How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?

"Pendant" <Pendant RemoveThis @discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:7DAF55E2-AFB0-43AF-ACBD-F6CC9A7B278E@microsoft.com...
> "1776" wrote:
>
> >
> > "Pendant" <Pendant RemoveThis @discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> > news:52C921DB-D346-4879-80D8-E5335A10AEDB@microsoft.com...
> > >I never use CTRL+W to close all windows.
> > >
> > > I don't ever want to use it.
> > >
> > > When I press it by mistake it sometimes results in loss of whatever
I've
> > > been working on, with no warning, and no recovery.
> > >
> > > Naturally, I want to disable this annoying shortcut.
> > >
> > > How can I do this?
> > >
> > > I've searched and cannot find anything that tells me how to do this
(it
> > > even
> > > took a while before I found a reference to the CTRL+W shortcut!).
> > >
> > > Thanks in advance for any ideas.
> >
> > To actually answer your question...Search for "key mapper" on google.
Among
> > others it will lead you to sharewareconnection.com which lists many
(some
> > reviewed) mappers. One that is listed there that may be what you need
is
> > http://www.easysofts.com.cn/en/, but I can't be positive from the
> > description, however you can ask them. At least this will point you in
the
> > right direction. Take the usual precautions when downloading and
installing
> > shareware.
> >
> > I believe that this will allow you to disable CTRL-W on a Windows level
(not
> > just IE), but perhaps that is what you meant by "I don't *ever* want to
use
> > it."
> >
>
> Many thanks for the suggestion. I'm aware that there are keyboard layout
> configuration tools - Microsoft itself offers one, although I couldn't get
> that to work (and I asked on here why not, and got nowhere with that). All
> the others I've seen so far require the purchase of the tool (to access
> mappings such as this) as well as time to learn a new tool for a single
> purpose.
>
> If that is the only answer, it's a pity; a lot of effort to cure a trivial
> annoyance that arguably shouldn't be there in the first place.
>
>
BTW: you don't have to use ctl-v to paste: you can use shift-ins key or
even mouse to avoid the problem

Dear Pendan.

I have had exactly the same problem. This morning I spent several hours updating a wiki page at work, and went to paste in some text, but hit Ctrl+W instead of Ctrl+V. IE closed without any confirmation dialogue.

How disheartening.

For those who don't know about this issue, the W and V keys are neighbours on the Dvorak keyboard layout. And that's just asking for trouble when programs don't confirm the closure of a window.

So this happens to me every few months. I usually use Firefox, which at will ask to confirm a window closing, but my employer forces me to use Internet Explorer for some tasks on our intranet.

Needless to say, I lost all of my work.

After some research, it seems that Windows XP does not let you change or disable shortcut keys, unlike Mac OS X, which does. I found the solution to be to download a free open-source tool called HotKeyBind. I have set Ctrl+W to toggle the Windows XP Mute feature. That's nice and benign. As HotKeyBind will automatically start when I log in, I should be protected from now on.

You can download HotKeyBind here:

- http://sourceforge.net/projects/hotkeybind/

And as for those who suggest that we simply learn to type more accurately, they are missing the point. I am a very fast and accurate Dvorak typist, but if you take your hand away from the keyboard, there will always be a chance that you might not put it back in the correct place, even with the alignment bumps on the U and H keys (F and J for Dvorak). As I wrote, this problem hits me every few months. This time it hurt so much that I actively sought out a solution that works for me.

Pendan, I hope this helps you. It's more of a work-around, but it seems to be the best solution. Microsoft usually bends over backwards to be all things for all people, but in this case they appear to have thought that no-one would ever want to change a shortcut key.


Stephen.

I can tell you why I accidentally hit it all the time and it is very inconvenient. My company just switched from a CRT application in which ctrl-w was used to save current notes, now we you a web based application. My brain still tells me to use ctrl-w to save my notes when really I just have to click on save. So, whats the moral of the story ... I can type a note for 30 minutes just to find out I hit ctrl-w by accident, now I must type it all over again. Yes, it is aggravating.



Shenan Stanley wrote:

Re: How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
03-Feb-08

Pendant wrote:

How do you - might I ask - accidentally press CTRL+W?

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

Previous Posts In This Thread:

On Sunday, February 03, 2008 1:12 PM
Pendan wrote:

How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
I never use CTRL+W to close all windows.

I don't ever want to use it.

When I press it by mistake it sometimes results in loss of whatever I've
been working on, with no warning, and no recovery.

Naturally, I want to disable this annoying shortcut.

How can I do this?

I've searched and cannot find anything that tells me how to do this (it even
took a while before I found a reference to the CTRL+W shortcut!).

Thanks in advance for any ideas.

On Sunday, February 03, 2008 1:15 PM
Shenan Stanley wrote:

Re: How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
Pendant wrote:

How do you - might I ask - accidentally press CTRL+W?

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

On Sunday, February 03, 2008 1:23 PM
Leonard Grey wrote:

Re: How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
Patient: Doctor, it hurts when I do this.

Doctor: Don't do it.

---
Leonard Grey
Errare humanum est

Pendant wrote:

On Sunday, February 03, 2008 1:26 PM
Pendan wrote:

Re: How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
"Shenan Stanley" wrote:


You can certainly ask, although I'm only partially puzzled as to why you do
- I can only assume that you believe that this is unlikely.

It's not only not unlikely, it's actually quite a distinct possibility, if
you're using the Dvorak keyboard layout: CTRL+W is right next to CTRL+V.

Hence my desire to disable this potentially destructive shortcut.

On Sunday, February 03, 2008 1:31 PM
Shenan Stanley wrote:

Re: How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
Pendant wrote:

Looking around - I have found an inordinate number of references to the
CTRL+W One google search for it will bring up MANY hits) - but disabling
it...

List of the shortcuts in Windows XP/etc:
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/help/2503b91d-d780-4c80...08-2f48

I found how to disable all of the new "EXTRA" shortcut keys in Vista:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/disable-winx-shortcut-key...n-windo

Maybe someone else will come up with something.

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

On Sunday, February 03, 2008 1:36 PM
Shenan Stanley wrote:

Re: How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
Pendant wrote:

Shenan Stanley wrote:

Pendant wrote:

The Dvorak layout usage is uncommon - at least in my experience. It may
well be different where you are located or by preference but yes - you have
pinpointed my confusion.

QWERTY layout causes it to be less often an accidental press, as CTRL+Q and
CTRL+E aren't really used all that much I would presume.

Thank you for indulging my curiosity and broadening my thought processes on
the matter.

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

On Sunday, February 03, 2008 1:46 PM
Stan Brown wrote:

Re: How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
Sun, 3 Feb 2008 12:15:34 -0600 from Shenan Stanley
<newshelper.RemoveThis@gmail.com>:

Isn't it obvious? "I'm done with this window now, so I'll Ctrl-W to
get rid of it. Whoops! the focus was somewhere other than I thought,
so I got rid of a window I want to keep instead of one I wanted to
get rid of."

And there's also "I'm done with this window now, so I'll Ctrl-W to
get rid of it. Whoops! I just realized I still needed that window
after all."

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
"If there's one thing I know, it's men. I ought to: it's
been my life work." -- Marie Dressler, in /Dinner at Eight/

On Sunday, February 03, 2008 1:48 PM
Stan Brown wrote:

Re: How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
Sun, 3 Feb 2008 12:36:20 -0600 from Shenan Stanley
<newshelper.RemoveThis@gmail.com>:

Two types of accidents (or more): (1) pressing a key you didn't mean
to press, and (2) pressing a key you *did* mean to press, but making
a mistake about the desired action.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
"If there's one thing I know, it's men. I ought to: it's
been my life work." -- Marie Dressler, in /Dinner at Eight/

On Sunday, February 03, 2008 1:56 PM
Shenan Stanley wrote:

Re: How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
Pendant wrote:

Shenan Stanley wrote:

Stan Brown wrote:

If you read the answer given by the OP to my query - I think you will find
that is not the case.

Here it is...
Pendant wrote:

Even peaked my interest in trying a few new keyboards. hah

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

On Sunday, February 03, 2008 7:37 PM
Twayne wrote:

Spend the time you're using to persue this little detail instead for improving
Spend the time you're using to persue this little detail instead for
improving your typing accuracy and you'll find yourself miles ahead of
the game. You're in for a long and bumpy ride if something that simple
bothers you that much, that often, etc. etc..
--

Regards,

Twayne

OO0 is a GREAT MS Office replacement
www.openoffice.org

Please respond to the newsgroup, not to
my e-mail, so that all may benefit. I do not
always respond to newsgroup e-mails.

On Sunday, February 03, 2008 9:59 PM
Stan Brown wrote:

Re: How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
Sun, 3 Feb 2008 12:56:40 -0600 from Shenan Stanley
<newshelper.RemoveThis@gmail.com>:

I was answering for myself, not for someone else. Those are the
principal ways *I* hit Ctrl-W by mistake.

I guess it wasn't obvious, though.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
"If there's one thing I know, it's men. I ought to: it's
been my life work." -- Marie Dressler, in /Dinner at Eight/

On Monday, February 04, 2008 9:43 AM
Pendan wrote:

Having raised the issue for other reasons, Stan has highlighted that my query
Having raised the issue for other reasons, Stan has highlighted that my query
also has other relevance.

A user interface should not have a feature such as this that is potentially
destructive, with no recovery.

Or at the very least if it is included, it should be possible to disable it.

"Stan Brown" wrote:

On Monday, February 04, 2008 9:53 AM
Pendan wrote:

"In for a long and bumpy ride"?
"In for a long and bumpy ride"? I've been on it ever since computers were
invented.

This problem situation does not arise very often, it's true.

When it DOES happen, sod's law says that it will be disastrous.

The time taken to 'pursue this little detail' is far less costly than the
time it can take to compose a single time-sensitive email (for instance).

I believe that it makes perfect sense to try to discover a solution to such
a situation; finding one will not only enable me to avoid a needless
irritation, it will also enable me to assist others who are in the same boat.

Thinks: why is it that whenever someone points out that something is flawed,
there are always many people who delight in claiming that it isn't?

"Twayne" wrote:

On Monday, February 04, 2008 7:01 PM
1776 wrote:

Re: How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
"Pendant" <Pendant.RemoveThis@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:52C921DB-D346-4879-80D8-E5335A10AEDB@microsoft.com...

To actually answer your question...Search for "key mapper" on google. Among
others it will lead you to sharewareconnection.com which lists many (some
reviewed) mappers. One that is listed there that may be what you need is
http://www.easysofts.com.cn/en/, but I can't be positive from the
description, however you can ask them. At least this will point you in the
right direction. Take the usual precautions when downloading and installing
shareware.

I believe that this will allow you to disable CTRL-W on a Windows level (not
just IE), but perhaps that is what you meant by "I don't *ever* want to use
it."

On Tuesday, February 05, 2008 9:05 AM
Pendan wrote:

Re: How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
"1776" wrote:


Many thanks for the suggestion. I'm aware that there are keyboard layout
configuration tools - Microsoft itself offers one, although I couldn't get
that to work (and I asked on here why not, and got nowhere with that). All
the others I've seen so far require the purchase of the tool (to access
mappings such as this) as well as time to learn a new tool for a single
purpose.

If that is the only answer, it's a pity; a lot of effort to cure a trivial
annoyance that arguably shouldn't be there in the first place.

On Tuesday, February 05, 2008 11:42 AM
Twayne wrote:

Yes it is a lot of effort for a trivial annoyance; that's why I recommended
Yes it is a lot of effort for a trivial annoyance; that's why I
recommended becoming more accuate with your typing. It's easy to do and
only take practice. That will help counter the other similar situations
you'll encounter too.

--

Regards,

Twayne

OO0 is a GREAT MS Office replacement
www.openoffice.org

Please respond to the newsgroup, not to
my e-mail, so that all may benefit. I do not
always respond to newsgroup e-mails.

On Thursday, February 07, 2008 5:07 AM
Stan Brown wrote:

Re: How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
Mon, 4 Feb 2008 06:43:04 -0800 from Pendant
<Pendant.RemoveThis@discussions.microsoft.com>:

One of the nice features of the Multizilla add-in to Mozilla: "reopen
closed tabs".

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
A: Maybe because some people are too annoyed by top posting.
Q: Why do I not get an answer to my question(s)?
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?

On Wednesday, February 13, 2008 8:03 PM
GS wrote:

Re: How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
I have
(it
Among
(some
is
the
installing
(not
use
BTW: you do not have to use ctl-v to paste: you can use shift-ins key or
even mouse to avoid the problem

On Thursday, October 16, 2008 3:38 PM
Stephen Eff wrote:

Windows doesn't let you change shortcuts
Dear Pendan.

I have had exactly the same problem. This morning I spent several hours updating a wiki page at work, and went to paste in some text, but hit Ctrl+W instead of Ctrl+V. IE closed without any confirmation dialogue.

How disheartening.

For those who don't know about this issue, the W and V keys are neighbours on the Dvorak keyboard layout. And that's just asking for trouble when programs don't confirm the closure of a window.

So this happens to me every few months. I usually use Firefox, which at will ask to confirm a window closing, but my employer forces me to use Internet Explorer for some tasks on our intranet.

Needless to say, I lost all of my work.

After some research, it seems that Windows XP does not let you change or disable shortcut keys, unlike Mac OS X, which does. I found the solution to be to download a free open-source tool called HotKeyBind. I have set Ctrl+W to toggle the Windows XP Mute feature. That's nice and benign. As HotKeyBind will automatically start when I log in, I should be protected from now on.

You can download HotKeyBind here:

- http://sourceforge.net/projects/hotkeybind/

And as for those who suggest that we simply learn to type more accurately, they are missing the point. I am a very fast and accurate Dvorak typist, but if you take your hand away from the keyboard, there will always be a chance that you might not put it back in the correct place, even with the alignment bumps on the U and H keys (F and J for Dvorak). As I wrote, this problem hits me every few months. This time it hurt so much that I actively sought out a solution that works for me.

Pendan, I hope this helps you. It's more of a work-around, but it seems to be the best solution. Microsoft usually bends over backwards to be all things for all people, but in this case they appear to have thought that no-one would ever want to change a shortcut key.


Stephen.

EggHeadCafe - Software Developer Portal of Choice
ADO.NET Data Access: Installing the Quickstarts and Samples Applications
http://www.eggheadcafe.com/tutorials/aspnet/9e96007a-1dc5-47b3-a28b-2e...9ea2aec

I can tell you why I accidentally hit it all the time and it is very inconvenient. My company just switched from a CRT application in which ctrl-w was used to save current notes, now we you a web based application. My brain still tells me to use ctrl-w to save my notes when really I just have to click on save. So, whats the moral of the story ... I can type a note for 30 minutes just to find out I hit ctrl-w by accident, now I must type it all over again. Yes, it is aggravating.



Shenan Stanley wrote:

Re: How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
03-Feb-08

Pendant wrote:

How do you - might I ask - accidentally press CTRL+W?

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

Previous Posts In This Thread:

On Sunday, February 03, 2008 1:12 PM
Pendan wrote:

How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
I never use CTRL+W to close all windows.

I don't ever want to use it.

When I press it by mistake it sometimes results in loss of whatever I've
been working on, with no warning, and no recovery.

Naturally, I want to disable this annoying shortcut.

How can I do this?

I've searched and cannot find anything that tells me how to do this (it even
took a while before I found a reference to the CTRL+W shortcut!).

Thanks in advance for any ideas.

On Sunday, February 03, 2008 1:15 PM
Shenan Stanley wrote:

Re: How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
Pendant wrote:

How do you - might I ask - accidentally press CTRL+W?

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

On Sunday, February 03, 2008 1:23 PM
Leonard Grey wrote:

Re: How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
Patient: Doctor, it hurts when I do this.

Doctor: Don't do it.

---
Leonard Grey
Errare humanum est

Pendant wrote:

On Sunday, February 03, 2008 1:26 PM
Pendan wrote:

Re: How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
"Shenan Stanley" wrote:


You can certainly ask, although I'm only partially puzzled as to why you do
- I can only assume that you believe that this is unlikely.

It's not only not unlikely, it's actually quite a distinct possibility, if
you're using the Dvorak keyboard layout: CTRL+W is right next to CTRL+V.

Hence my desire to disable this potentially destructive shortcut.

On Sunday, February 03, 2008 1:31 PM
Shenan Stanley wrote:

Re: How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
Pendant wrote:

Looking around - I have found an inordinate number of references to the
CTRL+W One google search for it will bring up MANY hits) - but disabling
it...

List of the shortcuts in Windows XP/etc:
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/help/2503b91d-d780-4c80...08-2f48

I found how to disable all of the new "EXTRA" shortcut keys in Vista:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/disable-winx-shortcut-key...n-windo

Maybe someone else will come up with something.

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

On Sunday, February 03, 2008 1:36 PM
Shenan Stanley wrote:

Re: How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
Pendant wrote:

Shenan Stanley wrote:

Pendant wrote:

The Dvorak layout usage is uncommon - at least in my experience. It may
well be different where you are located or by preference but yes - you have
pinpointed my confusion.

QWERTY layout causes it to be less often an accidental press, as CTRL+Q and
CTRL+E aren't really used all that much I would presume. ;-)

Thank you for indulging my curiosity and broadening my thought processes on
the matter.

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

On Sunday, February 03, 2008 1:46 PM
Stan Brown wrote:

Re: How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
Sun, 3 Feb 2008 12:15:34 -0600 from Shenan Stanley
<newshelper.TakeThisOut@gmail.com>:

Isn't it obvious? "I'm done with this window now, so I'll Ctrl-W to
get rid of it. Whoops! the focus was somewhere other than I thought,
so I got rid of a window I want to keep instead of one I wanted to
get rid of."

And there's also "I'm done with this window now, so I'll Ctrl-W to
get rid of it. Whoops! I just realized I still needed that window
after all."

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
"If there's one thing I know, it's men. I ought to: it's
been my life work." -- Marie Dressler, in /Dinner at Eight/

On Sunday, February 03, 2008 1:48 PM
Stan Brown wrote:

Re: How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
Sun, 3 Feb 2008 12:36:20 -0600 from Shenan Stanley
<newshelper.TakeThisOut@gmail.com>:

Two types of accidents (or more): (1) pressing a key you didn't mean
to press, and (2) pressing a key you *did* mean to press, but making
a mistake about the desired action.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
"If there's one thing I know, it's men. I ought to: it's
been my life work." -- Marie Dressler, in /Dinner at Eight/

On Sunday, February 03, 2008 1:56 PM
Shenan Stanley wrote:

Re: How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
Pendant wrote:

Shenan Stanley wrote:

Stan Brown wrote:

If you read the answer given by the OP to my query - I think you will find
that is not the case.

Here it is...
Pendant wrote:

Even peaked my interest in trying a few new keyboards. hah

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

On Sunday, February 03, 2008 7:37 PM
Twayne wrote:

Spend the time you're using to persue this little detail instead for improving
Spend the time you're using to persue this little detail instead for
improving your typing accuracy and you'll find yourself miles ahead of
the game. You're in for a long and bumpy ride if something that simple
bothers you that much, that often, etc. etc..
--

Regards,

Twayne

OO0 is a GREAT MS Office replacement
www.openoffice.org

Please respond to the newsgroup, not to
my e-mail, so that all may benefit. I do not
always respond to newsgroup e-mails.

On Sunday, February 03, 2008 9:59 PM
Stan Brown wrote:

Re: How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
Sun, 3 Feb 2008 12:56:40 -0600 from Shenan Stanley
<newshelper.TakeThisOut@gmail.com>:

I was answering for myself, not for someone else. Those are the
principal ways *I* hit Ctrl-W by mistake.

I guess it wasn't obvious, though. :-)

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
"If there's one thing I know, it's men. I ought to: it's
been my life work." -- Marie Dressler, in /Dinner at Eight/

On Monday, February 04, 2008 9:43 AM
Pendan wrote:

Having raised the issue for other reasons, Stan has highlighted that my query
Having raised the issue for other reasons, Stan has highlighted that my query
also has other relevance.

A user interface should not have a feature such as this that is potentially
destructive, with no recovery.

Or at the very least if it is included, it should be possible to disable it.

"Stan Brown" wrote:

On Monday, February 04, 2008 9:53 AM
Pendan wrote:

"In for a long and bumpy ride"?
"In for a long and bumpy ride"? I've been on it ever since computers were
invented.

This problem situation does not arise very often, it's true.

When it DOES happen, sod's law says that it will be disastrous.

The time taken to 'pursue this little detail' is far less costly than the
time it can take to compose a single time-sensitive email (for instance).

I believe that it makes perfect sense to try to discover a solution to such
a situation; finding one will not only enable me to avoid a needless
irritation, it will also enable me to assist others who are in the same boat.

Thinks: why is it that whenever someone points out that something is flawed,
there are always many people who delight in claiming that it isn't?

"Twayne" wrote:

On Monday, February 04, 2008 7:01 PM
1776 wrote:

Re: How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
"Pendant" <Pendant.TakeThisOut@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:52C921DB-D346-4879-80D8-E5335A10AEDB@microsoft.com...

To actually answer your question...Search for "key mapper" on google. Among
others it will lead you to sharewareconnection.com which lists many (some
reviewed) mappers. One that is listed there that may be what you need is
http://www.easysofts.com.cn/en/, but I can't be positive from the
description, however you can ask them. At least this will point you in the
right direction. Take the usual precautions when downloading and installing
shareware.

I believe that this will allow you to disable CTRL-W on a Windows level (not
just IE), but perhaps that is what you meant by "I don't *ever* want to use
it."

On Tuesday, February 05, 2008 9:05 AM
Pendan wrote:

Re: How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
"1776" wrote:


Many thanks for the suggestion. I'm aware that there are keyboard layout
configuration tools - Microsoft itself offers one, although I couldn't get
that to work (and I asked on here why not, and got nowhere with that). All
the others I've seen so far require the purchase of the tool (to access
mappings such as this) as well as time to learn a new tool for a single
purpose.

If that is the only answer, it's a pity; a lot of effort to cure a trivial
annoyance that arguably shouldn't be there in the first place.

On Tuesday, February 05, 2008 11:42 AM
Twayne wrote:

Yes it is a lot of effort for a trivial annoyance; that's why I recommended
Yes it is a lot of effort for a trivial annoyance; that's why I
recommended becoming more accuate with your typing. It's easy to do and
only take practice. That will help counter the other similar situations
you'll encounter too.

--

Regards,

Twayne

OO0 is a GREAT MS Office replacement
www.openoffice.org

Please respond to the newsgroup, not to
my e-mail, so that all may benefit. I do not
always respond to newsgroup e-mails.

On Thursday, February 07, 2008 5:07 AM
Stan Brown wrote:

Re: How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
Mon, 4 Feb 2008 06:43:04 -0800 from Pendant
<Pendant.TakeThisOut@discussions.microsoft.com>:

One of the nice features of the Multizilla add-in to Mozilla: "reopen
closed tabs".

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
A: Maybe because some people are too annoyed by top posting.
Q: Why do I not get an answer to my question(s)?
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?

On Wednesday, February 13, 2008 8:03 PM
GS wrote:

Re: How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
I have
(it
Among
(some
is
the
installing
(not
use
BTW: you do not have to use ctl-v to paste: you can use shift-ins key or
even mouse to avoid the problem

On Thursday, October 16, 2008 3:38 PM
Stephen Eff wrote:

Windows doesn't let you change shortcuts
Dear Pendan.

I have had exactly the same problem. This morning I spent several hours updating a wiki page at work, and went to paste in some text, but hit Ctrl+W instead of Ctrl+V. IE closed without any confirmation dialogue.

How disheartening.

For those who don't know about this issue, the W and V keys are neighbours on the Dvorak keyboard layout. And that's just asking for trouble when programs don't confirm the closure of a window.

So this happens to me every few months. I usually use Firefox, which at will ask to confirm a window closing, but my employer forces me to use Internet Explorer for some tasks on our intranet.

Needless to say, I lost all of my work.

After some research, it seems that Windows XP does not let you change or disable shortcut keys, unlike Mac OS X, which does. I found the solution to be to download a free open-source tool called HotKeyBind. I have set Ctrl+W to toggle the Windows XP Mute feature. That's nice and benign. As HotKeyBind will automatically start when I log in, I should be protected from now on.

You can download HotKeyBind here:

- http://sourceforge.net/projects/hotkeybind/

And as for those who suggest that we simply learn to type more accurately, they are missing the point. I am a very fast and accurate Dvorak typist, but if you take your hand away from the keyboard, there will always be a chance that you might not put it back in the correct place, even with the alignment bumps on the U and H keys (F and J for Dvorak). As I wrote, this problem hits me every few months. This time it hurt so much that I actively sought out a solution that works for me.

Pendan, I hope this helps you. It's more of a work-around, but it seems to be the best solution. Microsoft usually bends over backwards to be all things for all people, but in this case they appear to have thought that no-one would ever want to change a shortcut key.


Stephen.

On Tuesday, October 27, 2009 3:01 PM
Brent Oyye wrote:

ctrl-w
I can tell you why I accidentally hit it all the time and it is very inconvenient. My company just switched from a CRT application in which ctrl-w was used to save current notes, now we you a web based application. My brain still tells me to use ctrl-w to save my notes when really I just have to click on save. So, whats the moral of the story ... I can type a note for 30 minutes just to find out I hit ctrl-w by accident, now I must type it all over again. Yes, it is aggravating.

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I can tell you why I accidentally hit it all the time and it is very inconvenient. My company just switched from a CRT application in which ctrl-w was used to save current notes, now we you a web based application. My brain still tells me to use ctrl-w to save my notes when really I just have to click on save. So, whats the moral of the story ... I can type a note for 30 minutes just to find out I hit ctrl-w by accident, now I must type it all over again. Yes, it is aggravating.



Shenan Stanley wrote:

Re: How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
03-Feb-08

Pendant wrote:

How do you - might I ask - accidentally press CTRL+W?

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

Previous Posts In This Thread:

On Sunday, February 03, 2008 1:12 PM
Pendan wrote:

How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
I never use CTRL+W to close all windows.

I don't ever want to use it.

When I press it by mistake it sometimes results in loss of whatever I've
been working on, with no warning, and no recovery.

Naturally, I want to disable this annoying shortcut.

How can I do this?

I've searched and cannot find anything that tells me how to do this (it even
took a while before I found a reference to the CTRL+W shortcut!).

Thanks in advance for any ideas.

On Sunday, February 03, 2008 1:15 PM
Shenan Stanley wrote:

Re: How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
Pendant wrote:

How do you - might I ask - accidentally press CTRL+W?

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

On Sunday, February 03, 2008 1:23 PM
Leonard Grey wrote:

Re: How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
Patient: Doctor, it hurts when I do this.

Doctor: Don't do it.

---
Leonard Grey
Errare humanum est

Pendant wrote:

On Sunday, February 03, 2008 1:26 PM
Pendan wrote:

Re: How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
"Shenan Stanley" wrote:


You can certainly ask, although I'm only partially puzzled as to why you do
- I can only assume that you believe that this is unlikely.

It's not only not unlikely, it's actually quite a distinct possibility, if
you're using the Dvorak keyboard layout: CTRL+W is right next to CTRL+V.

Hence my desire to disable this potentially destructive shortcut.

On Sunday, February 03, 2008 1:31 PM
Shenan Stanley wrote:

Re: How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
Pendant wrote:

Looking around - I have found an inordinate number of references to the
CTRL+W One google search for it will bring up MANY hits) - but disabling
it...

List of the shortcuts in Windows XP/etc:
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/help/2503b91d-d780-4c80...08-2f48

I found how to disable all of the new "EXTRA" shortcut keys in Vista:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/disable-winx-shortcut-key...n-windo

Maybe someone else will come up with something.

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

On Sunday, February 03, 2008 1:36 PM
Shenan Stanley wrote:

Re: How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
Pendant wrote:

Shenan Stanley wrote:

Pendant wrote:

The Dvorak layout usage is uncommon - at least in my experience. It may
well be different where you are located or by preference but yes - you have
pinpointed my confusion.

QWERTY layout causes it to be less often an accidental press, as CTRL+Q and
CTRL+E aren't really used all that much I would presume.

Thank you for indulging my curiosity and broadening my thought processes on
the matter.

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

On Sunday, February 03, 2008 1:46 PM
Stan Brown wrote:

Re: How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
Sun, 3 Feb 2008 12:15:34 -0600 from Shenan Stanley
<newshelper.TakeThisOut@gmail.com>:

Isn't it obvious? "I'm done with this window now, so I'll Ctrl-W to
get rid of it. Whoops! the focus was somewhere other than I thought,
so I got rid of a window I want to keep instead of one I wanted to
get rid of."

And there's also "I'm done with this window now, so I'll Ctrl-W to
get rid of it. Whoops! I just realized I still needed that window
after all."

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
"If there's one thing I know, it's men. I ought to: it's
been my life work." -- Marie Dressler, in /Dinner at Eight/

On Sunday, February 03, 2008 1:48 PM
Stan Brown wrote:

Re: How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
Sun, 3 Feb 2008 12:36:20 -0600 from Shenan Stanley
<newshelper.TakeThisOut@gmail.com>:

Two types of accidents (or more): (1) pressing a key you didn't mean
to press, and (2) pressing a key you *did* mean to press, but making
a mistake about the desired action.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
"If there's one thing I know, it's men. I ought to: it's
been my life work." -- Marie Dressler, in /Dinner at Eight/

On Sunday, February 03, 2008 1:56 PM
Shenan Stanley wrote:

Re: How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
Pendant wrote:

Shenan Stanley wrote:

Stan Brown wrote:

If you read the answer given by the OP to my query - I think you will find
that is not the case.

Here it is...
Pendant wrote:

Even peaked my interest in trying a few new keyboards. hah

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

On Sunday, February 03, 2008 7:37 PM
Twayne wrote:

Spend the time you're using to persue this little detail instead for improving
Spend the time you're using to persue this little detail instead for
improving your typing accuracy and you'll find yourself miles ahead of
the game. You're in for a long and bumpy ride if something that simple
bothers you that much, that often, etc. etc..
--

Regards,

Twayne

OO0 is a GREAT MS Office replacement
www.openoffice.org

Please respond to the newsgroup, not to
my e-mail, so that all may benefit. I do not
always respond to newsgroup e-mails.

On Sunday, February 03, 2008 9:59 PM
Stan Brown wrote:

Re: How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
Sun, 3 Feb 2008 12:56:40 -0600 from Shenan Stanley
<newshelper.TakeThisOut@gmail.com>:

I was answering for myself, not for someone else. Those are the
principal ways *I* hit Ctrl-W by mistake.

I guess it wasn't obvious, though.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
"If there's one thing I know, it's men. I ought to: it's
been my life work." -- Marie Dressler, in /Dinner at Eight/

On Monday, February 04, 2008 9:43 AM
Pendan wrote:

Having raised the issue for other reasons, Stan has highlighted that my query
Having raised the issue for other reasons, Stan has highlighted that my query
also has other relevance.

A user interface should not have a feature such as this that is potentially
destructive, with no recovery.

Or at the very least if it is included, it should be possible to disable it.

"Stan Brown" wrote:

On Monday, February 04, 2008 9:53 AM
Pendan wrote:

"In for a long and bumpy ride"?
"In for a long and bumpy ride"? I've been on it ever since computers were
invented.

This problem situation does not arise very often, it's true.

When it DOES happen, sod's law says that it will be disastrous.

The time taken to 'pursue this little detail' is far less costly than the
time it can take to compose a single time-sensitive email (for instance).

I believe that it makes perfect sense to try to discover a solution to such
a situation; finding one will not only enable me to avoid a needless
irritation, it will also enable me to assist others who are in the same boat.

Thinks: why is it that whenever someone points out that something is flawed,
there are always many people who delight in claiming that it isn't?

"Twayne" wrote:

On Monday, February 04, 2008 7:01 PM
1776 wrote:

Re: How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
"Pendant" <Pendant.TakeThisOut@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:52C921DB-D346-4879-80D8-E5335A10AEDB@microsoft.com...

To actually answer your question...Search for "key mapper" on google. Among
others it will lead you to sharewareconnection.com which lists many (some
reviewed) mappers. One that is listed there that may be what you need is
http://www.easysofts.com.cn/en/, but I can't be positive from the
description, however you can ask them. At least this will point you in the
right direction. Take the usual precautions when downloading and installing
shareware.

I believe that this will allow you to disable CTRL-W on a Windows level (not
just IE), but perhaps that is what you meant by "I don't *ever* want to use
it."

On Tuesday, February 05, 2008 9:05 AM
Pendan wrote:

Re: How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
"1776" wrote:


Many thanks for the suggestion. I'm aware that there are keyboard layout
configuration tools - Microsoft itself offers one, although I couldn't get
that to work (and I asked on here why not, and got nowhere with that). All
the others I've seen so far require the purchase of the tool (to access
mappings such as this) as well as time to learn a new tool for a single
purpose.

If that is the only answer, it's a pity; a lot of effort to cure a trivial
annoyance that arguably shouldn't be there in the first place.

On Tuesday, February 05, 2008 11:42 AM
Twayne wrote:

Yes it is a lot of effort for a trivial annoyance; that's why I recommended
Yes it is a lot of effort for a trivial annoyance; that's why I
recommended becoming more accuate with your typing. It's easy to do and
only take practice. That will help counter the other similar situations
you'll encounter too.

--

Regards,

Twayne

OO0 is a GREAT MS Office replacement
www.openoffice.org

Please respond to the newsgroup, not to
my e-mail, so that all may benefit. I do not
always respond to newsgroup e-mails.

On Thursday, February 07, 2008 5:07 AM
Stan Brown wrote:

Re: How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
Mon, 4 Feb 2008 06:43:04 -0800 from Pendant
<Pendant.TakeThisOut@discussions.microsoft.com>:

One of the nice features of the Multizilla add-in to Mozilla: "reopen
closed tabs".

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
A: Maybe because some people are too annoyed by top posting.
Q: Why do I not get an answer to my question(s)?
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?

On Wednesday, February 13, 2008 8:03 PM
GS wrote:

Re: How do I disable CTRL+W in Internet Explorer?
I have
(it
Among
(some
is
the
installing
(not
use
BTW: you do not have to use ctl-v to paste: you can use shift-ins key or
even mouse to avoid the problem

On Thursday, October 16, 2008 3:38 PM
Stephen Eff wrote:

Windows doesn't let you change shortcuts
Dear Pendan.

I have had exactly the same problem. This morning I spent several hours updating a wiki page at work, and went to paste in some text, but hit Ctrl+W instead of Ctrl+V. IE closed without any confirmation dialogue.

How disheartening.

For those who don't know about this issue, the W and V keys are neighbours on the Dvorak keyboard layout. And that's just asking for trouble when programs don't confirm the closure of a window.

So this happens to me every few months. I usually use Firefox, which at will ask to confirm a window closing, but my employer forces me to use Internet Explorer for some tasks on our intranet.

Needless to say, I lost all of my work.

After some research, it seems that Windows XP does not let you change or disable shortcut keys, unlike Mac OS X, which does. I found the solution to be to download a free open-source tool called HotKeyBind. I have set Ctrl+W to toggle the Windows XP Mute feature. That's nice and benign. As HotKeyBind will automatically start when I log in, I should be protected from now on.

You can download HotKeyBind here:

- http://sourceforge.net/projects/hotkeybind/

And as for those who suggest that we simply learn to type more accurately, they are missing the point. I am a very fast and accurate Dvorak typist, but if you take your hand away from the keyboard, there will always be a chance that you might not put it back in the correct place, even with the alignment bumps on the U and H keys (F and J for Dvorak). As I wrote, this problem hits me every few months. This time it hurt so much that I actively sought out a solution that works for me.

Pendan, I hope this helps you. It's more of a work-around, but it seems to be the best solution. Microsoft usually bends over backwards to be all things for all people, but in this case they appear to have thought that no-one would ever want to change a shortcut key.


Stephen.

On Tuesday, October 27, 2009 3:01 PM
Brent Oyye wrote:

ctrl-w
I can tell you why I accidentally hit it all the time and it is very inconvenient. My company just switched from a CRT application in which ctrl-w was used to save current notes, now we you a web based application. My brain still tells me to use ctrl-w to save my notes when really I just have to click on save. So, whats the moral of the story ... I can type a note for 30 minutes just to find out I hit ctrl-w by accident, now I must type it all over again. Yes, it is aggravating.

On Tuesday, October 27, 2009 3:02 PM
Brent Oyye wrote:

ctrl-w
I can tell you why I accidentally hit it all the time and it is very inconvenient. My company just switched from a CRT application in which ctrl-w was used to save current notes, now we you a web based application. My brain still tells me to use ctrl-w to save my notes when really I just have to click on save. So, whats the moral of the story ... I can type a note for 30 minutes just to find out I hit ctrl-w by accident, now I must type it all over again. Yes, it is aggravating.

EggHeadCafe - Software Developer Portal of Choice
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