Changing Desktop Solid Color Via Registry

In Windows XP

For HTTP:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\http\shell\open\command

The format is like this:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\[prot]\shell\open\command

where [prot] is the protocol (HTTP, FTP..)

In Windows Vista

For HTTP:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Associations\UrlAssociations\http

The format is like this:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Associations\UrlAssociations\[prot]

where [prot] is the protocol (HTTP, FTP..)

For more in depth info see this link.

If you're just looking for a list of installed updates, you can use the "systeminfo" command at the command line, the list is contained within the "Hotfixe(s)" section.