Jan 7 2009, 10:44 PM, updated 17y ago
Often heard of some senior member here mentioned about tweaking this and that? Afraid it will ruin or bricked our device? Worry not….this tutorial will guide you thru regardless whether you’re totally newbie or seasoned WM user. With a little direction and a few proactive and preventive steps, these fears are more often than not largely exaggerated. Registry edits are cool, useful, helpful, can fine tune / optimize / personalize your phone, or sometimes might simply be important to know how to do in order to fix your phone. Editing the registry is easy, can be safe, and fun to explore and that is what this tutorial is geared to do.
The goal here is to clear up all the urban legends about physically and literally bricking up / screwed up your device. Fear not now….
What actually is Registry in WM?
The Windows registry is a directory which stores settings and options for the operating system for Microsoft ....Windows Mobile. It contains information and settings for all the hardware, operating system software, most non-operating system software, users, preferences of the (Mobile Phone), etc. Whenever a user makes changes to Control Panel settings, file associations, system policies, or most installed software, the changes are reflected and stored in the registry.
Source : Wikipedia
Now that you still don't have a clue what the registry is? let me try to explain it in plain jane terms.
Think of the registry as a single file that holds nearly every possible setting for your phone, the WM OS, any software or game installed on the phone, etc etc.
Think of it as a single file that basically tells the phone who it is, what it has on it, and how to do everything you want it to do your way.
So no matter what you call it, registry edit, tweak, or a hack, you are simply just changing a setting on your phone. That's it. Nothing more nothing less !
Risk of bad registry edit;
1. Your device might not working properly [ often WM itself ]
2. Lose all your data stored.
But, you can always perform softreset / hardreset to make your device working again. That’s it! This is the worst scenario you’ll face and nothing more. IT WON’T PHYSICALLY SPOIL YOUR DEVICE !
Safe Registry Editing Approach
1. Always remember to BACKUP your current registry or even to the extend of doing full mirror backup of your device first !
There’s few backup software that come handy in this case;
Full backup : Sprite Backup / SPB Backup [commercial ware]
Contact backup : Pim Backup v2.8 [freeware]
Tools Needed To Perform Registry Editing
Of course it has to be the registry editor software LOL.
Freeware : TotalCommander / Schap's Registry Editor / TRE etc etc. I personally use TRE, no particular reason as I’d been using this since the day 1 using WM device and plus point is that this utility doesn’t require any installation and it reside in my storage card…
CommercialWare : no need to mentioned here, why pay for it when you can get it free…
Understand the Registry’s Structure
Subtree
This is where you start. The registry is divided up into 4 different sections called Subtrees. As far as navigating around, think of these as different hard drives on a PC. I'll will get into details later ya..
Key
A key is a general area in a subtree. Think of this like a folder on a hard drive.
Subkey
This is basically the second layer down in a key. Think of this like a subfolder.
Value
A value holds a specific setting in a subkey. Think of it like a file. This is what it is all about... getting to the value of a key or subkey to change its setting. There are several different type of values, i.e. Dword or binary. You usually do not have to worry about this when editing values are already in the registry, as they are already assigned as the appropriate value type.
Organization of the Registry
The registry is organized in a tree structure. When you look at the registry in a Registry Editor, it looks very similar to what your PC looks like when looking at it with Windows Explorer. You will always start with one of the 4 subtrees when trying to find a value to change in the registry. Here are the subtrees that are in the registry.
HKEY_USERS
Contains all the actively loaded user profiles on the computer.
HKEY_USERS is sometimes abbreviated as "HKU."
HKEY_CURRENT_USER
Contains the root of the configuration information for the user who is currently logged on. The user's folders, screen colors, and Control Panel settings are stored here. This information is associated with the user's profile.
This key is sometimes abbreviated as "HKCU".
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
Contains configuration information particular to the handheld [of any user].
This key is sometimes abbreviated as "HKLM."
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
The information that is stored here makes sure that the correct program opens when you open a file by using Mobile Explorer. Most registry edits are in the other three subtrees
This key is sometimes abbreviated as "HKCR."
OK, stop all the boring stuff and let’s get tweaking started !
By understand the registry structure earlier, this part is just a piece of cake d…LOL
When someone release a tweak e.g Hide Sim Contact Tweak : go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER > ControlPanel > Phone > ShowSim and change the decimal value to 0
Just navigate and follow the registry flow….[ click the + sign to expand the registry tree ]
[ always change the decimal value ]
Soft reset and woola! you have just performed the tweaking by yourself !
Note : I’ll compile all the basic and useful registry tweak later for you all to play around. For device specific registry tweak, please go to the respective thread for more info.
Happy tweaking !
This post has been edited by old newspaper: Jan 7 2009, 11:19 PM
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might as well create this tutorial for all reference....
looking forward for further update
some registry for different PDA's mayb slightly different, plz avoid modifying if unsure 
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