Juggle The Keys Around - Hardware Enhancement Windows XP Registry Hack

How often do you use the Windows key that’s found on almost all keyboards today? Probably not too often, except when a program setup takes up the entire screen and you need to access your icons. If you press it accidentally, you need to press [Esc], which is a minor irritant. There’s a registry hack to disable the Windows key should you wish to do so.

Navigate to:
HLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout

Here, create a new Binary value (or modify the existing value) called “Scancode Map” and set it to the following. Don’t bother with what appears in the editing box—just type in the value below exactly as it is (you don’t need to use the spacebar):

00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 03 00 00 00 00 00 5B E0
00 00 5C E0 00 00 00 00

Logging out and logging back in should bring the change into effect, but you might need to restart. In fact, you can change any key to any other! Essentially, each key has a code, and you need to specify how many keys you are remapping. Apart from lots of zeroes, you specify the code of the key you’re going to press, and you specify the code of the key you want it to become. For example:

The left [Alt] key is 38 00.
[Backspace] is 0E 00.

So the remapping of left [Alt] to [Backspace] would be 0e 00 38 00. Note the order. Now, there are eight pairs of zeroes at the beginning of the Scancode map, and four ending pairs of zeroes. Since we’re changing only one key, we need to use 02 00 00 00. (Two keys would be
03 00 00 00). After that comes the mapping, then the ending zeroes. So, to remap left [Alt] to [Backspace] would be

00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 0E 00 38 00 00 00 00 00

Just visit www.usnetizen.com/fix_capslock.html for a complete list of Scancode maps. Also remember that the value to use to disable
a key is, of course, 00 00. Here are a few useful values.

[Caps Lock]: 3A 00
Left [Ctrl]: 1D 00
[Tab]: 0F 00
[Enter]: 1C E0
Left [Shift]: 2A 00
Right [Shift]: 36 00

Disabling [Caps Lock] would therefore be eight leading pairs of zeroes, followed by 02 00 00 00, followed by 00 00 (for the disabling), followed by 3A 00 (for [Caps Lock]), followed by four pairs of zeroes. Try changing someone’s [Enter] key to [Backspace]!

Display Attributes - Visual Enhancement Windows XP Registry Hack

This is something *nix folks have had all the time—the Attributes of files and folders. In Windows, if you want to see the file and folder attributes in Detailed View in Explorer, you’ll need to use this hack.

Navigate to:

HCU\ Software\ Microsoft\ Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Explorer\ Advanced

Set the DWORD Value called ShowAttribCol to 1 to enable a spanking new “Attributes” column.

Control Capitalisation In File And Folders Names - Visual Enhancement Windows XP Registry Hack

With this hack, if you enter a file or folder name in upper case, Windows will change the entry to upper and lower case to make it more visually appealing.

Navigate to:

HCU\ Software\ Microsoft\ Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Explorer\ Advanced

Modify the DWORD Value Don’tPrettyPath to 0, and Windows will adjust the capitalisation. Set it to 1 and Windows will accept the capitalisation as entered. A restart might be required for the change to take effect.

Add A Command-Prompt Right-Click To Every Folder - Visual Enhancement Windows XP Registry Hack

If you use the command line window a lot, this hack will let you open a command prompt at the selected directory.

Navigate to:

HCR\Directory\shell

Create a new sub-key called Command under the main key (that is, the new key will be HCR\Directory\shell\Command). Change the value of “(Default)” within that key to the text you’d like on the right-click menu, for example, “Open A Prompt Here!”

Create another, new sub-key under the key created above, again called “command” (so this key will be HCR\Directory\shell\Command\command). Change the value of “(Default)” here to “cmd.exe /k cd %1”, without the quotes. Now right-click on a folder, and voila!