[General Questions and Answers] wg5566:
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Safe steps to take when editing the Registry

There are two points of advice I will always give to anyone when tweaking their registry.

The first is to not just go around in the registry and start changing settings willynilly just to see what happens, as you will get unexpected and sometimes fatal results, but instead to stick only with published tweaks that have been posted in articles, proven to work in forums, or found in books. There is always a percentage that will stand out as exceptions, but with most of these published and verified tweaks, even if you accidentally enter in the wrong setting, you can still just go back in and correct it. No harm, no foul.

My second point of advice is a strong one... no one, no matter how experienced, should ever touch their registry without doing this step first! That is to do a complete backup each time before you edit your registry to make sure that all of your latest settings and personal info are saved and ready to restore at anytime for any reason. Sprite Backup or SPB Backup are the two backup programs I personally recommend.

This is absolutely the single, hands down, MUST HAVE software! There is nothing more frustrating (or heartbreaking) than when you just got your phone all set up just like you want it, and you have all your contacts entered, all your games installed, all the registry tweaks are just the way you want them... and then... tragedy strikes and for whatever reason, you are forced to do a hard reset on your phone wiping out all your changes and bringing the phone back to the same state as if you just opened the box for the first time. Either backup program will work fine. It is often times more of a personal preference vs features. I personally use Sprite Backup.

SPB Backup:​

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Sprite Backup:​

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Registry Editors

Generally speaking, whenever you open up a window that has any options to adjust any settings, this is simply a visual and simple interface to making a registry edit (think of it as a mini registry editor). So for example, let's say that you wanted to change your phone number in the Owner Information for your phone. You could open up a registry editor, navigate to the correct spot where the owner information is stored in the registry, open up the correct Key, change it to your new phone number, and save it (you will be able to do this BTW by the end of this article). Or from the Today Page on your phone you could simply click on Menu / Settings / Personal / Owner Information. Then when the window pops up with all of your contact information, you change the phone number and click save.

Either way, you did the same thing... you changed a setting in the registry. So, little did you know that you have been doing Registry Edits all along on your phone, but never even realized it!

But to give you a real opportunity to browse all the settings in the Registry, then you will need a Registry Editor. There are loads of them available ranging from free to around $30. As with anything, some are better than others. Below are is probably the popular free and pay for registry editors.

My personal favorite and the one I have used for the last several years is the Resco registry editor included in Resco Explorer 2007. The cool thing about Resco Explorer 2007 is that is also includes THE best file manager for WM, built in picture viewer, encryption to protect your personal information, networking browsing, supports ZIP compression, and has an FTP explorer. It also gives you the advantage of drag and drop options along with multiple selection. This is a MUST HAVE software application for any WM phone, IMHO. In fact, look for my in depth review of this product in the very near future at WMExperts.com. When giving step by directions I will be using Resco Registry Editor.

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The best Free Registry Editor is PHM Registry Editor:

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Registry Tweak Programs that do it all for your

There are also programs that when you open them up, they look just like settings in WM. It puts a safety net in between the user and the registry. You change anything you want and it will edit the registry in the right spot for you. This is by far the safest (and fastest) way to do the most common and the most popular registry edits without even getting your hands dirty. If you are really intimidated (or too lazy to do it yourself) then this is a great solution. If this is the way you want to go, you don't even need to read any further as the rest of the article shows you how to do what these programs do all by yourself. The downside to these options is that you are limited to only the registry edits that they offer. Tweaks2K2 is a good (and very popular) example of this.

.......PSSSTTTT.....even if you are using a program like Tweaks2k2, please always do a full backup before using it!​

to be continued​