The caps lock key, next to num lock, was the culprit here most of the time. Most computer users do not need the caps lock key on the keyboard anymore. The following guide explains how you can disable the caps lock key permanently.

Here is how it is done. Open the Windows Registry the following way: Hold down Windows-r to bring up the run box, enter regedit into the box and tap on the enter key. This opens the Windows Registry Editor. Navigate to the following Registry key in the folder browser on the left.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout

Right-click on Keyboard Layout and select New > Binary from the context menu. Enter Scancode Map and press enter to add the key. Double-click on the newly created key afterwards and enter the following information.

00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
02 00 00 00 00 00 3A 00
00 00 00 00

Take a look at the following screenshot to see how it should look like in the Registry editor.

You need to restart your PC after you have made the changes. Once you have done that you will notice that the caps lock key will no longer function under Windows. Nothing happens if you tap on the key.

Please note that some applications may make use of the caps lock key. If that is the case you may break some or all of their functionality. You can re-enable the caps lock by deleting the Scancode Map Registry key and restarting the Windows PC.

Keyboard remapping software like Sharp Keys can also be used to remap the caps lock key so that it no longer functions at all or offers a different function.

Are you using Caps Lock? If so, for what?

Windows has a 200 second limit set for cases like this, which means that the operating system waits more than 3 minutes before the window waiting for input is pulled to the front.

Sure, it is possible to minimize all other windows to see if a window waiting for user input is delaying the software installation.

Changing the default interval from 200 seconds to a shorter interval is often a better option. Windows stores the value in the Windows Registry. To change the value, press Windows-R, type regedit, and hit the enter key on the keyboard.

Navigate to the Registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop and locate the parameter ForegroundLockTimeout on the right side of the Registry editor.

foreground lock timeout

Definition: ForegroundLockTimeout, Specifies the time in milliseconds, following user input, during which the system keeps applications from moving into the foreground.

Double-click that parameter to edit it. Switching from hexadecimal to decimal makes the value changing easier. The values are listed in milliseconds, the default 200000. Change the value to one between 10000 and 50000, which equals 10 to 50 seconds.

It is not recommended to change it to less than 10 seconds, considering that it will bring all windows requiring input to the front in that time, not only installation windows.

The changes are immediately active. It is always possible to go back and adjust the interval if the window changing is happening to fast or to slow.

A simple Registry tweak can remove these folders from the My Computer display. The system folders remain on the computer system and are not modified in any way by the following procedure. Only their links that are automatically added in My Computer is removed.

To remove the Shared Documents and user document folders from My Computer do the following:

Press the keyboard shortcut [Windows R] to open the run dialog box. Enter regedit and hit enter to open the Windows Registry editor. Now locate for the following Registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MyComputer\NameSpace\DelegateFolders\{59031a47-3f72-44a7-89c5-5595fe6b30ee}

This can be done by manually navigating in the Registry or searching for part of the key. Please check the complete key as it might appear several times in the Registry. Deleting that Registry key will remove the Shared Documents and user documents folder from My Computer. It is recommended to create a backup of the Registry key before deleting it. This can be done my selecting the key in the Registry editor and opening the Export option under the File header menu.

The changes are immediately visible although a refresh might be needed if the My Computer folder was open during the procedure. The changes can be undone by double-clicking on the Registry backup file that was created in the process. Another option is to simply created the Registry key manually using the information above.

MSConfig can be accessed from the run command [Windows R] by typing in [msconfig]. It happens in rare cases that Windows cannot start the application displaying the message that “Windows cannot find MSConfig” which can be the cause of a virus infection or corrupt entries in the Windows Registry or file system.

There are basically two possibilities why Windows is displaying the error message. The first is that the file is no longer in the default directory on the hard drive; The second that the file path in the Registry is linking to a wrong location or not existing at all.

Finding MSConfig.exe

The first task is to locate msconfig.exe on the computer system. The default directory where Microsoft is placing the file is
WINDOWS\pchealth\helpctr\binaries on Windows XP systems and Windows\system32\ on Windows Vista systems.

If the file turns out to be in that directory skip ahead to step 2 which will check the correct file path in the Windows Registry. If the file is not there at all you need to add it back there. The easiest way to do that is by extracting it again from the Windows installation CD or DVD.

To extract it from the Windows CD you need to run a command from the command line. Press [Windows R], enter [cmd] and hit [enter].

Type in the following command if you are running Windows XP: (assuming E is the letter of the drive containing the Windows CD and C:\WINDOWS\ the location of the Windows installation.

EXPAND -R E:\I386\MSCONFIG.EX_ C:\WINDOWS\PCHEALTH\HELPCTR\BINARIES

Windows Vista users run the following command instead: (again assuming E is the DVD drive and C:\Windows the Windows installation directory)

EXPAND -R E:\I386\MSCONFIG.EX_ C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32

Correcting the msconfig path

Windows stores path information about selected applications in the Windows Registry. Start the Windows Registry by typing [Windows R], [regedit], [enter]. Then navigate to the following Registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths

Check if an entry named msconfig.exe exists. If it does check the default value which should be the path information pointing right to the location of msconfig.exe in the Windows directory. You can double-click the default entry to change the path if it is the wrong one.

If the msconfig.exe key does not exist in the Windows Registry do the following:

• Right-click the App Paths key and select New > Key from the menu that is appearing.
• Name the new key MSCONFIG.EXE.
• Double-click the default value in the right window and add the full path to msconfig.exe as the value.

The changes are immediately which means it is possible to try to run msconfig again to see if the changes have fixed the problem.

The Windows operating system has a Registry setting that can add USB write protection to a computer system. It is like a switch that can be enabled to make use of the write protection or disabled to allow write processes.

Users who experience problems writing to USB devices might want to take a look at this setting as well if they have the proper rights to do so to see if it is the cause for their difficulties.

Start by opening the run dialog box with the keyboard shortcut [Windows R]. Type [regedit] and hit [enter]. This should open the Windows Registry editor.

Navigate to the following Registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\

Look at the sub-keys and see if a key named StorageDevicePolicies is listed. If it is skip this paragraph and read the next. If it is not create the key by right-clicking Control and selecting New > Key

See if there is an entry named WriteProtect. It can be easily created if it is not present by right-clicking in the right window and selecting New > DWord from the menu. The following values are allowed for this entry:

• 0 – This will allow write processes on USB Flash Drives
• 1- This will block write processes on USB Flash Drives.

An alternative would be to delete the Registry key WriteProtect completely to enable both read and write processes. A restart or log off is required before the changes take effect.

Start by opening the Windows Registry with [windows R], typing [regedit] and hitting [enter]. Search for the key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}

Double-click on the Default entry in the right window and replace the value with a name of your own. If you want to link to a downloads directory name it downloads.

Create a new key by right-clicking and selecting New > Key from the menu. Name the key DefaultIcon. Double-click on Default again and enter a path to an icon on the computer system. You can for instance use shell icons. To use the generic folder icon you give the key the following value:

%SystemRoot%\system32\SHELL32.dll,-4

Click here for a full list of possible values.

Open the subkey Instance\InitPropertyBag. Right-click and select New > String from the menu and name it command. Give the string the same name that you have chosen in the first step. We will name it downloads so that it matches the name that we have selected.

Create two additional strings by right-clicking and selecting New > String. Name the strings param1 and param2. Double-click param1 and give it the value explorer.exe. Double-click param2 and enter a path on the computer system, e.g. c:\downloads\.

Navigate to the following Registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced

Create or edit the DWORD entry Start_ShowOEMLink. Double-click it afterwards and give it the value 1.

Now restart the computer, log off or kill and restart the explorer.exe process. The new entry in the Windows Start Menu should appear.

It is actually pretty easy to change the default edit application in Windows to another one providing you got the location in the Registry to do so. Now, to change the default Edit application open the Windows Registry by pressing [Windows R], typing [regedit] and hitting [enter]. Locate the following Registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\SystemFileAssociations

In there you find all the different file types and they association. The order is filetype > shell > edit > command. Not every filetype has that chain but the most common ones do. To edit the default text editor in Windows you need to locate the text subkey and follow the path mentioned above until you reach the command key. There should be only one Default entry in there:

%SystemRoot%\system32\NOTEPAD.EXE %1

To change the program that opens when clicking on the Edit option in the right-click menu simply change the path so that it leads to the application that you want to use, for example

"c:\program files\notepad++\notepad++.exe" "%1"

RegDllView is a portable software by Nirsoft that has been primarily designed to view the registered dlls (to be more precise dll, ocx and exe).It will display various information about each dll including its location, day it was registered and company.

The software can be used to unregister dlls but also to remove entries that point to dlls that have been already deleted on the computer system. Will it have a positive effect on system stability or performance? That’s unlikely but if you like your system clean and shiny you might want to remove the dll files anyway as they are no longer needed on the system.

Actually, it could be that some are still needed but have been removed from the computer system. It is therefor a good idea to check the missing dlls first before starting to delete their references in the Windows Registry.

RegDllView will display all known dynamic link libraries; Those that are no longer on the computer system are displayed with a red background to make identification easier. Selecting one or multiple of those removed dll files and right-clicking the background afterwards will display a menu with the option to “Delete All Entries For Selected Files”.

This will remove those deleted entries from the Windows Registry.

Registry Prot is a tiny program that protects important Registry keys from being manipulated without the user’s knowledge. It barely uses 200 Kilobytes of computer memory while running and will only become active when programs try to make changes or new additions to the Windows Registry. There is no list of all the Registry locations that are monitored by Registry Protection. Among the known locations are the various possibilities to add system startup items and the default applications for known file types.

Registry Prot might not be something for inexperienced users as the informational dialogs are sometimes hard to understand without the proper knowledge. A web search can aid in the decision making process.

Registry Prot Download

If a user accesses the Internet with multiple computers he might want to use the same security zone settings on all of them. The easiest way to do that would be to export the security zones on one computer and export them to all others instead of adding sites to the zones manually on all computers.

Internet Explorer is storing the security zone information in the Windows Registry. To export the settings of the currently logged in user one would have to open the Registry with [Windows R], typing [regedit] and hitting [Enter].

The Registry key is located at:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\ZoneMap\Domains

A left click on Domains will select that key. The next step would be to open the File Menu and select Export. Enter a name and save the data as a file on the computer.

The newly created file has to be transferred to another computer. A right-click on the file at the new computer will open a context menu. The entry Merge will add the data to the correct Registry key so that the zone information of the first computer will be added to it as well.

One of the things that bothers me the most is when I open the Windows Registry to edit a key and it loads up showing me the last key I had viewed. I normally go into the Registry to make one change and that’s it. I never go back and edit the same key. Wouldn’t it be great if you could open the registry and all the hives would load up collapsed like you opened it for the first time ever?

Luckily, there’s a little shortcut you can create to the registry that will get rid of that annoying little feature. It’s actually a script with a few lines of code. Just open Notepad and paste in the following lines of code:

Dim objShell, RegKey, Q

Set objShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

strQuote = chr(34)

RegKey = "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Applets\Regedit"

RegKey = RegKey & "\LastKey"

objShell.RegWrite RegKey, ""

objShell.Run "regedit"

Save the file with a .VBS extension, which stands for Visual Basic Script. To do this in Notepad, choose All Files for the Save as type combo box and name the file “Registry.vbs” without the quotes.

So now instead of opening the Registry and getting something that looks like this:

You can easily start from the very top of the Registry hives like normal!

If you want to make if more official, you can change the icon for the VBS script file to the Registry icon. In order to do this, you have to create a shortcut to the script. Just right-click on Registry.vbs, click on Send To, and then click on Desktop (create shortcut).

Now right-click on the shortcut icon and click on Rename. Name the shortcut Registry. Next right-click again and go to Properties. Click on the Change Icon button.

Choose the Registry icon from the list of icons. Finally you can copy your shortcut to the Start Menu for easy acce

All new functions can be easily identified by their light-green icons. The software program adds five new key features to the right-click menu. Move To Folder and Copy To Folder entries have been added which make use of bookmarked folders and the system folders. The Delete menu entry was enhanced as well. It provides access to moving the deleted files and folders to the trashbin or to delete them permanently. Experienced users already know that it is possible to delete files and folders permanently by holding down the shift key before choosing to delete them.

The fourth addition provides functions to copy the name or path of a folder or file and to open the command prompt from the selected folder.

The last addition is the customize menu which provides tools to hide entries from the right-click menu. It’s apparent that the free version was cut down in functionality to have a selling point for the shareware version. The free version does add a few entries to the right-click menu which might make it interesting for some users. Most of the functions can also be added (or removed) by editing the Registry manually.

Some users have more than 5000 folders on their system and they will experience that the folder view is resetting itself whenever the limit is reached. It works like a first in first out cache once the limit has been reached.

Here is what you need to do to fix it (via Redmond Pie): Open the Windows Registry by pressing Windows R, typing in regedit and hitting enter. Now navigate to the Registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER \Software \Classes \Local Settings \Software \Microsoft \Windows \Shell and create a new DWORD (32-bit) Value and name it BagMRU Size. Double-click the entry and give it a value of 10000, double the default amount.

Work with your system for a while and see if all folder view settings are remembered. If it is not enough increase the number a second time to 15000 or even 20000. The same can be applied to Windows XP, the limit in XP seems to be 8000 though.

The reason why this is important is that Windows does not automatically append the folder name to the path. This means that if you enter e: as the path Windows Vista will assume that this is the path to the download folder. The problem arises when a user tries to change the location again because Windows will move all files on that partition to the new location. Think of it, if e: is the special folder then all contents on that drive have to be moved.

This process will not complete because of System Volume Information and $Recycle.Bin which cannot be moved. The only way to fix this is to change the path of those folders manually in the Registry.

The location of all special folders is stored in the Registry:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ User Shell Folders

Just change the value of the special folders that you have changed to the root folder and restart the computer afterwards so that the changes take effect.

A solution would obviously be to disable automatic updates but that’s probably not a preferred solution by many as well. The easiest way to block the automatic download and installation of both Windows XP Service Pack 3 and Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is a Registry key that has to be added to the Registry that prevents the installation for twelve months.

The update problems should be sorted out by that time and if they have not been it is still possible to disable automatic updates. To add the entry to the Registry do the following. Press Windows R, type regedit, hit enter.

The Registry opens and we need to navigate to the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate and create a new DWORD named DoNotAllowSP there. The value of the DWORD has to be set to 1.

An alternative would be to create a new text document, paste the following three lines into it and rename the document to block.reg afterwards.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate]
"DoNotAllowSP"=dword:00000001

A double-click creates the new Registry key automatically. The block can be removed by either deleting the Registry key again or by setting the dword value to 0 instead.

Well a little research revealed a Registry setting that would enable the option to enable the DVD library in Windows Media Center 2005. That DVD Library can store the DVDs that are stored on the hard drive in a Video_TS folder.

Here are the steps that are needed to enable the DVD Library feature. Exit the Media Center application and start the Windows Registry Editor by using the shortcut Windows R, regedit, enter.

Now navigate to the Registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER \Software \Microsoft \Windows \CurrentVersion \Media Center \Settings \DvdSettings and edit the value ShowGallery. Change the value from Play to Gallery.

Defragmenting the Registry with Regdefrag (via Genbeta) would reduce the size from 28904 Kilobyte to 27160 Kilobyte, a reduction of more than 6%. A smaller Registry tends to increase performance on the system and even decrease the time it takes to boot a system. I remember that the Registry on my old computer had a size of 55 Megabytes, that’s twice the size of the current Registry.

The process or defragmentation works exactly the same way as the defragmentation of a hard drive by removing gaps, fragments and wasted space in Windows Registry files.

Analysis and Defragmentation did only take a matter of seconds on my computer, it probably will take longer on slower computers with a larger Registry.

The main window of Regalyzer resembles that of Regedit but you will notice the bar at the top that contains the search and a history function that displays the Registry keys that have been used lately. It also offers a way of pasting a Registry key into it to jump directly to that key, very handy if you quickly want to change a setting and have the full key at hand.

The search is independent from the main program and opens up in a new window. It displays the result just like Regscanner does which means that all search results are displayed immediately and you are not forced to jump from result to result like in Regedit. Four Search Styles are available: Simple Search, Wildcard Search, Boolean Search and Regular Expressions.

You can also limit the search to specific range, certain data types and several other options. There is also a find and replace feature build in. Once you have selected a key you will notice the additional tabs that contain Security Information, Additional Information and a Change Log besides the default display of the values of that key.

The Pro Reviewer website has a tip on how to prevent this from happening. The easiest way of preventing focus stealing is to use Tweak UI which has a setting that is called “Prevent applications from stealing focus”. Checking this option prevents that other applications pop up suddenly and steal the focus of the window you are currently working in.

This only works when the application has been minimized before. Instead of stealing the focus it will flash a number of times which can be defined in the same menu in Tweak UI. If you do not want to use Tweak UI you can change the setting in the Windows Registry.

Navigate to the Registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Control Panel > Desktop and change the ForegroundLockTimeout value to 30d40 (Hexadecimal) or 200000 (Decimal). The key ForeGroundFlashCount defines the amount of flashes of a window to alert the user where 0 means unlimited.

There is however another place that stores the most recent documents. This one is located in the Registry and it stores way more information. The Registry key is called OpenSaveMRU and stores a history of files that have been opened in a common dialog box. All information are stored in sub-keys. The * sub-key contains a list of all files while the keys with file extensions contain only information about files with that extension.

The only way that I discovered to remove those information is to clear all sub-keys of this Registry key. There is probably a more elegant way to do this, maybe a hidden Registry setting that disables it but I was not able to discover it yet.

You can open the Windows Registry to take a look at the key. To do that press Windows R, type regedit and hit enter. Now navigate to the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER \Software \Microsoft \Windows \CurrentVersion \Explorer \ComDlg32 and left-click on the key OpenSaveMRU.

The easiest way is to use a Registry file that clears all the sub-keys immediately. I did create and upload the Registry script for you. Just download the registry script and double-click it (or execute it with regedit /s edit.reg). You could also save it and take a look at it before you execute it which is always a good precaution.

It seems that the sub-keys will not be regenerated after a restart.