Revert a Single Registry Setting to its Default Intended For Windows Vista Windows XP Windows 2003 Windows 2000 In Windows 2000 and Windows XP, there HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT branch of the Registry is used as a template for newly added users. (This is different from Windows 95/98/Me, where this branch is used as the active settings branch for the currently logged-in user.) This is useful, not only for defining settings for all new users on a system, but for obtaining the default for a particular setting that has been changed since the user account was created. Say, the UserPreferencesMask value, located in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop, has an incorrect setting. Now, this is a binary value, and therefore its data is not necessarilly easy to interpret. Instead of guessing at the correct setting, just go to HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop, obtain that value's default setting, and update the active value in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop with the new data. This article has been recently supported by and featured on this Internet Webhosting Guide Written by: Annoyances.org Last updated: Wednesday, February 7, 2007 Care to discuss this article with other Windows users? Select your operating system here, and click Continue to post your question. - Choose your OS -Windows 7Windows Server 2008Windows VistaWindows Server 2003Windows XPWindows 2000Windows MeWindows 98Windows 95 Previous discussions about this article: (open a message to see applicable responses, if any) [Windows 98] Question about 'Revert a Single Registry Setting to its Default' (Darryl: Wednesday, February 19, 2003) [Windows 2000] Question about 'Revert a Single Registry Setting to its Default' (Gary Culpan: Friday, December 12, 2003) [Windows Me] Question about 'Revert a Single Registry Setting to its Default' (Cindy: Monday, May 3, 2004) Return to "Customizing Windows"