No need to play emp windowed anymore!

Hi all.
We were talking on specs the other day on G4TC.NET and some of you have said that you play emp on "Windowed" mode because of the possibility that the annoying left Win-key might throw you out of the game if pressed by mistake.
I'd thought i might share with you the solution I'm using for disabling the annoying Win-key (just the left hand one).


YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN, THIS FILE *MIGHT* INCINERATE YOUR COMPUTER AND *MIGHT* RAIN FIRE UPON YOUR HOMETOWN!!! I WILL NOT BE HELD LIABLE TO ANY DAMAGE YOU MAY INFLICT AND TO ANY HARM YOU MAY BE EXPOSED TO!

having said that, I shall continue...

this is tested on a "Standard 101/102 keyboard", WinXP sp3 32bit, regedit 5.00.

A. Teh magyk:
1. Create a text file.
2. Copy the code below into the newly made text file.

this is the code

Code:

 
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout]
"Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,00,00,5b,e0,00,00,00,00

3. Rename the file to "Scancode Map.reg".
4. Make sure with yourself that you really want to disable the LEFT win-key button.
5. Double click on the file "Scancode Map.reg" and click "YES" to apply the new values to your registry.
6. Restart and login to check if the key works. It shouldn't.
7. For complains check the RED SECTION.

B. "What does it do?" or "How do I know that tuxu ain't trying to reghack my PeeCee?"

Here is a breakdown to the layman for the 8byte hexadecimal values(each number or letter represent a byte):
00 00 00 00..................;Version, we just leave that empty
00 00 00 00..................;Flags, no need too.
02 00 00 00..................;2 Entries included(the left win-key and the null terminator)
00 00 5B E0..................;Left win-key, the way the registry sees it. [Entry 01]
00 00 00 00..................;Null terminator (a line of zeroes that indicates its all over and that there's nothing more to see, nothing fancy) [Entry 02]

All of that mambo-jumbo is giving us the line we used:
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,00,00,5b,e0,00,00,00,00

Since the info is written on a Hexadecimal basis (0 to 15 instead of 0 to 9 - which is decimal) we need to add "hex:" before the values.
We also have to give that little pack of info a name which is a simple text tag that appears in "", we load the hex value into the name tag we want and thus end up with:

"Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,00,00,5b,e0,00,00,00,00

All of that info have to be stored in the right place in our registry to have any effect so we add the address:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout]

And ends up with:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout]
"Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,00,00,5b,e0,00,00,00,00

M'kaaay? M'kaaay!

have fun and better FPS.

-Tuxu and the Jeepers.

 

I actually use it when not playing emp..

 

I shut it off on ma laptop because the keys are closer together but for a desktop, why bother unless you are particularly ham-handed.

 

Just do the windowed,noborder trickery much more simple

 

or you could just physically remove the windows key from your keyboard.....

 

I play windowed mode because I can browser interwebz during loading or during gay maps

 

emp_windowed

 

take a thin object, knives work well, and pop the left window key off. No need for it, and there is one on the right.

 

Avoid registry hax

-windowed -noborder

What that does is makes your game run in fullscreen but still able to alt-tab. Then you don't need to worry about being kicked out as you can just alt-tab back instantly. And yes, it does alt-tab back instantly.

 

qft then you can watch rojo caliente during slow parts

 

Are people really so disabled that they can't take a key out of the keyboard?

Unless you'z on a laptop.

 

So full of anger!

I only accidentally hit it when I command cause its right next to alt which is the worst time for it. I took the key out before but now I just try to not command.

 

yeah my keyboard has been missing that key for like over a year now lol

 

I paid too much for my keyboard to take it to bits.

Not that I need to, I don't hit the windows key.

 

-windowed -noborder

No registry hacks.
No keyboard destruction.
No problems.
Discussion over.

 

I Like the windowed noborder trick too, special thanks to pintski for pointing that out to me! Not only for the windows key problem, but als to be able to alt+tab very fast.
Or i could go out and buy me a G11 or G15 keyboard again, with that little fancy switch to disable the winkey... and let one of my cats pour coffee over it again, lol.

 

hmm

it gets annoying when you feel like doing something other than specing money for the 5th time in the same day, because one click out of other windows border makes empires appear on the foreground.

still way better than waiting 10 minutes to get back to emp D:

 

I find it amusing that this thread was about making it so you didn't have to go into windowed mode, but the majority of responses just say to go into windowed mode.

 

Find a gaming keyboard that lets you turn your windows key off (think G15)...