Microharder-than-it-needs-to-be

Yesterday my computer got hit over the head and developed amnesia.

In something like those strange scenarios wherein someone goes in for a root canal and walks out of the office missing a leg, when my computer re-started after installing a set of Microsoft updates, it didn't remember who I was.

Sigh. Have I mentioned I'm on holiday?

At first, my sweetie and I thought this might be something viral that had attacked my system via the unsecured wireless network we have found floating around our 7th floor apartment. But my sweetie thinks this was actually a bad reaction between my computer's security system and good ol' MS.

After some serious panic, I found that all my user files were still on the hard drive. The only problem seemed to be that my system wasn't seeing them, and was no longer connecting my log-on to them. Instead, it had reverted to all the factory settings as far as user interface was concerned.

I spent a bit of yesterday sorting this out. I don't mind doing a bit of grunt work as far as sorting files goes, but there are elements of the Windows factory settings that drive me a bit crazy. The devil, as it goes, is in the details, and the devilish details for me are all the stupid noises that the computer is set to make when one does any number of minute tasks. I had largely turned off all the bells and whistles and whatnot, but found myself without a Windows key. In my pre-grad-school incarnation, I had become versed in keystrokes that involved a Windows-key. My computer lacks one, so I had assigned the right Control key as the Windows key. And I found myself unable to remember how I had done this and desperate to fix this one last setting at (naturally) about 12:07am last night.

The only recommendations I could find online involved editing the Windows registry (the part of Windows that tells Windows how it works). Registry editing is never fun -- prone to mistakes, and done entirely (and rather blindingly) in something akin to WordPad. I was warned thus:

Making careless changes to the Registry can cause serious problems, up to and including the inability to start Windows. If you decide to sacrifice one of your Ctrl or Alt keys to get a Windows key and if you typically use Ctrl-Alt-Delete to see the Windows log-on screen (as in Windows 2000), a mistake in executing this tip could make it difficult for you to guess what keys to press to return to Windows.

The strangest this was that I had no memory of having done anything this complex in order to set up my Windows key when I took this computer out of the box a year and a half ago. Editing my registry by hand is a rather stressful activity, and thus I tend to remember having done it (generally with my teeth clenched). Of course, it's past midnight: Do I grit my teeth and get it done? Do it in the morning? And how has this become so difficult anyway?

Then I found this.

Seems someone with a similar problem hacked into his registry to assign a Windows key. He warns readers that "applying this hack can cause certain keys to stop functioning." Then a reader responds:

"[P]rovided you have a "standard" IBM install of the OS, they provided a tool called "Keyboard Customizer Utility" to do this and more. Check in your Start->Programs->Access IBM folder."

And there it was. For those of us for whom hacking the registry is not a good time, there's an easier way... and an earlier bedtime.