Vmware installation causing Window 8.1 host applications to open help files randomly - window

I installed vmware on my Window 8.1 HP Envy x360 PC in early december. Late december I noticed it was difficult using it as help files of any application in use just keeps sprouting up. Even when there are no applications in the window help files window shows up few minutes after a restart.
I tried many suggestions online: removing HP redundant programs, Cleaning the system of malware and spyware, reviewing/disabling accessibility settings, still no luck. I later learnt from someone's comment on one forum that he noticed this happened on his pcs with vmware installedI finally had to display window key since the behaviour was as though the window key was perpetually pressed down such that typing letter "n", "e" or the "delete" key opens the help file of the program in use or those of windows.
Now with window key disabled the situation relatively better as I can read on the pc and do some programming task; but I still get the randow opening of help files when I click "n", "e" or "delete" keys (imagine how difficult it is to type in MSWord under this situation). The exception is that this doesn't occur while using Firefox.
Any idea what's going on?

I discovered the behaviour was a mimicking of window shotcuts involving the window key. So to temporarily solve this (since I didn't want to uninstall vmware) was to disable window key. I found some registry script at http://johnhaller.com/useful-stuff/disable-windows-key which I used.
This helped but when using certain programs (chrome and MSWord) typing any of n, b or delete key launches the help file so I used AutoHotKey - autohotkey.com to write lines of script to disable any SHIFT key shortcut combination

Related

A program keeps restarting when I close it (Windows 8.1)

Relatively new to intermediate level Windows user here. I recently installed a game which kept restarting (automatically) every few seconds even after I closed it every few seconds. Windows (I use Windows 8.1) kept trying to open the .exe even after I uninstalled. I tried deleting a couple of registry entries of it (I guess I deleted a dll registry related to it)
After deleting a couple of registry entries
but it still keeps trying to open it. What can I do about it?
These guys keep coming up as I close them
Currently doing a CS course. This is my first question on stack overflow!
EDIT: This window keeps popping up every few seconds. (I have uninstalled it)This one. The game is Battlezone(1998) from Microsoft which itself is legit. I found it on a really old CD which I found in my house recently and I just installed it. It is clear on Avast Antivirus. Nothing suspicious there in Task Manager or in Startup
Try using the Taskmanager to stop any process that is related to that programm.
If you have uninstalled it and the programm still starts it probably is still installed -> the .exe file hides somewhere.
Try find and delete it manually.
You can check if you have a system tray icon as well, some programms don't close if you close them but minimize into a system tray icon. These can often be closed using right click -> close.
Does the programm start automatically after pc start? -> check your autostart folder and the autostart tab of your taskmanager and remove it.
Anymore stuff you can provide us with? -> which game, screenshots, you sure it's not maleware?

Common dialogue control seems to keep my programs running after I close them

I currently run a 64bit Windows 10 development box. I have old VB6 source that I have to unfortunately keep updated for the time being. For some reason all the sudden I noticed that one of the applications I have just built seemed to stay running in the background after the GUI was closed.
I started debugging the issue more and more until I found out that the only time it would seem to persistently stay open in the background after the GUI was closed was if I clicked the button on my form that would call the Common Dialog control to show the file open GUI. I only have to show the file open window and then hit cancel for this to happen.
This ONLY seems to happen on ONE of my dev machines (not the other). Every time I use that CD file open box I have to open task manager up and end the task. I also tried to make sure all forms were closed when my main form starts to Unload. Nothing seems to work or shed any clue on what the issue is. I have also double checked that the following files are now all the same coping them from the known working dev machine to my broken one and re-registering them.
COMDLG32.OCX
comdlg32.oca
comdlg32.dll
COMDLG32.DEP
Both machines are running the same exact OS Win10 Pro 64bit.
That does sound strange, getting different results on the two machines. Pragmatically, you can work around the problem (without actually understanding it) by making sure that you execute an End statement. (You can put it in the QueryUnload event to make sure it's hit if the user clicks the "X".)

Force BSOD on windows 8.1

I have been trying to get windows 8.1 to force into a blue screen, but all of my attempts have failed. I don't really want to go into driver code or anything to do it, but just crash it using some sort of silly loop hole.
I tried creating the CrashOnCtrlScroll registry and it doesn't seem to work, even after restarting my computer. I also tried ending csrss, but microsoft has decided to let the user have no control and denies access at all costs (even after an informative prompt window).
I looked online for a while, but can't find anything on blue screening 8.1. It seems that everything out there is for 8 and below.
Notmyfault , a portable tool created by Microsoft's Mark Russinovich for the Windows Internals book will help you get a BSOD with more than a couple of ways (i.e High IRQ fault, hang IRP, stack trash, deadlock, etc)
Which registry key have you tried? There is different key location for PS2 and USB Keyboard.
USB Registry Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\kbdhid
Add DWORD32, name= CrashOnCtrlScroll, value =0x1
PS2 Registry Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\i8042prt
Add DWORD32, name= CrashOnCtrlScroll, value =0x1
Restart. Hold the RIGHT CTRL key and press SCROLL LOCK twice quicky.

Suppress message: "python.exe has stopped working"

I'm running Python 2.7 with ArcGIS Desktop 10.1 on Windows for Server (2 Xeon 2.13 Ghz processors).
Is it possible to suppress or automatically close the dialogue box from Windows that says "python.exe has stopped working" when python crashes? I have a continuously running, multiprocessing script that sometimes crashes for unknown reasons (working on that). When I click to close the crash report window, the script restarts and everything is okay. I want this to happen automatically until I can track down what is causing the crashes.
Thanks very much!
Doug
Procedure for disabling the Windows Debugger dialogue box found here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb204634(v=vs.85).aspx
This prevents the debug dialogue box that requires the user to click [Debug] or [Cancel] if python crashes.
However, there is now another Windows dialogue box that says "python.exe has stopped working. Please close the program" with a button [Close Program]. Sheesh!
The dialog you refer to is part of Windows Error Reporting.
The exact method varies between editions of Windows (Windows 7 instructions here, Google will happily provide for other versions...), but if you disable this feature of Windows, your crashes will happen a lot faster(!).
This is an simply an arcpy bug. You can try to avoid using the steps that are causing the crash, but it generally happens under different tools when used to process through a long list of data.
The only workaround I have found is to make my script save its progress along the way to disk so if you restart the process, it knows where to pickup from.
If you then disable windows debugger message by altering the registry (see below), you can then just repeatedly execute the script in cmd.exe until it completes the entire batch without having to close the process manually every time in between.
I know this is an awful workaround, but it is quite uncommon to have a python library kill off the python interpreter.
DWORD HKLM or HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting\DontShowUI = "1"
DWORD HKLM or HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting\Disabled = "1"

Synergy between mac and pc change mac hotkeys

Synergy is a program that enables you to use the same mouse and keyboard in two computers. I have a PC and mac connected directly with an Ethernet cable therefore the connection is great and it seems as if there is only one computer.
I am developing an iPad application and the only software that I have found that supports iwebkit for CSS is Expresso. I use that to edit my CSS files in the mac and I use dream weaver on my PC to edit PHP, HTML and JavaScript files. The only problem is that I am constantly using both computers to develop the application and its very frustrating using different shortcut keys for each computer. It would be very nice if I could use the same hot-keys on both computers.
So far I have tried:
Changing the modifier keys in the keyboard section under system preferences in the mac. That works but just with the keyboard from the mac not with the keyboard that I am using with synergy that controls both computers.
Creating applescripts that what they do is to send a shortcut key then compiling them and saving them as an application. After they are saved as an application I go to system preferences and try to run them with a different shortcut key. when I create that shortcut key system preferences crashes and closes without saving the changes.
Creating shortcut keys in synergy which it works but only in one computer. Synergy will always send the same keystroke regardless on which computer you are using.
Lastly I have tried looking for "IronAHK" which in a lot of posts people say it modifies the mac hotkeys but I have not been able to find it for the mac.
Is there a way to have the same universal access keys across my machines?
THe following article was very helpful for me (working from a Mac, controlling a PC):
http://www.nextofwindows.com/how-to-properly-map-keyboard-between-mac-and-pc-when-share-mouses-with-synergy/
Step 1: Configure Server
Step 2: Double-click on the PC (or Mac if the Server is a PC)
Step 3: Toggle the key Ctrl and Super to mirror each other
When adding a new computer in synergy you can change command and control keys. Here is an example in windows. I was not able to find it because synergy place this in a location where I never thought I could find it.
Now I can use control + c to copy files both in the mac and in the pc and most of the command such as control + a to select everything etc. To fix the other issues so that I can use 'home' to go to the beginning of the line for example I use the program provided by Evan Moran which was the first answer in this post.
For the mac I use KeyRemap4MacBook. It is pretty good for being free.
That said, consider using different source editors so that you can code only on one system. This will make your life a ton easier. Dreamweaver is not necessarily the best. Visual Studio is pretty good on Javascript, CSS, and HTML, and their express versions are free.
If all you need is syntax highlighting EditPlus is great on the PC and will work on all languages you mentioned. If you need to stay on a mac then TextWrangler is great as a basic source editor. Both have free trials. Good luck!

Resources