Forgot to tweak your settings in Target Designer?

It is common occurrence to build and deploy a runtime, boot to the desktop and realize that you have forgotten to tweak the settings in the User Interface Core component, so all you see is the Start menu button and nothing else. There are several tricks you can use that will save you the time of rebuilding and redeploying the image.

You can use hotkeys to access some features:
- Press the “Windows + R” buttons on the keyboard to bring up “Run”, or “Windows + E” to bring up Explorer.
- Within Run you can launch a variety of programs (provided that these feature components were included in your configuration):

• iexplore: Internet Explorer
• explorer: Windows Explorer
• sysdm.cpl: Computer\System Properties
• desk.cpl: Desktop Properties
• cmd: Command Prompt
• regedit: Registry Editor

Another common component whose settings you may want to tweak is the Windows Firewall component. If you have not included the firewall control panel (firewall.cpl) in your configuration due to footprint concerns etc. you can tweak these settings through the registry. These settings all reside under the registry keys-

"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ System\ CurrentControlSet\ Services\ SharedAccess\ Parameters\ FirewallPolicy\ DomainProfile"

"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ System\ CurrentControlSet\ Services\ SharedAccess\ Parameters\ FirewallPolicy\ StandardProfile"

Here you can change the ports that are open or the applications that are added to the exception list, as well as the icmp settings. You can enable and disable the firewall through registry keys too.

Bear in mind that not all of the configurable settings are contained within just one registry key- for example, the User Interface Core settings cannot be tweaked by just changing values to the keys under "HKEY_USERS\ .DEFAULT\ Software\ Microsoft\Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Explorer\ Advanced", as these items may require additional registry keys to be changed for things like “Classes” or other inter-related functionality.

- Lynda