How to Edit the Registry Offline Using Windows Recovery Environment

windows re bcdedit osdevice

Sometimes, you may need to edit the Windows registry offline to rectify a situation where Windows doesn’t boot after modifying some settings recently. Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) is a handy platform that provides various system recovery options to diagnose and repair an unbootable Windows installation.
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How to Delete All Your Microsoft Edge Favorites?

recover or undelete edge favorites

This post tells you how to delete all the bookmarks or favorites in the Microsoft Edge web browser.

Instructions for Microsoft Edge (Chromium) browser

In the new Microsoft Edge (Chromium) browser, here is how to delete your entire bookmarks/favorites:

Method 1:

  1. Open Microsoft Edge
  2. Click on the “Settings and More” icon (the icon showing three dots), click Favorites, Manage Favorites.
    (Alternatively, you can launch the address edge://favorites/ directly to open the Manage Favorites dialog.)
  3. Click on an item in the right panel to set the focus on it.
  4. Press Ctrl+A keys to select all bookmarks.
  5. Click on the Delete button that appears above.

Method 2:

  1. Open Microsoft Edge and open the following link:
    edge://version/
  2. Note down the Profile path. For example, it may be something like:
    C:\Users\ramesh\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Edge\User Data\Default
  3. Close all instances of Microsoft Edge
  4. Open the profile path in File Explorer
  5. Delete or rename the file named Bookmarks. This file contains your entire favorites.

This removes all the bookmarks (for that particular profile) in Microsoft Edge Chromium.

Instructions for the old Microsoft Edge browser

The old Microsoft Edge browser doesn’t provide an option to bulk delete favorites, but you can clear all your favorites by deleting the spartan.edb file in Edge’s store folder for your user profile. Here is how to do that.Read more

Windows 10 Start Menu User Folders Do Not Open When Clicked

When you click Start and click on a shortcut to your personal folders such as Documents, Downloads, Pictures or Music, nothing may happen. This problem occurs if the shortcuts in the Start Menu Places folder are missing or have been tampered with. The shortcuts in Start Menu Places are common to all user accounts, and not meant to be modified by users.

(Update: Information in this article doesn’t apply to Windows 10 v1809 and higher. Start Menu Places folder is no longer used in v1809 and up.)

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Restore Missing Media Feature Pack/WMP in Windows 10 and 11

spring creators update error 0x800F081E wmp

After buying a brand new Windows 10 or 11 computer, double-clicking a video file opens it in Films & TV (or Movies & TV), and the Windows Media Player shortcut is nowhere to be seen. This makes one wonder if Windows Media Player has been removed in Windows 10 and 11. Windows Media Player very much exists in Windows 10 and Windows 11.Read more

How to Remove File Type Associations Using Registry Editor

find progid for a file type registry

Associating a file type with a program can be done using several ways, such as using the Open with… dialog and selecting the “Always use this app to open” checkbox, or via Default Programs or Default Apps. While you can set or change associations using GUI, there is no option provided to delete an existing file type association.

This post tells you how to remove file type associations using the Registry Editor.Read more

How to Set User Environment Variable Using Setx

Command Prompt

You probably know how to add or remove environment variables using GUI in Windows. It can be done by launching sysdm.cpl → Advanced → Environment Variables. Alternatively, one can run the following command in the Run dialog to launch the Environment Variables dialog directly: rundll32 sysdm.cpl,EditEnvironmentVariables (To set per-system environment variables, the above command needs … Read more