Simple registry hack reveals early Windows 8 features

While Microsoft is hard at work creating Windows 8, hackers are hard at work unlocking all of Windows 8's secrets.

The first build of Windows 8 leaked across the web just last week, and a number of new features have been popping up all over the web. The new advanced task manager has been unveiled, along with the ribbon UI, similar to that of the Office 2010 ribbon. There has also been a number of other small tweaks and features popping up.

As hackers dig deeper into the registry of Windows 8, some interesting applications have started to appear. First up, a native webcam.exe application has been discovered. Although the application is unfinished, it does give us clues that Microsoft is working to tightly integrate webcams into Windows 8, (Kinect + Windows 8 anyone?)

As Neowin previously revealed, Windows 8 will also come with a native PDF reader, also mentioned as "Modern Reader".

The interesting thing about all of the above features, is that they are found in Windows 8 M1 build 7850, the same build that previously leaked. Through a simple registry hack, these features can be unlocked.

To unlock webcam.exe:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\GRE_Initialize\
create a DWORD value called "RemoteFontBootCacheFlags", set its value to 0x100f (4111)

Obviously the development is still in the very early stages in Windows 8 M1.

Unlock "Modern Reader":

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Applets\Paint\Capabilities
create a string value named "CLSID", set its value to "{D3E34B21-9D75-101A-8C3D-00AA001A1652}" , then run glcnd.exe.

Unlock TaskUI:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\TaskUI, and create a 32bit value "TaskUIEnabled", set its value to "1".

Unlock Ribbon UI:

create such a key in registry: HKEY_CLASS_ROOT\CLSID\{4F12FF5D-D319-4A79-8380-9CC80384DC08}

create a string value in this key called “AppID”, set its value to “{9198DA45-C7D5-4EFF-A726-78FC547DFF53}”

Now simply restart explorer and you should have the ribbon UI unlocked.