reference and a learning aid. Two points of major emphasis: 1) There are no significant errors in the text and 2) support provided by the author. The few errors that are documented can be found, as documented in the book, can be found on the website. I personally sent e-mail to the author and while I did not expect to necessarily receive a reply, I did in under 2 days! While it would be nice to have a CD-ROM with the samples, they can be found on the website along with a forum that does receive replies from the author. I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn about the registry. I would say that it is for true Power Users or Administrators, but a novice should have no problems as enough background is given... Did I mention no errors? This is critical especially for the topic being discussed. Incorrect statements can lead to problems with machines as well as hinder the learning process.

We have all had to start somewhere at some time, either learning something new for the first time or just require a refresher. Whether you are a beginner, an Administrator or a Geek, or even an absolute know all, WINDOWS XP REGISTRY GUIDE *is* *the* reference to all XP registry related books. It should not only be seen as an advanced reference, which it is, but also comfortably suitable for those who fear to tread the labyrinth of your very own ntuser.dat [the registry] through regedit the registry editor. The book more than caters for all levels of PC literacy who look to get the most out of XP, and is the epitome of the control a user can apply to XP; the changes you can make are explained in great detail and with clinical focus and accuracy; the table of contents alone spans 12 pages as you would expect from such a complex component, such is the Registry. Each and every step describes what we the users want to know, how we can best to improve our own personal XP.
It took me a while deciding which XP registry book to buy, and one minute later my mind was made up, not just because it is simple and easy to understand but also because it is extremely well structured and thorough. I thought I knew enough about the registry before embarking on this purchase; but no, what it has done for me is piece together, what now appear to be, those fragments of my own knowledge of the registry, into an actual Power User of the registry. The author takes great care to remind us regularly throughout three chapters of the book just how important the backing up of the registry is when making any changes; but in essence this is not altogether necessary, because when you have the book in your possession youll know exactly what you will be doing, why and for what purpose.
This book is not a promotional offering, it is, if you want it, an invaluable tool with which to define your own personalised XP in performance, functionality and in practice, but more importantly as *you* want it, and not necessarily how Microsoft have given it to you. It also offers information on other tools that enhance our understanding of how the registry works behind the scenes.
There are utilities that provide instant gratification for tweaking the registry that will cost you, in some cases, as much if not more money for a fraction of the tweaks and hacks contained within this book WINDOWS XP REGISTRY GUIDE.
Sure, these turnkey utilities give the user instant but again limited ability to make changes, for better but also for worse in some cases; but these Tweaking utilities that you can download *do not* cut the mustard, they barely scratch the surface when it comes to hacking or tweaking the registry; in any event, there is *no substitute* for really knowing how these changes are made, critically important is why, what and where.
I would not hesitate to recommend this book to anyone wanting to enhance XP; just for the hacks/tweaks alone that it offers, youll get your moneys worth and then some.
So why only four stars you ask yourself; well, there will always be areas of improvement that can be applied to any book, but NOT in the case of this book, this book really does hit the spot; Just four stars will hopefully encourage Jerry Honeycutt to append to an already successful accomplishment more secrets of the registry, at least I hope so. It's got 5 stars *****

This is a fantastic resource for the Windows XP registry. While there are many new registry settings that are Windows XP specific, there are also MANY registry settings that apply to many of the previous versions of Windows. This book is not for registry beginners, but is an excellent resource for those experienced in making registry modifications. The book discusses several different ways of making registry modifications including using the GUI registry tools, the command line REG.EXE and via INF files. I make registry modifications on a VERY regular basis as part of my job as a Network Consultant - this book is an excellent resource, I only wish that the book came with a CD-ROM that included an electronic version of the book so that I didn't have to travel with the book.

If you already have some experience performing registry modifications and need to know what needs to be modified to do what you need to do, then this is the book for you.

Within the first 5 minutes of reading this book I had found an answer to a tweak I was looking for.
This book gets granular in it's details, not just how to's for [non-pros] but how to's for pros.
I you deploy desktop solutions and you need to customize..this is the book for you.

Everybody who works with Windows XP knows that REGISTRY is not only a heart of that OS but, I would say, sick heart, so without the book "Microsoft Windows XP Registry Guide" written by Jerry, Jr. Honeycutt and Jerry Honeycutt you can do nothing to fix numerous problems, which, no doubts, you are going to meet with purchasing Windows XP. Comprehensible language and professional approach makes it an excellent guide into so sensitive area of Windows XP.
I would recommend to Microsoft to sell OS Windows XP together with this book, so customer could fix the problems, which everyone starts getting while working on WinXP.
It is very helpful book, indeed.

Not for the beginner or the faint of heart. The registry is that thing down at the bottom of the operating system that controls what the Windows XP operating system does.

Thankfully the first part of the book starts out with pretty basic information like what's in the registry. Then it discusses its structure, and begins to define some of those cryptic things like HKEY_USERS, and a bunch of other HKEY's. At the very least, the information in Part I is of interest and probably something that any fairly advanced user should know.

Part II gets into Registry in Management, this has chapters on Using Registry-Based Policy, Windows Security, Troubleshooting and so on.

Part III, Registry in Deployment is on using the registry to set up individual systems in a broad based deployment.

All in all, this is the most complete, best thought out book on the registry available. This is the second edition of the book on Windows XP, but it follows on previous books where Mr. Honeycutt described the registry on previous operating systems such as Windows 2000. His development of both understanding and the ability to describe that understanding is based on writing several previous books.