How to use the Windows Registry Editor (Beginners’s Guide)

On occasion, the solution to a given Outlook issue requires that a change is made to the Windows registry, which can be a daunting activity for those not familiar with the process. Frequently, you will be provided with the complete registry entry of what things should look like after the change is made. 

For the purposes of this article, going to use the registry entry for Outlook ‘2016 as described in the article “How to edit adhoc contact group members in Outlook 2013-2016″

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\Contactcard] “turnonlegacygaldialog”=dword:00000001

In a case like this, there are two different ways to go about it. You can open the registry editor and manually make the change or you let the system do things for you. This example involves a “complete” registry entry and in order to successfully use this “automated” method, you need to make absolutely sure that what you have makes up a complete entry

The automated approach

1. Taking the example above, 
2. open a text editor (i.e. Notepad)
3. add “Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00” as the first line in the file
4. paste the registry you want to add or change so that the end result looks like (ignore word-wrapping differences)
              Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
              [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\Contactcard]
              “turnonlegacygaldialog”=dword:00000001
5. save the text file with the extension of <.reg> (this is absolutely essential – do not save the file using a <.txt> extension)
6. once the file is saved, just double-click on it, answer yes to the questions presented and you’re done

The manual approach – modifying an existing entry

Open the registry editor by entering “RegEdit” (without quotes” in the Windows Search Box (for Windows 10, done by entering the Start menu) and click on the RegEdit program when it appears in the search list. It will open with something like the following if nothing is expanded

          

(The following is an abbreviated description – for those who would like to read more detailed information about the Windows registry, see: Structure of the Registry on the Microsoft MSDN website)

The windows registry is comprised of 5 major sections referred to as <Hives> as shown above. Each <Hive> has a series of of folders (known as <keys>) which in turn have a series of <subkeys> containing specific system/program configuration values. Depending on the complexity of any given program or system component can have muliple levels of nested <sub-keys>. Each <sub-key> can have one or individual values assigned to with each <value> given a name.  

          

In the example being used, the entry that we want to change is located in (expand each level until you arrive at the desired location)

• Hive: HKEY_CURRENT_USER 
• SubKey1 (level1): SOFTWARE
      SubKey2 (level2): Microsoft
          SubKey3 (level3): Office
              SubKey4 (level4): 16.0
                  SubKey5 (level5): Common
                      SubKey6 (level6): ContactCard
• Subkey6 <value name>: turnonlegacygaldialog
  Subkey6 <value type and actual value>: dword:00000001

Which at the end of it all, would look like

To simply change an existing value, click on the <value name> in the right hand column and the following screen will appear

          

For this example, the value for this is either 0 (false) or 1 (true).

The manual approach – adding a new <Sub-Key> / <Sub-Key Value>

There are going to be cases where the required registry entry doesn’t exist. It’s not something that is particularly unusual since it simply may be that the program will function in a default mode unless it finds a particular value that over-rides that behavior. Seldom, if ever,  will you be told to create an entirely new <Key> 

Adding a Sub-Key

To add a sub-key in the correct location, it’s important that you highlight the <root> of where that sub-key is supposed to belong. For this hypothetical example, suppose a new <sub-key> needs to be created under the <Common> <sub-key> in the hierarchy. To accomplish that, you would 

1. highlight and right-click the <Common> sub-key
2. select <new>
3. select <key> and give it name in the tree

          

If you require to create multi-level sub-keys, rinse and repeat the above steps until done

Adding a Sub-Key Value

The process to adding a <Sub-Key> value is very similar to creating the actual <sub-key> with a couple of extra steps at the end

1. select the <sub-key> to which you want to add a value
2. select <new> but instead of selecting <Key> select the type of value to be added (i.e. String, DWORD etc)  – in this example, would be DWORD field type
3. give the <Key Value> the name as <exactly> as instructed which in this example would be “turnonlegacygaldialog” (without quotes) 
4. once the key value name is created, click on it so that you can change the value to whatever is required.
   In this example DWORD value would = 1. This step is the same as described above when changing an existing value

          

Making a mistake

Mistakes can easily be reversed if any Sub-Key is created using the wrong name – just highlight it and you can either rename or delete it. The same holds true for <Sub-Key Values>, select it, right-click and choose the appropriate function.

Closing words

This article is predicated on that you know exactly what needs to be done in terms of the “what” and “where” which includes knowing what “type” and “actual value” that needs to be entered. The example used here provides all the information that you would need if you were to create the entry manually. If, for any reason, you are trying to manually create something but are not sure of all the specifics then recommendation is “DON’T”.

It’s also a good idea to have a backup of things in the event something really goes south especially if new to the process of editing the registry so always beneficial to know how to go about doing that

How to back up and restore the registry in Windows

Tags: Windows Registry

Category: Outlook - How To