registry

How to resolve “Virtual PC has detected an invalid or missing Product ID”

12/032010

I’ve just installed Virtual PC 2007 on my work laptop (which runs Windows XP), and when I tried to start it, I got the following error:

---------------------------
Virtual PC
---------------------------
Virtual PC has detected an invalid or missing Product ID.

A valid Product ID is required to operate Virtual PC. Please
re-run the Virtual PC installer and enter a valid Product ID when
requested.
---------------------------
OK
---------------------------

The solution is basically as described here, except I had to create the registry keys and values as they were missing on my machine.

Stop Ctrl+Enter from sending emails in Outlook 2003

04/032010

I use Microsoft Outlook at work and have never purposely used the Ctrl+Enter keyboard to send an email. However, I am a fairly fast typist, and sometimes don’t let go of the Ctrl key quick enough after pasting something into an email before pressing Enter for a new line, the result being a half-finished email getting sent prematurely.

Fortunately there’s a registry hack to disable this annoyance once and for all:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\
Office\11.0\Outlook\DisabledShortcutKeysCheckBoxes]
"CtrlEnter"="13,8"

If you’re using Word as your email editor, add this too:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\
Office\11.0\Word\DisabledShortcutKeysCheckBoxes]
"CtrlEnter"="13,8"

Presumably, if you’re using a different version of Office, you will need to replace 11.0 with the correct version (10.0 for Office XP, 12.0 for Office 2003, etc.)