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Have you ever wondered why the Print key does not do what it’s label says - that is print - but copies a screenshot to the clipboard instead? Why is it doing that ? That’s probably the same thought the developer of Purrint had when he began developing this lightweight application.

My parents are using their HP printer most of the time to print text documents but every now and then they also use it to print a picture they have shot with their digital camera. Their normal printer settings have been optimized heavily so that the ink cartridges last longer. This includes the exclusive use of black for all text documents for instance and a quality setting that uses as little ink as possible without interfering with the quality of the printout.

When you make changes in the Windows Registry you normally can only make them for all users or the user account that is currently logged in. But what if you want to make them in another user account ? There is an easy way to do that by loading the Registry hive of the user into the Registry.

Microsoft did change some of the system fonts in Windows Vista which tend to look cleaner and crisper than those used in Windows XP. It would not be legal to simply download and use those fonts in Windows XP but there is a way to get them on the XP system legally.

Windows is keeping track of which programs you opened recently. It is using two locations to store those information. The first are the 15 most recently opened documents that are stored in the user profile and I already wrote an article on how to disable the recent documents listing in Windows.

Users can move the special folders from their default location to another folder or drive in Windows XP and Windows Vista. Special folders are for example the pictures and music folders in My documents. Their directory can be changed using the Location tab in the Property menu. It is recommended to add the full path as the location when moving those folders. If you want to move the Downloads special folder to drive the downloads folder on drive e: you should enter the full path which is e:\downloads in this case.

One way to save lots of money is to refill printer cartridges instead of buying new ones. The process itself was rather messy in the past but it has become easier now and there are even shops that refill the ink for you. Some printer cartridges however have a chip build in that prevents that the printer is recognizing the refilled cartridges effectively preventing users from using this low cost method.

I had to change my Windows password frequently at my old job which sometimes lead to the situation that I could not remember the new password at the next login. This happened for instance when I changed the password on the last day just before holidays. I had to contact the IT department to reset my password. There is an easier solution for computers with direct access.

It happens several times a day that some applications steal the focus of the active window by popping up. This can happen for a number of reasons, when I extract files or a transfer finishes for instance. It does not matter most of the time when this happens but sometimes I’m writing an article and it does not only mean that I have to type some words again but also that I lost concentration and have to click to regain focus.