Take Control Over Your Keyboard's Number Lock

Having a number lock turned off, or on, automatically can be a great time saver. It could also be a huge annoyance when the number lock is enabled on a laptop as normal lettered keys may function as numbers with the lock enabled.

To enable or disable the number lock setting for a keyboard during Windows logon, follow the steps below.

1) Go to Start, then Run and type: regedit
!!This will open up the Windows registry. Be VERY careful when editing as incorrect changes can damage your computer!!
2) Navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Control Panel \ Keyboard
3) Double click the InitalKeyboardIdicators option
4a) To enable the number lock on startup, enter the value data of 2
4b) To disable the number lock on startup, enter the valud data of 0
5) Click OK on the Edit String Window
6) Navigate to: HKEY_USERS \ .DEFAULT \ Control Panel \ Keyboard
7) Double click the InitalKeyboardIdicators option
8a) To enable the number lock on startup, enter the value data of 2
8b) To disable the number lock on startup, enter the valud data of 0
9) Click OK on the Edit String Window

You have now change the startup settings for the number lock on your keyboard. Once you restart your computer and log back in, the settings will be applied.

Clearing a Fickle Printer Queue

Printers are a fickle thing. Honestly, they are my least favorite piece of hardware to troubleshoot. Often I come across a printer jam that is not actually a printer jam, but a jam of the printer queue. While canceling or deleting all the jobs from the queue does sometimes work, there are cases where a print job just will not go away.

To completely delete everything from the queue, follow these steps below.

1) Open a command prompt and enter: net stop spooler
2) Browse to C:\Windows\system32\spool\printers
3) Delete any file that you see in the folder from step two
4) Return to the command prompt and enter: net start spooler

After these four steps are completed, the queue should now be cleared and printing will (hopefully) resume.