35. The Magical Mystery Keys
Tired of having to turn your keyboard's Num Lock key off every time you start Windows 95? Then turn this key off automatically at startup. (This technique seems more complicated than it really is. Just follow the steps exactly, and you shouldn't have any trouble.)
Open Notepad--select Start, Programs, Accessories, Notepad--and type the following:
|
a 100 |
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mov ax,0040 |
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mov ds,ax |
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and byte ptr [0017],df |
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mov ah,1 |
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int 16 |
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mov ax,4c00 |
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int 21 |
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r cx |
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0013 |
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n NUM_OFF.COM |
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w |
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Q |
Note the blank line above "r cx." Save the file in the Windows folder using Numoff.deb as the filename. (Notepad will automatically add a TXT extension, resulting in a file named numoff.deb.txt.) In Explorer, select the file, press F2 for Rename, delete the ".txt" and press Enter, and then click Yes to confirm that you want to change the extension.
Next, open an MS-DOS window (select Start, Programs, MS-DOS Prompt), type
debug
at the command prompt, and press Enter. (The result is an MS-DOS-based program, num_off.com, in the Windows folder.)
Last but not least, add the line
NUMLOCK=OFF
to your config.sys file. (Select Start, Run, type
sysedit
and click OK. In the System Configuration Editor, switch to the config.sys window. Add the above line, select File, Save to save your changes, then close the editor.)
From now on, starting Windows will bring your keyboard to life with the Num Lock key off. Cool, eh? (To undo this setting--not that you'd want to, after all this hard work--simply remove the NUMLOCK=OFF line from the config.sys file.)
Microsoft® Windows®95 Hints & Tips by Stuart Martin.
