I was looking into making a script which toggles a network adapter's metered or unmetered status. I found this script which allowed me to automatically toggle using registry keys. However, that script was hard coded to toggle an Ethernet connection, I wanted to toggle whichever adapter is primarily in use. I saw that in the registry folder for DefaultMediaCost, which controls metered status, there is a key called Default. I was hoping somebody could tell me what this key affects. Thank you.
I don't see why you would need a complicated script for this. Would two .reg files that switch everything to metered, or switches everything back on not do the trick?
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\NetworkList\DefaultMediaCost]
"3G"=dword:00000002
"4G"=dword:00000002
"Default"=dword:00000002
"Ethernet"=dword:00000002
"WiFi"=dword:00000002
Related
I have made a program to change the mouse sensivity in the same way as you can do it with the Control Panel.
The changes are made in the registry, the keys at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Mouse and they are in fact done (I have checked them from regedit.exe) but the mouse works as if this changes are not made. In other words, the changes do not take any effect, they only do if you use the control panel. Why do they not take effect?
Windows registry isn't something that is refreshed all the time. The changes you made will be applied after the current user (that's why it's HKEY_CURRENT_USER) logs in again, or as you said after using control panel, which will read the registry. I don't know, what language your program is written in, but you should check out this link: "https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms724947.aspx"
In general, tweaking registry settings directly is unsupported, especially when there's an API to tweak the setting. In this case, the API is SystemParametersInfo. In particular, you need to use the SPI_SETMOUSESPEED as the argument for the uiAction parameter.
In other words, the changes do not take any effect, they only do if you use the control panel. Why do they not take effect?
Because there's often a little more to it than setting the value in the registry. Often there is a notification that must be sent after changing the value in order to tell the all the other software on the machine to drop any cached values and replace them with the new value that's now in the registry. In many cases, the notification will be in the form of a broadcast message.
In the case of mouse driver settings, you probably need to use the SPIF_UPDATEINIFILE argument for the fWinIni parameter. You might also need to OR it with SPIF_SENDCHANGE to broadcast a WM_SETTINGCHANGE message, but I'm not sure about that.
I've got two keyboards attached to my computer. A normal full-size keyboard and a numeric keypad. I want to "remap" the keys on the numeric keypad, but leave the full keyboard alone. So, when the user presses "5" on the keypad it would get remapped to the "Media Play" key, but if the same "5" was pressed on the keypad of the full keyboard, I'd get a "5". In essence, I want to turn that seperate numeric keypad into a media control device.
Unfortunately I'm not sure how to make this work. There is a "Raw Input" feature of Windows which allows to distinguish between keyboards, but that only allows to read the keys - not remap them. There are keyboard hooks (low level and high level) which can remap the keystrokes, but they don't distinguish between keyboards.
Can I make a combination of the two methods work? For that I'd have to be sure that the raw input message is processed before the keyboard hook kicks in. Is that so?
Also, I've read that Windows for some reason does not allow to use Raw Input and Keyboard Hooks in the same process. I could work around that by making 2 different processes, but that becomes more fragile because of communication latency (keyboard hooks have very limited time in which they must complete their work).
Is this doable at all?
In the end it turned out I needed a custom keyboard driver to accomplish this. Fortunately I found one ready for taking - Interception. The app is ready and works perfectly. :)
I wanted to expand on the answer by Vilx as I've revisited this post several times, and I've only just managed to remap my second keyboard so the keys act uniquely. This is done using Interception and Intercept together, and it's the only working solution that I've managed to get working so far.
I'm also looking into using a raspberry pi to remap a second keyboard. Although early days, I think it it's achievable: Plug keyboard into Pi, plug Pi into PC and write script to turn input keycodes into customized output commands / keycodes. Will update when I have tested.
My working Intercept solution is completely based on a Github tutorial by TaranVH which details the process the best so far. I've copied his solution below with some amends of my own.
DOWNLOADING INTERCEPTION:
Navigate to this page: https://github.com/oblitum/Interception
Click on "download the latest release."
Click on Interception.zip to download it.
Unzip the file to a folder on your computer - I recommend using a folder location that won't ever move. I put my Interception folder into C:\Program Files\ and I'll be using this location in my examples.
INSTALLING INTERCEPTION:
Open a terminal as administrator and type cd "C:\Program Files\Interception\command line installer"
Hit Enter
Now, type in the following line of text exactly as shown:
install-interception.exe /install
Hit Enter
Once the program installs sucessfully, you still must restart your computer in order to complete the installation.
(If you ever want to UNinstall interception, watch this): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hn18vv--sFY
INSTALLING INTERCEPT - (This is different from intercepTION!)
Download Kamaz's intercept.exe zip from one of these locations:
http://octopup.org/img/code/interception/intercept.zip
https://github.com/TaranVH/2nd-keyboard/blob/master/Intercept/intercept.exe
Unzip it if it's a .zip file and locate intercept.exe
To keep these files all in one place, I moved intercept.exe into C:\Program Files\Interception\
Reboot your system.
SETTING UP INTERCEPT
Plug in your second keyboard and ensure that it is working normally.
Go to where you saved intercept.exe and double click to open.
Intercept will open as a terminal, and from there you should have basic instructions to start remapping your keyboard.
Type a to add a key.
On the SECONDARY keyboard, press the Q key once. (this is the key that you are remapping)
You will be prompted with Enter combo for this trigger, end with ESC.
Carefully execute the following keystrokes (it doesn't matter which keyboard): Win + E (That is: hold down the windows key while pressing the letter E. I've found you need to do this quickly and accurately, if you hold down too long, extra keypresses are added)
When I did it, this was shown in the terminal: [Left Windows]↓ [E]↓ [E]↑ [Left Windows]↑
Press Esc and you will be prompted to label the script
I labelled mine Q->WinE so I knew what it was doing.
Press Enter to accept the label
Press S to save the filter, or C to cancel if you made a mistake.
Add more filters or close the terminal.
USING INTERCEPT
Now you've set up a custom key command, you need to apply the filter to use it.
Open up intercept.exe
Press Y to apply the filters, you will get confirmation that the filters have been activated.
Now, when you press Q on your second keyboard, Intercept will change the command to Win+E which will open File Explorer.
Caveat:
Please read TaranVH githubs page on this https://github.com/TaranVH/2nd-keyboard/tree/master/Intercept as it provides some further details and troubleshooting.
Please take care to follow the instructions very exactly as there's very little error handling in this process
In this article http://vlaurie.com/computers2/Articles/remap-keyboard.htm is explained how to remap keys of a keyboard. Hope that helps.
I have been trying to add context based right click in windows explorer for a file of extension L5X. I have tried HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\l5xfile\Shell\convert\command and set the (Default) key value to the program I want to have open the file. (I want it to say "Convert" on the context menu) My first issue seems to be that in .NET (even when running elevated) I cannot change the Default key's value. My other issue is changing that Default key value doesn't do anything to the context menu. I would really prefer a no reboot required solution.
Also, I really need this to work on WinXP all the way up to Win7 (including Server 2003, 2008 and 2008R2). If I need to detect OS and do things differently for different OSes, I will but I'm really stuck here.
PS, I tried the solution found here with no luck.
You need administrator rights to write to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT, HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT is a merged view of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes and HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes. If you want to install it for just the current user, write to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes
\l5xfile\Shell\convert\command might not be the correct path, when windows looks for context menu entries for a filetype, it first looks in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.EXT, then uses the default value it finds there: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\%defaultvaluefrom.EXT%\Shell\*
XP added a new key HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations designed for non-primary actions where you don't care about the ProgId/Class (The l5xfile part)
MSDN documents all these registry paths and settings, see: File Types and Verbs and File Associations
I'm trying to programmatically check file associations by the file extension (for example .jnlp files). I keep reading that
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\JNLPFile\Shell\Open\Command
is the Registry key to check. However, if you change the association through Windows Explorer:
Open With > Choose Program > (Always use the selected program)
the change isn't at all reflected in this Registry key. Where else is this information stored?
Take a look in:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\
and the sub-key of that is the extension you reassigned. Under that there will be the UserChoice and OpenWithList sub-keys which will contain your redefinition.
You may also want to read http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950505 which talks about your issue.
Update
As of Windows 8, life has gotten far more complicated. To create an extension association a custom hash needs to get calculated.
Fortunately, someone has reverse engineered the process and created a PowerShell script to do this without having to go through any GUI.
You can find it at the following GitHub link:
https://github.com/DanysysTeam/PS-SFTA
This is a two-part look-up.
First, you look up the default value of HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\[file_extension]. For your extensions, .jnlp, the value is "JNLPFile". Let's call this the [file_descriptor].
Now you can look up the default value of HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\[file_descriptor]\Shell\[action]\command (where [action] is the shell action you are interested in, e.g.: Open, Print, Edit, etc.).
On:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.jnlp\OpenWithList
Tip: Edit>Find is pretty handy at these situations. :)
One of my programs seems to be changing the Display Properties > Appearance > Effects > Show window contents while dragging setting to off every few hours.
I'm not sure exactly which program, or when it happens. I have a number of programs that seem like likely culprits - wallpaper rotators, software for multiple monitors, multiple virual desktops and switching, and a few others.
I am just thinking to create a little batch script to run periodically and set the setting back to on.
Does anyone know how to do this in windows? I'm using xp pro sp3.
Thanks!
The best option is to do this programmatically using the supported API. i haven't tested this, but it should do the trick:
SystemParametersInfo(SPI_SETDRAGFULLWINDOWS,
TRUE,
NULL,
SPIF_UPDATEINIFILE | SPIF_SENDCHANGE)
You can use SPI_GETDRAGFULLWINDOWS to see if the the bit has been flipped to avoid unnecessarily triggering a WM_SETTINGCHANGE.
You can use RegMon to find the program that keeps changing your settings. Maybe that's a better start than hacking around it.
There is a simple and effective solution to this problem. In Notepad type the following lines :
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop] "DragFullWindows"="1"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\DragFullWindows] "CheckedValue"=dword:00000001 "UncheckedValue"=dword:00000001
Save the file as "Show Window Contents.reg" Double clicking this file and restarting will cure the problem permanently. Post a message if you find this useful.
Aravind Banerjee
It seems the registry setting which controls that preference is HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop\DragFullWindows. You can read more about it here. However, trying it on my own computer does not register the change right away, so a batch script won't do it. You'll probably have to write a program to manipulate it using SystemParametersInfo(). You can pass it the SPI_SETDRAGFULLWINDOWS parameter. Here's a page explaining it more. Here's a page showing how to call it, albeit not for the same parameter.
I suspect it's kept in the registry - maybe [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop] - "DragFullWindows"?
It would be easy to flip the registry setting back to "1" every hour or so with a batch file.