Registry Shortcuts

The Windows registry stores all the configuration settings of the operating system, as well as all the installed applications. If you are curious about how the registry is organized, you can use the regedit command to summon the Registry Editor.

Browsing to a specific subkey to check out its values is easy if you know the path but you must pay attention not to accidentally make modifications in the registry. An alternative is to use Registry Shortcuts, an application that makes it possible for you to explore certain registry keys using Windows Explorer, which is a much more familiar tool than the Registry Editor.

The setup process is completed without major events, and you should be ready to create new registry shortcuts in no time. To do so, you must first copy the path of the key to the clipboard. The shortcut to the key in your clipboard can be created in any folder by holding the "Shift" key and choosing the corresponding option in the right-click menu. Choosing to paste the content in the clipboard creates a new shortcut inside that particular folder. Alternatively, you can fill in a folder with entries by instructing Registry Shortcuts to create a shortcut for each bookmark in the Registry Editor.

Clicking on any of the registry shortcuts you created opens the Registry Editor, but you can also enable the preview function of Windows Explorer and check out the values of the keys without using the Registry Editor. Evidently, it is not possible to edit the value of a key via the registry shortcut - you can only do that using regedit.

Registry Shortcuts is practically a replacement for the bookmark list in the Registry Editor. It enables you to create shortcuts to registry data you consider important or that you are accessing more often. Although key value editing is not possible via a shortcut, accessing the Registry Editor is very easy, requiring just a double-click.