You may want to disable some keys on the keyboard; for example, if you are a gamer, you might have wanted to disable the Windows key because accidentally clicking on it might pause your game and invoke the Start menu.

Here is a simple way to disable any key on the keyboard of your computer running Windows.

The registry in Windows can be edited to “map” one key to another key or disable a key. Manual registry editing for this might be a bit tough. Fortunately, here is software which does this – SharpKeys.

How to disable the Windows key:

1. Download SharpKeys here, extract the zip file, and install and run it and it shows a screen as below:

Note: SharpKeys works with all currently-supported versions of Windows

2. Click on the “Add” button on the bottom select the “From Key” (the key with function you want to change – Left Windows key in our case). To select it, you can scroll down or type the key

3. Now select the “To Key” – the new function which you want to assign to the From Key. (Here we select “Turn Key Off” option)

4. Click OK. Click on Write to Registry and that’s it you are done (log off and on to put the changes into effect before your next computer restart.)

If you want to restore the key (From Key – whose function is changed) to its original function, just select the entry in the main screen and click on Delete. Then click Yes and then click on “Write to registry” and once again your keys work as before.

MSP is a writer whose work can be seen at The Netizens. To find out more about his work or to contact him, please visit TheNetizens.net.

If you want to change the function of a key, do read this article on how to Change–Modify–Reassign keys or buttons of keyboard in Windows.

Download SharpKeys

Download SharpKeys

We like using Sysinternals tools here at Windows Guides; these tools bring core Windows functions together and help you administer to your systems more easily.

In this guide, we’ll cover the basics:

1. What are the Sysinternals tools?
2. How to download and run these tools on your PC
3. Where can I learn more about these tools?

We’ll then take a look at two of my favorite tools: Bginfo and Process Explorer.

Here are some other tools that we’ve covered in the past on Windows Guides:

• AutoRuns – What is really going on inside your Windows?
• SDelete Deletes Your Files Permanently
• Microsoft Desktops Gives You Multiple Desktops to Work With

What are the Sysinternals tools?

Sysinternals utilities help you manage, troubleshoot, and diagnose Windows and applications. These tools are created by the Microsoft community and are kept up to date to work with the latest versions of Windows. I’ve used some of these tools for as long as I can remember using modern versions of Windows (Windows 2000 and beyond) and you might just find one or two useful–even if you don’t consider yourself a PC geek.

How to Download and Run these Tools on Your PC

You have a few choices when using the Sysinternals tools:

1. Download individual tools from the Sysinternals website
2. Run Sysinternals tools from the command line (requires internet connection)
3. Download the Sysinternals Suite (all troubleshooting tools in one)

Where can I Learn More about these Tools?

If you run a lot of scripts from the Command Prompt, I’d like to share a quick tip that saves me time every time I open it.

To open the command prompt in your scripts (or any) directory, locate the shortcut to the command prompt, right click it, and click Properties.

Change the Start in field to match your scripts directory i.e.:

“E:\Documents\My Dropbox\Scripts”

Now, when you open the command prompt (using the shortcut you modified) you’ll start in your new base directory:

Bonus Tip: Start in Multiple Directories

If you have multiple directories from which you’d like to start, you can simply create a number of command prompt shortcuts in your start menu.

Name each shortcut a different name i.e. “scripts“, “media“, “tasks” etc. and update the Start in field for each shortcut. Now you can press the Windows Key, type media, press Enter, and have a command prompt ready to roll in your media directory.

This is how you go about to do just that (not fall asleep, but schedule the computer to …)

1. Start the Windows Task Scheduler (Click The Start-button, and type “Task” or “Schedule” in the Search Field)
2. In the Action Menu, you find the option called: Create Basic Task. This will open the Task Wizard.
   
3. Give the Task a Name: "Sleep when I do", and click Next.
   
4. Choose when you want the task to run (Daily), Click Next
5. Now choose what time we want the computer to shut-down. In this example I chose 2 am. Click Next.
   
6. At this point Windows want to know what kind of task to run, choose “Start a Program” and click Next
7. In the Program Field, type: shutdown
8. In the Add argument field, type: -h t 60 f (or -s t 60 f )
   
   Translated this means, hibernate, give 60 seconds timeout to stop action, and force shutdown of any running application.
   (For other options see the list below)
9. Click Next
10. Click Finish

And that is it.

Shutdown Options

s = shutdown
h = hibernate
l = logoff (not shut-down)

t xxx – timeout (give the user a chance to abort)
f – Force shutdown  of running applications
p – Force action without timeout or prompt

How to modify scheduled task

If you want to modify or delete your scheduled shutdown task, open up the task scheduler and click on “task scheduler library” in the left sidebar. The task will be listed there as “Sleep When I do” (if that is really what you called it.

This guide will show you how to show file extensions in Windows XP and Windows Vista/7.

Show File Extensions in Windows XP

To show file extensions in Windows XP:

1. Go to My Computer (WINKEY+E.)

2. Click Tools > Folder Options.

3. Click the View tab, uncheck Hide extensions for known file types, and click OK.

Show File Extensions in Windows Vista/7

1. Go to Computer (WINKEY+E.)

2. Press the ALT key to show the action toolbar. Click Tools > Folder Options.

3. Click the View tab, uncheck Hide extensions for known file types, and click OK.

Here’s a quick tip to restore these folders when you restart or log off and on.

Restore Opened Folders (Windows XP)

To restore open folders in Windows XP

1. Open Computer (Winkey+E.)

2. Click Tools > Folder Options…

3. Click the View tab, check Restore previous folder windows at logon, and click OK.

Restore Opened Folders (Windows Vista/7)

To restore open folders in Windows Vista/7

1. Open Computer (Winkey+E.)

2. Press the ALT key and click Tools > Folder Options…

3. Click the View tab, check Restore previous folder windows at logon, and click OK.

Now when you restart your computer or log off and on, the folders you had open previously will be opened for you.

For those of you tuned in from around the world – welcome. I’m a Kiwi (a person from New Zealand) and this article was written primarily to address NZ Windows Media Center users lack of access to the Electronic Program Guide from Sky Broadcasting.

Having said that, there are topics covered herein that could well be of use to others beyond the borders of New Zealand. Our primary tool in this article is “Big Screen EPG” that’s now being used by many people around the world to push the contents of an XMLTV file (the EPG information) into the Windows Media Center database. If this sort of thing is of interest to you, please read on.

Did you miss the previous posts in this series?

• Big Screen EPG Puts the “E” in Electronic Program Guide [Part 1 of 3]
• Big Screen EPG Puts the “E” in Electronic Program Guide [Part 2 of 3]

Our story continues:

I hope we’ve laid the groundwork for this next piece. You might want to review the most recent items on TV Setup and Big Screen EPG. In this offering we will take you through the process of getting the Sky EPG into your WMC Guide.

Requirements:

Windows Media Center – we’re using the Windows 7 version.

Big Screen EPG - the current release (v1.0A) is the one we are working with here

A TV Tuner card with a DVB-T input – we are using the Hauppauge WinTV 88x

an IRC Blaster kit and the remote control that comes with it

A video feed – can be your set-top box, or could be a handy-cam – doesn’t matter,so long as your TV Tuner card recognises it.

The remote control for your set-top box (unless you can describe the model of that set-top box)

3-stage process:

stage 1

We have to perform 3 distinct operations to make all this work. Part 1 is to prepare WMC to receive the new data. This may or may not be required, but taking this first step clears the existing data and generates a sufficient number of “slots” to hold the new channel information we are going to load in. This makes the process a bit easier to understand, although it might be a bit more work later on to reinstall the existing channel data (probably the Freeview channels depending on how your WMC was set up).

The good news is that you should only have to do it once, and reinstalling the FreeView channels can be done using Big Screen EPG along with EPG Collector, but that’s a story for another day.

stage 2

Part 2 is the collection of the program information with the help of Big Screen EPG. The result of this will be an XMLTV file that is imported into WMC.

stage 3

The last Part 3 takes us back to WMC to make the connection between the data we’ve just imported in Part 2, and the blank slots we created in Part 1. This step is labor intensive, but doesn’t need to be accomplished all in one sitting – just pick a few of the channels you want to include in the guide and leave the others to later.

CAUTION: Don’t delete any channels from the WMC line-up just now as I don’t think you can get them back without going through the whole “reset” carry-on.

Blank Slate

We’ll assume no prior work has been done, and that you can download and install the new and improved Big Screen EPG.

Having done that you can then use its ability to reset the Windows Media Center database.

This will take you to the WMC setup screen whereupon you will get a message saying someone has reset the database and would you please go back and set the whole TV thing up again. This is needed to allow us to add the channels to WMC and show the results without a lot of other clutter.

So we start the WMC setup at this point:

And jump ahead to the point where it asks us about the signal type:

I told it “cable” although I’ve heard it doesn’t matter. What does matter is the next one — say yes

and a couple of screens later you get the question about a working signal:

And because I didn’t have the set-top box in the room with me at the time, I plugged the video output from my video camera into the video-in receiver on the card. WMC was quite happy to take it.

Next, we get the part that determines what kind of set-top box we’ve got:

and that part should be straightforward and we get to the confirmation:

and eventually we reach the guide page where you will see this: (remember that we wiped everything to start with) If you didn’t wipe the database first you will see your existing channel information mixed in with the new blank channel slots.

If you want to verify that you’ve got more than the 37 channels provided by the Freeview feed just scroll down to number 38.

It’s my guess that the addition of the set-top box option is what provides us with the “slots” to capture and present the channel information above channel 38. At any rate, I haven’t come across another option that works in this regard.

Now we need to populate these slots with some data. For this we use Big Screen EPG which passes through the data gathered elsewhere on the Internet. Big Screen re-formats the files to suit WMC then pumps it into the db.

Open the Big screen EPG program and select the “Add Provider” line:

and activate the “Preset XMLTV Provider” radio button:

Make the next screen look like this:

and accept the defaults until you arrive at this screen wherein you select the channels you wish to populate with data. Please note that it’s possible this source could vanish without warning. In that case I hope we can come back with another solution.

Select the channels you want then continue accepting the defaults until you get back to the main screen where you then have the opportunity to generate data and feed it into WMC:

Accept the rest of the defaults to the end. You can then head over to WMC to see the results.

Link the program data to WMC:

In WMC, call up the guide which will have channel slots but no program data (remember the reset?). From your keyboard type in a channel number you like – 70 has Discovery, for example:

(typing in the number is a lot faster than scrolling). Now right-click on the channel number box and select “Edit Channel”

then “Edit Listings”

You’ll get a screen that looks like this (although it may be populated with old data if you didn’t do the reset). You’ll note in particular that there are 1097 lines of possible listings to choose from (most are blank).

The data you want is at the bottom of this list, so you can either push the down button a thousand and ninety seven times for every channel you want to set, or you can hit “END” on your keyboard to get to the end of the list:

Now it’s easy enough to page up to the channel you want:

Hit “Enter” to get back to the edit page (don’t forget to save) and you will be returned to the guide where your channel name will appear along with details of the current show, and if you scroll out to the right you can see all the data for the next 2 weeks if its there .

Continue this process until you’ve got all channels you want then at some point in the future you can start to “disable” the channels you don’t use to make your list easier to read.

In Conclusion:

There must be better ways to do this — drop me a note and let hear about them.

In the following weeks we’ll look at more ways to enhance your WMC guide with Big Screen EPG including the addition of channel logos and modifying the categories so stay tuned.

Post Script:

I suspect that the reason I didn’t have a set of Sky channels loaded into WMC (image 14) is that I hadn’t done a proper WMC setup – the normal with a Sky connection, but instead wiped all the existing data in the WMC database – fooled the setup program into thinking I had a Sky connection – but didn’t provide any channel data from the Sky feed.

It doesn’t make too much difference as the process of setting up your channels is the same either way – you still need to go into each channel and edit the source.

I mention this only as your setup screens may look different than those presented here.

Did you miss the previous post in this series?

• Big Screen EPG Puts the “E” in Electronic Program Guide [Part 1 of 3]

Not for newbies

My original plan was to pore over the documentation and write the perfect beginner’s manual that would allow everyone to take advantage of this excellent package. But as the night wore on, and I became more frustrated with the number of options a user could try, I fired off a heated note to Niall Ginsbourg, author of the program and head of the Big Screen company, going on about how poor the documentation was, and how confusing it was going to be for the end user.

Niall very pleasantly and politely replied to inform me that the target market for EPG wasn’t new users, but rather the more advanced users, technical people, and other users in need of a “tool kit” for investigating EPG. IN the words of Homer Simpson DOH! I fired back an apology and kept my head down for the next couple of days.

The lesson from that embarrassing encounter is that unless you are fairly conversant in this stuff, or have the time and patience to get up to speed on it – stick with the steps outlined here and you will most likely achieve the results we’ve promised (in this case, a data-rich EPG).

In the coming weeks we will look at some of the other great features in this package – like logos for the stations, and organizing genres to fit your personal tastes.

Two Step Process:

In part 1 we took a quick look at the basic “One Step” process using an existing provider selected from within Big Screen.

In this session we will examine a “Two Step” process that relies on EPG Collector to pull the program information out of the broadcast signals, along with our familiar
Big Screen EPG which, in this instance, is used to pump the data from EPG Collector into Windows Media Center.

If you’d like more background information on this technology, Mauricio Freitas has written an excellent overview of the field in Geekzone – the web site he also administers.

The installation process is fairly standard, but there is an interesting story behind the data collection.

As we’ve mentioned, Big Screen doesn’t provide the data, it simply collects, reformats, and passes through the data found from sources around the internet, and they have been kind enough to provide a list of some of these providers.

such that when it comes time to set the source of the data you’ll see this screen

that names two such providers.

What’s up with SKY?

Around the world, many broadcasters offer their program guides freely to anyone (the proof of this is to “goggle” EPG images). But here in New Zealand, Sky has chosen to keep this information to themselves.

And to be clear, using these packages do not provide Sky TV channels on your PC, this is only the program guide. If you want Sky TV you have to subscribe to their service. And if you want Sky TV on your PC, you have to bring the feed in from your Sky Decoder Box, which, unfortunately, does not provide you with an EPG that you can use to schedule recordings. A big advantage to having the Sky EPG on your PC is that it allows you to record single tv shows, and multiple shows in a series.

But why withhold the EPG? You’d think that it would be a great marketing tool to show non-subscribers all the shows that are available.

I did a bit of digging and came up with a quote from their web site:

We license our EPG data to other Web sites for a fixed monthly fee. If you are interested in receiving and using our data, please contact Kirsty Way (kway@skytv.co.nz) with your company information as well as your intended use of the data, including the technical platforms in which the data would appear and the expected audience projections. Currently we provide our data via an access-controlled Web Service, any other collection or use of SKY TV EPG data is strictly prohibited.

I’ve heard that Sky takes this matter so seriously that they have obtained “take down” orders for sites they believe are violating their policy.

I’ve sent a note off to Kirsty asking to use their data on my web site. Kirsty was kind enough to reply the next day, and when pressed, told me that the price for their EPG was around $3,000 per month, so I guess Sky figures they would make less money from new subscribers who join because they had seen the EPG, than if they kept the information private and sold the EPG as a product.

… But returning to our story:

Somehow using the process above, Sky channels make it through:

and this screen hints at the complexity awaiting the unwary hacker wannabe. What are these check-boxes and “-1″ indicators? I’ve got no idea – but one thing I have learned is that it’s best to stay well clear of them until you’ve got a good idea of what you’re doing.

And keeping with that sentiment, simply accept the defaults on all the remaining screens and your new data will appear in the Windows Media Center guide transforming your old screens peppered with “No data available” tags

into fully populated masterpieces like this:

The process of getting the data into your Windows Media Center guide is one we will look at in more detail in our next post. Along with putting this procedure into a scheduled task if time and space allow.

==

Got another take on this subject? There’s probably a better way to do pretty much everything, so drop us a line.

It can also switch across different Windows power plans, enabling one power plan when plugged in and a different one when running on battery.

Windows Guides’ Rating	User Rating	Compatible with	System
4 out of 5	Note: There is a rating embedded within this post, please visit this post to rate it.

The Aerofoil icon in the system tray also provides a very quick and easy way to toggle the Windows Aero Glass interface on and off, useful for conserving CPU resources if and when you need to.

Manages your computer’s power plans

You can have different power plans for when your notebook is running on battery and when it’s not. There are many advanced power settings that apply universally, yet Windows only ask you about power saving features like sleep, hibernation, monitor “on time” etc. With Aerofoil you get the best of both worlds.

Windows Aero Glass interface

It might not be a big surprise to learn that Aero, takes a lot of resources. By turning Aero Off when you are on battery – you get more power to the important tasks. Something that might be of interest to you is that, if you ever need to disable the Aero (for what ever reason) you can do so by right clicking the Aerofoil traybar icon. Even if you are not running on battery.

Lightweight

Aerofoil is so-called passive, and hardly ever takes up more than 1 MB of RAM.

All services optional

The good news is that, despite it’s “taking charge” approach, the program is versatile enough to let you – stay in charge. You can choose which action to take, and which to not.

Reviews and tests have shown aerofoil to extend your battery time by as much as 25%. Want to dispute that ? Try it for yourself and find out.

Aerofoil extends Vista and Windows 7 notebook battery life by:

• Allowing you to manually disable Aero Glass.
• Optionally managing Aero Glass user interface.
• Optionally managing sound muting.
• Optionally managing your chosen power plans.
• Optionally managing Windows Sidebar.
• Optionally showing a quick hibernate button.
• Changing icon colour to show whether on battery or AC.
• Aerofoil is 100% unmanaged C++ (no .Net Framework!).
• Available in both 64 bit (x64) and regular 32 bit (x86) builds.
• No configuration file – everything is customised with the installer.
• Open source and free – no expiry date, download and compile it for yourself if you prefer

Error on first startup

If you were wondering why I didn’t give this more than 4 stars, here’s why. They developers have not implemented the Redistributable C++ file, which most of us need to run the software. Instead, those of us getting a DLL error upon first startup need to download the right file ourselves.

This could’ve been added to the installer as an option – making it even easier to set up. Other than that – give it a go!

Read more about it here, or…

64-bit

32-bit

C++ Runtime 64-bit

C++ Runtime 32-bit

If you’d like to convert your Windows Vista or 7 to make it look like OS X Snow Leopard, you can learn how in this guide. Here’s what we’ll cover in this guide:

1. Create a system restore point.
2. Patch your system files with UXTheme Multi-patcher.
3. Download Snow Leopard for Windows 7.
4. Take Ownership of Your Files.
5. Install Snow Leopard for Windows 7 theme.

Please note: this guide involves modifying system files and you should proceed with caution.

Create a System Restore Point

You should first create a system restore point so you can roll back any unintended changes. If you are unsure of how to do this, follow this guide: Create a system restore point.

Patch your System Files with UXTheme Multi-patcher

To install third-party themes, you will need to patch your system files. The easiest way to do this is with UXTheme Multi-patcher:

1. Download UXTheme Multi-patcher.
2. Extract the download, right click UXTheme Multipatcher.exe, click Run as Administrator.
3. When UXTheme Multi-patcher loads, click Patch.
4. Wait while the program patches your files and makes a backup of your originals.

At any time, you can open the program again and restore your files to their original state by clicking Restore.

Download Snow Leopard for Windows 7

Download the  Snow Leopard for Windows Theme. To extract the theme, you have two options:

1. Click an ad to get to the files (not a fan of this.)
2. Extract the files manually.

It’s up to you to decide what you’d like to do to extract the file:

Click an Ad to Get to the Files

If you double click on the downloaded executable, you’ll be asked to watch an ad. The download will then extract to your desktop and you’re ready to install the theme.

Extract the Files Manually

If you disagree with the practice above, you can extract the files manually (this method works at the time of writing this guide.)

1. Download a program like 7-zip.
2. Right click the downloaded executable and click 7-Zip > Open archive.
3. Extract snd.wmv.
4. Rename snd.wmv to snd.zip.
5. Open the zip file and extract the contents to your desktop.

Take Ownership of Your Files

To learn more about taking ownership of a file, go here.

The next step is to take ownership (Take Ownership registry hack) of two system files that you’ll be replacing (the Welcome Center file is optional and should also be owned if you use Welcome Center):

• C:\Windows\system32\shell32.dll
• C:\Windows\system32\ExplorerFrame.dll

Install Snow Leopard for Windows 7 Theme

To install the theme:

1. Go to C:\Windows and locate explorer.exe
2. Rename explorer.exe to explorer.exe.backup.
3. Copy the explorer.exe file from the theme folders to C:\Windows.
4. Repeat steps 1-3 for shell32.dll and ExplorerFrame.dll (Welcome center file is optional.)
5. Double check you have replaced all system files as noted above.
6. Copy the theme files in the Themes folder to C:\Windows\Resources\Themes:
7. Important: reboot your computer.
8. Right click the desktop and click Personalize.
9. Click the Snow Leopard theme to apply the style.

Your desktop should look something like this:

If you want to add a dock to make it look even more like OS X or add even more customization, you can follow the instructions on the theme’s download page.