I wrote recently about some correspondence I had with UPEK support to remove the “Encrypted Archive” menu items from the context menu of the whole file system. I thought it was a bit of a nuisance and wanted it removed, so UPEK immediately provided me with a registry key to delete that would solve my problem.

A couple days ago I noticed that although the registry fix effectively removed it from the menu when I right-clicked files, that fix apparently did not include the root drive context menu. If I were to right-click any of my drives in “Computer” (or “My Computer”), the menu returned.

So I eventually got around to contacting UPEK again, and once more they responded immediately. I must say I’m not used to this level of support. And I also appreciate not being coddled. I always hate dealing with support when they assume you know nothing about computers. I always have to assure them I’ve gone through all these troubleshooting steps. In this case I suppose there’s no troubleshooting to be done, but still the fact that they gave me a very straightforward registry edit made me very happy.

So here it is:

Delete the "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\ShellEx\ContextMenuHandlers\SafearchiveContextMenu" registry key.

It didn’t bug me until today but alas, it eventually got to me.

Windows Live Messenger on Windows 7 has a new home in the quicklaunch area and I’m not the only one who has found it annoying.

Want to put it back in the system tray (at the bottom right where other notifications show up)? All you have to do is go to the msnmsgr.exe in C:\Program Files\Windows Live\Messenger and right-click it, then go down to properties, then click the compatibility tab.

Fill it out as above (Run this program in compatibility mode for: Windows Vista), hit OK, and you’re done. The next time you start the program, it will return to the system tray where it used to be.

A fairly specific title, to be sure.

I recently wiped my laptop and used this opportunity to streamline much of my system as well as to officially upgrade to Windows 7.

One of my favorite features of my laptop – the Dell XPS 1530 – is the built-in UPEK biometrics fingerprint scanner. Unfortunately, the dell-supplied drivers are incompatible with Windows 7, so I was forced to download the latest version directly from the site – which makes it sound like a bad thing but I actually prefer the “retail” version rather than the OEM stuff vendors get, so I was happy.

However, I eventually noticed something that always rather bugged me behind the scenes back on Vista as well with the OEM drivers/software. In the context menu (right-click) of any file, I was presented with two additional buttons: “add to new encrypted archive” and “add to existing encrypted archive”, neither of which I have used or will ever used. And if you’re like me, you prefer no clutter.

There’s an option inside the UPEK program to eliminate the “file safe” from the desktop and “My Computer” windows, but there is no option to remove the context menu. So I did what any responsible person with a complaint about a software product would do – I sent feedback to the developer. And I am quite glad I did, because their support staff gave me a response within just a few hours with the key to removing it. In this case, quite literally a key for the registry (I have no fear of the registry and had removed a number of UPEK-related keys previously, none of which worked – but I put them back).

To remove the FileSafe context menus just delete the following registry key:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AllFileSystemObjects\ShellEx\ContextMenuHandlers\SafearchiveContextMenu

Super easy, once you know where to look.

Thanks, UPEK. I’m very impressed with both your concise response and response time.

I’m a bit late to the game here, but after reformatting my computer to officially upgrade to Windows 7, and installing OpenOffice because I don’t want to deal with Office 2007 licensing, I realized how much I prefer the ribbon interface.

I looked around briefly to see if there was a “skin” or something similar for OO since it’s open source nature lends itself to that sort of thing. Alas, nothing to be found but rumors of Sun Microsystems working on a ribbon interface of their own.

Which was an enlightening discovery since reading the comments and reviews revealed almost universal rancor towards the ribbon interface – an attitude I fail to understand or agree with.

To me, the ribbon interface represents a logical solution to a big problem (especially with word-processors), namely feature-creep. There does not need to be a button for every function since there are so many. I don’t need four different visible buttons for left, center, right and justify. Of course I don’t believe the ribbon interface is necessarily appropriate for every suite and program available to the PC, but there is something to be said for a design standard.

So I guess for anyone reading this I’d like to hear your thoughts.

Today I remembered an old conversation I had years ago which involved looking for common but weird words. Some of these words weren’t weird until you thought about it. Like ‘spoon’. Then while remembering this, my brain turned it into a bizarre English lesson. Keep in mind all of this came to mind while driving home from work, and for some reason I was overwhelmed by the compulsion to document it for posterity.

Observe and despair at my brain in action.

Spoons is a weird word. This sentence is wrong because you can’t refer to a plural noun in the singular, and so it could technically read “Spoons are a weird word” but of course that doesn’t make sense either because we are not talking about a plural noun, but rather the word referencing the object – ‘spoon’. The exception to this rule is when abstracting a plural into a singular collective noun, such as “group” or “bunch”. However in this case you could not say “Spoons are a weird bunch” and get the same meaning as was intended in the sentence starting the paragraph.

Of course you might also say “Spoon is a weird word”, which removes the confusion resulting from the plural noun, but even this is incorrect because neglecting to quote a word makes it the refer to the object instead of the word itself. I found the plural form of the word ‘spoon’ especially highlighted the issue when read or spoken aloud. So to say “Spoon is a weird word” would also be incorrect because it would be stating that a spoon is a word, which it is not – it is rather a utensil used to assist in the act of eating.

The only valid form I can imagine is “’Spoons’ is a weird word”. Notice the single quotes around ‘spoons’ which excludes it from the rules associated with proper noun use, and abstracts the “spoons” into a singular quoted subject.