Tag: window tips

Have you ever given thought that why all the applications in Windows O.S. getting installed at default location “C:\Program Files” ?
Can’t it be according to our choice?

Yes it can be. And I have two reasons to change it default location anyway (either you feel its necessity or not but it’s good to install application at other location instead of “C:\Program Files”).

Why we need to change the default location of Installed application?
Reason is very simple:
1.       If you are a computer geek like me 😛 or you belong to a profession where you need to install many large sized applications like CAD apps, MS Office, Adobe Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Visual Studio, media players, games etc. Once you will feel that C drive (By default O.S gets installed in this drive only) is not sufficient for installing applications because of growing size of “program files directory” which may slow down your system. So its better to install applications in other drive rather than C

2.       Windows O.S is how much promising with its robustness, how much its virus free, you people know it very well. It may crash because of any silly mistakes that we may do like opening virus contained files, using thumb drive (pen drive) and many more. By that time all installed application will also go in vain and you need to install everything from the beginning. Why not to install applications in other location, so that it may not get affected even O.S gets crashed?

How we could do it?
We could do it by two ways:
1.       While installing application, it will ask for location where it will install it. At that time itself we can provide some other location. For example: D:\Program Files (if Program files folder is not there then create it first and locate it while installing applications).

Through this way you can install software according to your choice of drives. Say all media apps should get installed in D drive and all web tools should get installed in F drive.

2.       We could change the default location permanently using registry editor.

a.       Click on start->run (windows XP) and type regedit, sand then press enter. (Shortcut key for run command is windows key + R)

b.      Look for “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion”

c.       When you will click on Currentversion, You will see a value named ProgramFilesDir  at the right side of that window. By default its value is “C:\Program Files”

d.      Double click on that value and change the default location wherever you wish to install your application from now onwards. Ex: “D:\Program Files”

When you start your PC, Num Lock, Scroll Lock, and Caps Lock don't automatically toggle on. You can automatically turn each of them on or off whenever your PC starts, for all accounts on the PC. As a practical matter, most people probably want to have only Num Lock automatically turned on, but this Registry hack allows you to force any combination of keys on or off.

Steps to follow:

1. Run the Registry Editor and go to HKEY_USERS\.Default\Control Panel\Keyboard.
2. Find the String value InitialKeyboardIndicators. By default, it is set to 0, which means that Num Lock, Scroll Lock, and Caps Lock are all turned off.
3. Set it to any of the following values, depending on the combination of keys you want turned on or off:
0        Turns off Num Lock, Caps Lock, and Scroll Lock
1        Turns on Caps Lock
2        Turns on Num Lock
3        Turns on Caps Lock and Num Lock
4        Turns on Scroll Lock
5        Turns on Caps Lock and Scroll Lock
6        Turns on Num Lock and Scroll Lock
7        Turns on Caps Lock, Num Lock, and Scroll Lock Exit the Registry. When you restart, the new setting will take effect

When I was in college, many times I needed to disable system's USB port so that nobody other than me can use that port. So what I was doing is simply editing registry editor for USB port everytime. When I had to use it, I was enabling it else I would be keeping it inactive and would rather say to my friends that "buddy! USB port has some problem in my system :(" 

I know you might have seen such a common topic here there always but whats the harm in keeping such stuffs in our site too! So I shared it here (may be little bit late, but i am sure it will still help many people from our blog :))
Now the trick lies here in registry editor USBSTOR keyword which is under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services To disable the access to USB port, in Vista/Windows XP and 2000, follow the steps below  (I have not tested it on Win 7. Please someone verify it and let us know)

1. Click Start, and then click Run.
2. In the Open box, type regedit, and then click OK.
3. Locate, and then click the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\USBSTOR
4. In the right pane, double-click Start.
5. In the Value data box, type 4 (REG_DWORD), click Hexadecimal (if it is not already selected), and then click OK. 6. Quit Registry Editor.

To re-enable a disabled port, follow these steps below:
1. Click Start, and then click Run.
2. In the Open box, type regedit, and then click OK.
3. Locate, and then click the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\USBSTOR
4. In the right pane, double-click Start.
5. In the Value data box, type 3, click Hexadecimal (if it is not already selected), and then click OK.
6. Quit Registry Editor. Or else If you are lazy person like me 🙂 then just save two different .reg files one for enabling and other for disabling purpose.

Steps To make one click working for enbaleUSB:
1. Open Your favorite editor or simply notepad
2. Type these lines there: REGEDIT4 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\USBSTOR] "Start"="3"
3. Save it as enableUSB.reg (You could save it as anything but for our comfortness I wrote like that. extension should be .reg anyhow)

In the same way to disable USB port follow these steps:
1. Open Your favorite editor or simply notepad
2. Type these lines there: REGEDIT4 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\USBSTOR] "Start"="4"
3.Save it as disableUSB.reg