Hey all, i've been doing a lot of messing around in the registry for xp.
I've been into computers for a long time now and decided i wanted to start to understand the registry

Here's what i understand so for (or think i understand)

HKEY_CURRENT_USER - these are the registry settings for the user that is currently logged into the machine (Defined by HKEY_USERS)

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE - these are global settings for the machine you are on, regardless of which user is logged on

HKEY_USERS - These are specific and generic users registry settings.

basically here is what i was playing with, lets use NODESKTOP with a value of 1

I can go into HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\WINDOWS\POLICIES\
EXPLORER

under that setting i can add a new DWORD called NODESKTOP with a value of 1. When i boot up now i have no desktop (but other users will)

or i can go into

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\WINDOWS\
CURRENTVERSION\POLICIES\EXPLORER

here i can add the same command NODESKTOP with a value of 1.

Now it doesn't matter who logs into the computer, all users will have no desktop icons.

if i am correct in this please let me know.

now lets say i want to edit a specific users registry. I can load their hive to edit it right ?

but how do i know which user is who under HKEY_USERS, since it is not by login name. Is there a way to find out without a external program ?

(i am a admin on the machine)

also any other usefull information would be great as well. So far i have removed the ie address bar from the registry (and kept it from coming back), i've removed the documents folders, search button, run command, ect, ect. all while keeping backups of the original registry.

My main goal now is to find out how to edit another users registry, and to understand a little more of it

"if i am correct in this please let me know"
Yes you are

The long numbers you find in the HKEY_USERS hive correspond to the SID (Security Identifier) of the user that is logged in. You should see your user under HKEY_USERS and any processes that are logged on via a user ID rather than system account.
click me !

To map usernames to SID you can use this tool

If you want to limit what users can and cannot do then I would use a local policy ...... click me !

If you want some users to run the policy and some not then you have to set the access rights of the policy setting so that some users have access and some don't. The whole policy will be processed by every user that logs on but if a user has no access rights to some bits then it can't execute that setting

Hey thanks so much for the info, i was hoping there was a internal way to find out who the Security Identifier corrisponded to, but we can't always have it our way

the program you linked is quite small, so it is efficient and is perfect for what i wanted to do. I'm mainly wanted to experiment with the registry, and see what kind of restrictions i can impose. We have the administrator policies on the computer, which i will probably experiment with next, lol

Things sometimes get slow here where i work, so i'm trying to increase my knowledge.

Anwyways thanks again for the help and the response