Windows Mobile 6, like desktop versions of Windows, makes use of a specialized database called the "registry." It's essentially a system-wide preferences database, though it's a bit more complicated than that. In both desktop and mobile versions of Windows, you need to know three things about the registry:

1. Changing the registry can seriously screw up your system. Always back up before editing. Always.
2. You'll need a special program, usually, to edit the registry.
3. The registry is a great tool that can get corrupted and screwed up all the time. In other words, it's a touch controversial amongst computer nerds.

...Okay, maybe you didn't need to know that third point, but it's worth having in the back of your mind when you start diving into registry edits. Doing a registry edit is basically a way to fix certain annoying issues without having to resort to doing a hard reset. For example, sometimes uninstalled files leave garbage behind in the registry and you can go in there and clean it up. At your own risk, of course.

The other major thing changing registry entries can do is actually alter the way the operating system works in the first place. Here's an example: On the Sprint Touch, Windows Mobile 6 always displays a "Message Sent" alert when you send out an SMS. This is annoying. Fortunately, a simple registry edit can tell WM6 to quit doing that.

Step 2: Get some Registry Editing software

There are a few registry editors out there. My favorite, by far, is the excellent Resco Explorer 2005 for Pocket PC. It's well-worth the $24.95 asking price - as you get a great File Explorer program (much better than the built-in one), a Registry Editor, and an FTP client.

There are other registry editors out there, even ones that automate certain registry hacks so can just choose which things you'd like to optimize, such as Tweaks2k2.

For this article I'll just use Resco, though, as we're not trying to do too much.

Step 3: Backup

Your Touch was backed-up automatically to an SD card last night, didn't it? Of course it did, everybody knows it's only prudent to install and use a backup program on a daily basis. Right? Right.

I prefer Spb Backup myself. Unfortunately, the only really good was to test a backup program is to backup, erase your data, and see what a restore looks like. So I recommend choosing and testing backup software early, before you've loaded too much data onto your Treo.

Let's get back to step 3. Step 3a is to sync your Sprint Touch up with your computer. Step 3b is to back it up again, right now, just to be safe.

Ok. Now we're ready to start editing the registry. Deep Breaths.

Step 4: Know what you're doing

This is the hardest step of all, because in the end there aren't really that many expert users out there who know exactly what every registry entry does and what repercussions it will have on the rest of the system. So basically registry edits fall into two categories: Thought to be stable and thought to be unstable.

How do you know if a registry edit you're considering is thought to be stable? Research and/or trial and error. Let's get specific, though. 

You all backed up? Me too. Let's go. First, we open "Resco Registry", where we see the screen on the right.

One thing you'll want to remember is that it's fairly common to abbreviate these first levels of the registry tree. So, for example, "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE" is commonly written as "HKLM."

The first thing I usually do is turn on "Show Tree View" which allows you to have a little drop-down area that shows you were exactly in the registry you are at all times. It's helpful.

The registry is made up of "Keys" and "Values." A key is basically analogous to a folder in a file structure - they're where you put the different "values" you want to assign to various software functions. The values can be numbers, words, weird little guys called "DWORDS," and so on.

So when you do a registry edit, what you're usually doing is looking for a certain key and then editing the value within that key.

Step 5: Edit the registry

Here we go, fixing that annoying "message sent" notification (assuming you've backed up!). According to the instructions in the forums, we want to do the following:

If you're tired of the "Message Sent" notification after sending an SMS/text message, you can disable them:
HKLM/Software/Microsoft/Inbox/Settings/SMSNoSentMsg = 1 (DWORD decimal)
And to re-enable:
HKLM/Software/Microsoft/Inbox/Settings/SMSNoSentMsg = 0 (DWORD decimal)
Please note that the 'Settings' key may not exist in your device, and thus may have to be created first.

So let's navigate to the "Settings" key, uh... Not there? Aha. Please note that the 'Settings' key may not exist in your device, and thus may have to be created first. So let's put the focus on "HKLM/Software/Microsoft/Inbox" and then hit the menu button, new, Key.

Now we can press "Done" and voilá, there's our Settings key. We then navigate to that and see it already has a value in it, "(Default)." What we want to do is make a new Value - so we hit Menu, New, String Value

We set the name to "SMSNoSentMsg" and the String to "1".

That should be it. Let's close out of Resco Registry and see what happens when we send a text... Success! The notification is gone! One note is that it might take a few minutes for the registry change to "stick," so give it those few minutes if it doesn't work right away. Also be sure not to reset your phone immediately after changing the registry, as your changes will be lost.