Open & Save - Edit Dialogue (Office 2000, WORDS)
Open & Save Edit Dialogue (Windows ME)
Open With - Checkbox Default Setting
Outlook Express - Backing Up Settings
Outlook Express - Change Location of Mail and News Files
Outlook Express - Change Window Title
Outlook Express - Colorful Message Backgrounds
Outlook Express - Disable Splash Screen
Outlook Express - Filtering, Backing up
Outlook Express - Font Size
Outlook Express - Infopane Link Removal

Edit Open & Save Dialogue Office 2000

To customise the Open/Save dialogue in Office 2000 go to:-

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Common\Open Find\Places

To have small icons in the Open/Save dialogue box, Right-click in the right pane, select NEW, click DWORD and name this value ItemSize
The default DATA entry will be zero which will show small icons.
To change back to large icons, Right-click on the ItemSize entry and select MODIFY then change the data entry to 1, or delete the ItemSize entry altogether.

Large icons only allow for five to be shown in the Open\Save dialogue box. To add your own you must show small icons then this will allow you to add five more.

To add your own shortcuts expand the PLACES key and open the UserDefinedPlaces key, in the left pane add a new sub-key by right-clicking on UserDefinedPlaces and select NEW, KEY, name this key Place1

Four values must be placed within this key.

To add a second shortcut create another sub-key within the UserDefinedPlaces key, calling this Places2, then enter the four entries as above. You can enter up to ten sub-keys. (Places1 to Places10).

The preset shortcuts already shown in the Open/Save dialogue box are located within the sub-key StandardPlaces.
These can be hidden by adding a DWORD entry within the key of the one you want to hide.

Example:
To hide the Desktop shortcut select the desktop key, right-click in the right pane select NEW, DWORD, call this entry Show. The default Data entry will be zero which will hide the shortcut. To make the shortcut visible again, right-click on this entry, select MODIFY and change the zero to 1.

To have the icons appear in the order that you choose modify the Index values. with Index value 0 being shown first in order, if you have an Index value 10 then this must be changed to 'a' to reflect the hexidecimal notation.
The StandardPlaces entries can be included in the Index order.

Edit Open & Save Dialogue Windows

When you select to Open or Save a file the dialogue open / save window that appears has folder icons down the left hand side. This allows you to quickly navigate to those folders.
It is possible to customise these to folders of your choice.

Goto:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\comdlg32\PlacesBar

You can have up to five custom shortcuts:

Place0 to Place4

If there are already entries present then modify by right clicking on the entry, select Modify, and change to the path of your folder.

To create new entries, in the right pane, right click and select New / String Value and name it Place0
Right click on this value and select Modify.
Now enter the path to the folder you want the short cut to go to.

Repeat the above for your next shortcut ie: Place1.

"Place0"="c:\yours1"
"Place1"="c:\yours2"
"Place2"="c:\yours3"
"Place3"="c:\yours4"
"Place4"="c:\yours5"

If the comdlg32 or PlacesBar key do not exist they will have to be created.
Create the comdlg32 key by right clicking on the Policies key and selecting New Key giving it the name comdlg32.

Select the comdlg32 key and in the right pane, right click, and select New / DWORD
Name this NoBackButton. The default value is 00000000
To change the value select NoBackButton and right click to select modify.
Changing the value to 1 disables the back button on the Open / Save dialogue window.

Right click in the right pane again and select New / DWORD
Name this NoFileMru. The default value is 00000000
To change the value select NoFileMru and right click to select modify.
Changing the value to 1 disables the Mru (Previously used filenames).

Select the comdlg32 key again, right click, and select New Key . Name this key PlacesBar.
Select PlacesBar and follow the instructions above for creating the shortcuts.

Open With Checkbox Default Setting

When you double click an unassociated file you get the "Open With" menu where you have to select the program to use to open the file.
The checkbox which says, "Always use this program to open this type of file", is usually ticked by default, this could lead you to permanently select the wrong program by accident.
You can make the box unticked by default by editing the registry at:- HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\unknown\shell\openas\command

You should see something like:-

c:\windows\rundll32.exe shell32.dll,OpenAs_RunDLL %1 In the right pane double click the default value and change the %1 to %2

Exit regedit and restart windows

Backing Up OE Settings

Open Regedit and go to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Identities\long number\Software\Microsoft\Outlook Express\5.0 In here you will find the Rules key, the Block Sender Key, the Signatures keys as well as Mail & News settings.
Select the key you want to back up, then select Registry | Export Registry File from the regedit toolbar, give the file a name and save somewhere safe. There are other OE settings at: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Outlook Express you should now be prepared for most eventualities.
If you ever need to reinstate these settings, all you need to do is to right click on the reg files and select "Merge."
If the Merge does not work then open RegEdit and select Registry | Import Registry Files and select the file you want to import.

Change Location of Outlook Express Mail and News Files

If you have installed Windows on a separate partition and want to keep it free of any unnecessary files, you can change the location of the mail and news files stored by Outlook Express to another partition.
Change the value of 'Store Root' in the key below to equal the new path.
Don't forget to move the 'mail' and 'news' folder from the old location to the new.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Outlook Express

Change window title for outlook express.

Goto:

HKEY CURRENT USER\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\OUTLOOK EXPRESS

In the right pane, Right click on the entry "WindowTitle", Select Modify
And change to the wording of your choice.
If the entry does not exist then;
Right click on right pane and select ‘New String’.
Name the New string:- WindowTitle (no space)
Right click on the new string and select ‘Modify’ and enter your title choice.
And/Or
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Identities\{EC6E5EA0-5751-11D3-A510-C1FDB7838839}\Software\Microsoft\Outlook Express\5.0]
WindowTitle Outlook Express for ??"

Outlook Express Colorful Message Backgrounds

This setting enables colorful backgrounds with.
Open your registry and go to the key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Mail and News

Change the value of 'ColorCycle' to equal '1' for enabled.(0 = disabled)
Close the registry and open Outlook Express. Open a new message and hold down CTRL + SHIFT, then press the 'Z' key to cycle through the colored backgrounds.

Disable OE Splash Screen

Open Regedit and go to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Outlook Express.

Click on Outlook Express and then right click on an open space in the right pane and select New DWORD.
Name the DWORD "NoSplash" (without the quotation marks).
Edit the value to equal '1' to disable the splash screen.(0 = enable Splash Screen)
After naming it, double click on the NoSplash DWORD and change the Value Data from 0 to 1.
Exit the registry and restart Outlook Express.

Outlook Express Filtering, Backing up

Backing Up Your Filters after spending lots of time creating and fine tuning Newsgroup Filters and Mail Filters, many users would prefer not to have to recreate them should you need to reinstall them on another computer or reinstall them on your existing computer after a reformat and reinstall.
To do so, simply open RegEdit and go to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Outlook Express \ News \ Group Filters

Highlight the Group Filters folder and select Registry | Export Registry Files and name the resulting file NGFilters.reg and save it in a safe place.
 
For mail it is:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Outlook Express\Mail\Inbox Rules name this one MailRules.reg.

Should you ever need to copy those rules to another computer, simply highlight this file, right click and select "Merge".

Outlook Express Font Size

To change the Default setting go to;

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Outlook Express\Mail

In the right pane click on Font Size to change the Data.
Experimentation is required to get the size font that you require.
Changing from ‘9’ to ‘c’ will change the font size from ‘10’ to ‘12’

Remove Links in Outlook Express Infopane

Removal of link(s) installed by an isp, or custom version of IE, in the Outlook Express infopane may be done by editing the registry.

Close Outlook Express and open Regedit

In the registry search for "BodyBarPath" it should be at

HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Micorsoft/Outlook Express.

Delete the String BodyBarPath, Value = http://path to website

Delete this entry in any other key that you find it in.