Configure Windows registry settings remotely via WMI using Tweakomatic

If you’re a big fan of Tweak UI, the free power toy from Microsoft that lets you tweak many of the registry settings on a Windows XP computer, than you are going to love Tweakomatic. Well, you’ll only love it if you work in IT, which is what this blog is all about anyway.

Tweakomatic is a free utility created by the Scripting Guys that lets you enable/disable many Windows and Internet Explorer settings locally and remotely using Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) scripts.

The reason for it being developed, other than the fact that the Scripting Guys were jealous of the popularity of Tweak UI, is to allow IT administrators to quickly and easily generate WMI scripts to configure Windows registry settings on remote computers, something that Tweak UI can not do.

So you might be asking yourself, “Well, why not just use Group Policy with Active Directory if I want to configure Windows settings across many computers?” and that’s a great question, one that I will not answer! No, just kidding. The reason is twofold.

Firstly, not everyone uses Group Policy with Active Directory and secondly it’s sometimes easier to make a change using a script than it is to use Group Policy, which can be overkill for minor changes.

Also, Tweakomatic was written so that many of the settings that can be tweaked using the program are not available in Group Policy, unless you create a custom .ADM file. It was meant to be a replacement of Tweak UI and for the most part has all of the settings available in Tweak UI. Even though it does not have every last setting that Tweak UI has, it does have a bunch more that are not in Tweak UI.

Once you download the program and unzip it, you’ll see it has two components, the database that contains all of the relevant registry settings (tweakomatic.mdb) and tweakomatic.hta, the front-end GUI interface for the database.

In order for the program to work, make sure both of the files are in the same folder. The cool thing about Tweakomatic is that you can carry it around with you on a USB stick since it does not require an install. You can easily generate scripts on an computer and run them instantly to configure settings.

So how do you start using Tweakomatic? Firstly, we need to choose the setting we want to change, so click on the Select a manageable component from this list drop down list and choose from the following settings:

Internet Explorer Security Zone Settings

Internet Explorer Settings

Windows Settings

Once you choose a component, then you need to choose a task from the Select a task category from this list drop down list. When you do that, a list of tasks will appear in the Select an individual task from this list list box.

Now when you click on one of the tasks in the list, three things happen. Firstly, the script appears in the box labeled Script for carrying out this task, that can be used to configure the registry setting.

Secondly, another script appears in the box Script for retrieving the current task setting, which will allow you to retrieve the current configured registry value for that setting. Thirdly, information appears in the Task Description box that describes what the task actually does and what the values actually mean.

So now what? Well, that’s what all the buttons are for! The Run Script button will run the script! Pretty straight-forward eh? The only confusing point is that there are two Run Script buttons, one for configuring the setting and one for retrieving the setting, so keep that in mind.

Click Save Script if you want to, um, well, save the script! It’s annoying that you have to manually type in the path and file name, but it’s for IT people so what did you expect! This is useful if you want to save it as a VBS file and then use it as a Logon/Logoff or Startup/Shutdown script.

The Change Value Button allows you to change the value of the setting without having to manually edit the script. Most settings are either 1 or 0, so you can change it in the script if you are familiar with VBS code or you can click the button and type in the new value, which will update the script for you.

The Master Script button is also very useful if you want to configure many settings. Basically, when you click the button, you will be asked for a file name and after that every time you click the button again, the current script that you are viewing is added to that file.

This lets you add 2, 5, 10, or however many scripts into one file so that you can run it once and configure all the settings instead of creating a separate script file for each setting.

By default, the computer name is set to a dot (.), which for WMI scripts is always the local computer. If, for some reason, you need to specify a computer name, you can click the Set Computer Name button and type in a computer name like Computer1, etc and the script will be modified.

Overall, this is an awesome tool for IT Administrators because it lets you generate WMI scripts without having to know any coding at all! You can then use it to configure one machine or hundreds instantly. Definitely give it a try if you have not used it before. Enjoy!