Extra Topics (Joe’s Blog Site)

Gpedit.msc is a Group Policy editor in Windows which allows you to easily edit registry-based policy settings. Unfortunately, some Windows releases have incomplete and outdated policy entries, that’s why there are Administrative Template files (.adm files) used to populate user interface settings in the Group Policy editor.

Before, Windows users could obtain the recent .adm files by getting the latest service packs or operating systems. But now, you can simply download these .adm files to add or populate your Group Policy editor.

Download appropriate .adm files from this page.

Windows registry is a directory which stores settings and options for your Windows operating system. When you install programs on your computer, they add a lot of entries on your Windows registry. If you later decide to uninstall them, some registry entries are left behind. As these entries build-up, they tend to slow things down on your machine. You should remove them using RegCleaner.

RegCleaner is a FREE tool which allows you to view the author and the name of the software. Simply find the name of the uninstalled program, select them and click “Remove Selected”. It’s that simple.

In addition, RegCleaner also has an automatic registry cleaner (under the Tools->Registry Cleanup menu) which would remove invalid registry entries from your system. Invalid entries are one of the major causes of system crashes. By cleaning up your registry, your system should not only be more stable but it will also help improve your system performance.

RegCleaner has the following key features:

• Remove file types
• Remove entries of old software
• Uninstall and remove Software from the Add/Remove list
• Remove unused DLL files
• Remove unused Shared DLLs (Automatically detected)
• Automatic backup feature

Download RegCleaner from this page (541 KB)

I found this very, very cool free utility from CNET’s Download.com. It’s called Glary Utilities by Glarysoft. It’s just a 6.36MB application download but it has most of the necessary tools you need to optimize your system from registry, startup manager, memory optimizer, file undelete and more…

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Have you been bothered by the Caps Lock key? Sometimes you’d accidentally press that key instead of the Shift key or the Tab key. Well honestly I didn’t realize that until I came across an article on disabling the caps lock key from The Geek. Maybe I wasn’t really THAT bothered that’s why I didn’t realize it before, but I’d share it to you anyway…

The procedure is quite simple but you’d have to enter a very long value as shown in the graphic above. I’ll save you all the trouble of modifying your registry manually so just download the Keyboard Mappings Registry Tweaks and merge them to your registry.

The zip file contains the following:

• ChangeCapsToControl.reg - Changes Caps Lock to be a Control key
• ChangeCapsToShift.reg - Changes Caps Lock to be a Shift key
• SwitchCapsToScrollLock.reg - Disables Caps Lock and swaps Scroll lock to be Caps Lock
• KillCapsLock.reg - Disables Caps Lock
• DisableKeyboardRemap - Uninstalls the preference by deleting the key

How do you merge a registry key, you ask?

1. Just double click or open any of the desired .REG file mentioned above (or Right-click then Merge).
2. A confirmation dialog will appear asking if you want to add the information to the registry. Answer “Yes”.
   
   

   A confirmation dialog when you try to merge a registry key

3. Restart your computer to take effect.