Windows just doesn't have enough ways to foil casual snoops or clumsy users. Cover your tracks with this collection of tips for the paranoid. Hide Your Run Tracks Old DOS heads never poke around in Explorer to click program icons. They just select Start/Run, enter the filename, and start the program without any mouse work. Better yet, they press the Window key-R combo on their 104-key keyboard to launch the Run dialog. The only problem is that Run maintains a history list, which means people can see what you've been running. (The Start menu's Documents list was worse, until Windows 98 let you right-click and delete items on it.) Here's how to cover your tracks in the Run dialog box: Back up the Registry. Launch RegEdit by selecting Run from the Start menu and entering RegEdit. Under HKEY_CURRENT_USER, select Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Explorer/RunMRU. Find the items in the right-hand pane that you want removed from the Run history list. Select the commands you want removed one by one and press Delete to remove them. Save your changes as you quit RegEdit, and restart Windows. TweakUI Location: The Windows 98 CD, in Tools Reskit Powertoy. Key feature: Lets you hide items in the Run menu. To remove the entire Run history (the useful entries and the ones you want kept secret) run TweakUI. Select Start/Control Panels and double-click the TweakUI icon. Click the Paranoia tab and select the histories you want to delete. The hacks we've covered so far actually enhance Windows' functionality. You can't say the same about this batch; they just change the way Windows looks and feels. But there's no shame in wanting to make your OS prettier. Rename the Recycle Bin You can rename most anything on the Windows desktop by right-clicking its icon and selecting the Rename option. But the Recycle Bin doesn't have that option, and we'd prefer to call it Trash, in honor of the Macintosh icon. Sure enough, both RegEdit and TweakUI make this easy to do. Here's the RegEdit way: Open RegEdit (select Run in the Start menu and enter RegEdit in the text box). Open HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT and locate CLSID (the Class ID option). Scroll down to the {645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E} key and click it. In the right-hand window, double-click (Default), and change the name from Recycle Bin to whatever you prefer. Click OK and close RegEdit. To make the new name take effect, click once anywhere on the desktop, then press the F5 key. And here's the TweakUI way: Select Start/Settings/Control Panel and launch TweakUI. Under Desktop, right-click Recycle Bin and select Rename. Type in the new name and click OK. Customize the Start Menu Come on--do you really need your Start menu to include the item Log Off [your name]? If you're using a networked or shared computer, maybe. But the rest of us could happily ax the thing. Here's how you do it: Back up your Registry and launch RegEdit. Under HKEY_CURRENT_USER, select Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Policies/Explorer. Select Edit/New/Binary Value. Name the new entry NoLogOff. Press Enter and set the value to this: 01 00 00 00. Save your changes as you quit RegEdit, and restart Windows. Change Your Name Did your PC come with Windows 98 preinstalled? Do people snicker that your Office documents are stamped with an author name like "Valued Gateway Customer," which brands you as a clueless newbie? This can be changed. Here's how: Back up your Registry and launch RegEdit. Under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, select Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion. Double-click the RegisteredOrganization or RegisteredOwner options, and type in your real name (or an interesting pseudonym, if you prefer). Exit and restart Windows. Lock Up Your Desktop Settings Don't you hate it when you let people borrow, say, your car, and then you find they've meddled with your presets and misaligned the rearview mirror? The same applies to your Windows desktop. When Windows exits, it saves the icon location and other settings--unless you lock up the settings with this hack: Back up the Registry. Launch RegEdit. Under HKEY_CURRENT_USER, select Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Policies/Explorer. In the right-hand pane, right-click NoSaveSettings and select Modify. Add a 1 to the value to disable Windows' ability to save settings on exit. Save your changes as you quit RegEdit, and restart Windows. Edit the Documents Menu There's a danger in assuming you can completely delete your old documents (just ask Ollie North). But to throw people off the tracks, it's nice to remove lines from the Start menu's Documents listing. The simplest way is to right-click a Documents item and select Delete. But to disable the feature, you need to hack around the Registry like this: Back up the Registry. Launch RegEdit. Under HKEY_CURRENT_USER, select Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Policies/Explorer. In the right-hand pane, double-click NoRecentDocsHistory. (If there is no such value, create a new binary value with that name.) Edit 00,00,00,00 to read 01,00,00,00. Locate or create the NoRecentDocsMenu value. Edit 00,00,00,00 to read 01,00,00,00 there, too. Save your changes as you quit RegEdit, and restart Windows. Back Up Your Registry Files To be safe, back up the Registry manually before you make any changes. Run the System Info utility (go to Start menu/Programs/Accessories/System Tools), then click Tools, Registry Checker. After a quick scan, Registry Checker will offer to make a backup. Click Yes to replace the oldest backup file with a fresh one. Check for Errors Registry Checker Location: Start/Programs/ Accessories/System Tools. Click Tools then Registry Checker. Key feature: Runs automatically whenever you boot Windows, scans the Registry for obvious errors and makes a backup. Hacking Registry entries is safer under Windows 98 than it was under Windows 95. Windows 98 adds a few safety nets that come in very handy in case things go wrong, and the Registry Checker is the best of them. This handy tool kicks in before Windows 98 loads, and inspects the Registry for serious problems. It usually finds no problems, and it will back up system.dat and user.dat--the two files that make up the Registry--as well as the two prehistoric Windows configuration files, system.ini and win.ini. Registry Checker also retains an audit trail of five backups in the C:WindowsSysbckup folder (in CAB files numbered sequentially rb001.cab, rb002.cab, and so on). When it adds a new one, it tosses out the oldest. Restore the Registry If the Registry Checker does find errors at start-up, it won't start Windows 98; instead, you'll get a warning message, "Windows has detected a Registry/configuration error." You then boot to a command prompt (select Shut Down from the Start menu, then select "Restart the computer in MS-DOS mode" and click OK), and Registry Checker utomatically restores your most recent backup. Even if the change isn't serious enough to make Registry Checker kick in, it's possible to restore a backup. Restart your PC, but boot to a command prompt instead of Windows. At the command prompt, enter the command Scanreg. Follow the instructions to view your backed-up Registry files and restore the most recent one. Viewing the Registry RegEdit Location: Start/Run. Type RegEdit and hit Enter. Key feature: Exports the Windows Registry into a text file and lets you browse the Registry with an Explorer-style interface. WinDiff Location: The Win 98 CD in ToolsReskitFile. Key feature: Compares exported text versions of the Registry and highlights disparities. Want to browse the Registry and the changes you've made to it? Use RegEdit (a.k.a. the Registry Editor) to export the Registry to a text file. It's easy to do: just launch RegEdit (select Start/Run and type These Registry text files are enormous, but if you use Windows 98's WinDiff utility, you can see any differences highlighted. WinDiff is one of the little tools in the Windows 98 Resource Kit Sampler. After starting WinDiff, click File/Compare Files. WinDiff highlights the file differences in yellow, and you can jump between them with a click of the F8 key.