Among its other bells and whistles, Internet Explorer 4 makes significant changes to the Windows Explorer. For example, open the View menu, select Folder options and click on the View tab to see the new Advanced settings section with a series of checkboxes and a trio of radio buttons. But some things never change, like Microsoft's traditional style of inconsistency: some boxes must be checked to enable a feature, while others must be cleared to do the same thing. Of the radio buttons, two are marked “Do not show … ” while the third is “Show … .” And by default, three boxes in the Files and Folders section are checked, four are cleared.

Tweak Viewy?

Fortunately for those who still believe that “digital logic” is not an oxymoron, this mess can be cleaned up with a few edits because each View tab option is now written into its own Registry subkey, which—up to a point—can be customized or even removed. For a customization example, note that five checkboxes in the Files and Folders section must be checked to enable an option (“Show …, Allow …, Remember …”) and one (“Hide …”) must be checked to disable an option. To bring a little consistency to the list, drill down to the following Registry key:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\Advanced\Folder\HideFileExt

In this key's Contents pane, the Text entry is “Hide file extensions for known file types” and other entries show that a checked box (CheckedValue) is equivalent to 1, a cleared box (UncheckedValue) is 0, and by default the box is checked (DefaultValue = 1). In other words, there's a check in the “Hide file extensions…” box. To bring this option into agreement with the others in this section, just change the Text line to read “Show extensions for all known file types.” But since the former “Hide…” is now “Show…,” the CheckedValue and UncheckedValue entries must also be swapped so that the checkbox status agrees with the revised text. As for the DefaultValue entry, it simply indicates the Checkbox status when the “Restore Defaults” button is clicked, so a customized default set can be configured by editing it here and in the other subkeys in this section. Just work out your own preferred default configuration, then edit each DefaultValue entry accordingly, and you can restore that configuration at the click of a button.

The text next to each radio button in the “Hidden files” section can be revised by editing the Text entry in each of the following subkeys:

 

Subkey	Change this Text entry:	to this:
Hidden\ …	Hidden files	Show these file types:
NOHIDDEN	Do not show hidden files	All, except hidden
NOHIDORSYS	Do not show hidden or system files	All, except hidden & system
SHOWALL	Show all files	All

No further edits are required since these revisions don't change the status of any button—they simply describe in fewer words what each one actually does. Similar edits might be made to other keys in this section to customize the entire list as desired.

After you configure the two Advanced settings sections as desired, it's quite easy to prevent others from making changes. Just export the Advanced key structure (for safe-keeping), and then delete it. You can do this because this key structure simply determines the appearance of the Advanced settings options; the actual configuration settings are written into entries elsewhere in the Registry.

Before and After: A few Registry edits make the options on the Advanced Settings list a bit easiler to follow. Note the consistency in the language and check boxes in the “After” shot on the right.

Some Sage Extension Advice

Speaking of the options to hide or show all extensions, sooner or later many users select the latter option because it makes it easy to distinguish different file types that share a common name (for example, SAGE.DLL, SAGE.EXE, SAGE.VXD). But even if you prefer to show most extensions, it's still convenient to hide some of them. For example, if a folder is dedicated to word processor documents, while others store spreadsheets or bitmaps, you don't need to be reminded of the extension for each and every file in such folders. To kill such extensions, first open the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT key, highlight the subkey with the extension name you wish to conceal and note the filetype listed in the Contents pane's (Default) entry. For example, the .bmp subkey shows Paint.Picture on this line, so find the subkey with that name and add the following new string value:

 

Name	Data
NeverShowExt	""

Although no Data value is needed, the presence of this entry is enough to hide all occurrences of the BMP extension. Follow the same general procedure for your word processor and spread-sheet file types to hide their extensions too.

Explorer Window Icons

Sooner or later everyone decides that the Windows selection of icons could use a little improvement, and one of the earliest tricks was to retire the default icon that appears next to each bitmap file, as specified by the HKCR\Paint.Picture\DefaultIcon subkey entry shown in the first line below:

 

Name	Data
(Default)	"C:\Program Files\Accessories\MSPAINT.EXE,1"
(Default)	"%1" (note two quotation marks on either side of the %1)

If the Data entry is re-written as shown in the second line, each bitmap file displays its own distinctive icon, which is a thumbnail version of the actual bitmap image. In making the edit in the Value data box, include a quotation mark on either side of the %1 parameter, so that it will be enclosed in two sets as shown above. This is so that the replaceable %1 parameter will recognize a long filename with a space in it.

The option to view thumbnail icons will come in handy if you keep all your bitmaps in a dedicated folder and don't need to see the BMP extension after each filename.

 

HKCR Subkey	Name	Data
cplfile\DefaultIcon	(Default)	"C:\Windows\System\shell32.dll,-154"
dllfile\DefaultIcon	(Default)	"C:\Windows\System\shell32.dll,-154"

After making these edits, a search for all files with a CPL extension produces a display not unlike a Control Panel applet window, except that each icon title is the name of the file in which that icon is embedded. There will of course be only one occurrence of each CPL file, while the Control Panel itself may display two or more icons from the same CPL file. A search for DLL files displays the first icon embedded in each one, or the generic Windows document icon if the file does not contain an icon.

A simple Registry edit is all it takes to persuade each CPL file to display its own distinctive icon. This can be useful when trying to identify a file with an obscure name, such as S32LUCP1.CPL (as shown here). The same icon is identified in the Control Panel as Symantec's LiveUpdate Manager.

Shorting some Shortcut Icons

TweakUI's Explorer tab makes it easy to change the Windows shortcut overlay icon from the default small arrow into whatever you prefer, including nothing at all. But once the novelty wears off, most users reinstate the little visual cue that distinguishes a shortcut from everything else on the desktop. However, a bit of creative cheating is all that it takes to remove some shortcut overlays while leaving the others in place. Here's how to do it.

You may have already noticed that if the shortcut arrow is disabled via TweakUI, it still shows up in the corner of a URL icon, for the simple reason that a file with a URL extension is an Internet shortcut, controlled by its own Registry rules. Since there's little likelihood of confusing this kind of shortcut with an actual application, you can get rid of its shortcut overlay by opening the Registry and drilling down to the following key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\InternetShortcut

Highlight the IsShortcut entry in the Name column and delete it. Now scroll up to the .URL key, highlight it, open the Edit\New menu and select the Key option. Name the new key ShellNew (one word), then use Edit\New again to add a String Value named NullFile. The next time Windows opens, all URL shortcuts will no longer display the little shortcut arrow in the corner of the icon, and the New menu will display an “Internet shortcut” option.

Now just because this option says it's an Internet shortcut, that doesn't mean you can't use it for something else. For example, create a new Internet Shortcut icon on the Desktop, then open its Context menu, select Properties and type the following in the Target URL box:

C:\Progra~1\Access~1\MSPAINT.EXE

Windows gets confused if you write a path with spaces and long names in the Target URL box (for example, "C:\Program Files\Accessories\MSPAINT.EXE") and tries to set up an http link, so remember to use the “~1” convention shown here. Then click the Apply button and Windows re-writes the line as:

file:///C:/Progra~1/Access~1/MSPAINT.EXE

Now use the Change Icon button to select an icon from the MSPAINT.EXE file, and you'll finally have an “Internet Shortcut” that really isn't—instead, it's an arrow-less URL shortcut that launches the MS Paint application already resident on your hard drive. Modify the instructions above to create your own arrow-less shortcuts, as desired.

Fixing the Fonts List

Certain differences will be noted if the C:\Windows\Fonts folder is examined in a DOS window and again in an Explorer window. For example, although a DOS listing of hidden screen font files (DIR *.FON /AH) usually shows 18 files, only five appear in the Explorer window, because it shows only those FON and other files cited in the first Registry key listed here:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Fonts

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\fontsize\xxx\User

The first key lists TrueType fonts, third-party FON files (if any), but only the five FON files also found in the second key listed above, where xxx is either 120 or 96. The fonts cited in the 120 key are displayed if the system is configured for large fonts, while those in the 96 key are seen if configured for small fonts. Fonts listed in the other numbered key, and in both of the equivalent Systemsubkeys, are not displayed in the Explorer window, even though present in the fonts folder.

If the name of any such “missing” file is added to the HKLM\…\Fonts list, it will be seen the next time the fonts folder is opened in an Explorer window. To do so, add one or more new lines such as those shown here:

 

Name	Data
8514-System	8514sys.fon
DOS applications	dosapps.fon

Make sure the Name entry is suitably descriptive and does not duplicate an existing entry. After restarting Windows, the font will be listed in the Explorer window. Or, to see a complete list of all FON files in the C:\Windows\fonts folder without editing the Registry, simply use the Windows Find option to search for files named *.FON. In either case, double-click on the file icon to display its contents.

Network Connections

If a network drive was mapped to a local drive letter, and the “Reconnect at logon” box checked when that letter was assigned, then Windows will expect to find that network drive every time it starts. If it is not available, a “connection not available” or “share name not found” message appears, along with a yes/no prompt to try again next time. If you click the No button, the connection record will be deleted from the Registry. If this is a recurring problem because various network drives are frequently unavailable, yet the same set of drive mappings are regularly needed when they are available, setup the desired mappings and then export the HKCU\Network\Persistentkey structure. Create a shortcut to it on the Desktop or in some other convenient location, and use that shortcut as required to restore lost drive mappings that become available again after Windows has opened.