How can I disable Control-W in Windows XP?

Update: While the following should still work (I no longer have access to a Windoze box), pyrospade points out that there is a way to do this directly from within Console2 nowadays. I have no idea if that's accurate but I wanted to point it out. Thanks!

Now, on with the show!

I'm an Emacs/Mac user trapped on Windows at work and I often type Control-W from muscle memory to delete a word and thus by mistake kill the entire window, including everything that I was working on. This a particularly egregious problem for Console2 as I run GNU Screen and am often doing many things at once.

Is there any way to completely disable Control-W or remap it to something that is far harder to type?

Thanks!

Update: The solution I ended up with is the following:

My AutoHotkey configuration now looks like this.

#IfWinNotActive emacs@XXXXXXXXXXXX
    ^w::Return
#IfWinActive

Cause let's be honest, I was really doing this just because I use emacs. :)

Tim Visher

Posted 2010-04-12T15:03:05.237

Reputation: 552

Good thinking with the window title conditional there. – Nathaniel – 2010-04-13T02:12:22.777

1For future readers, not that there is a way to change the setting in Console2 - Edit > Settings > Hotkeys - find "Close tab", click the Clear button, then the Assign button. – pyrospade – 2013-06-04T21:49:15.217

Answers

I've found this comment:

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 this post.

I've not investigated the link fully as yet, but it looks like it (or something like it) is what you want.

ChrisF

Posted 2010-04-12T15:03:05.237

Reputation: 39 650

It seems one could also easily write an AutoHotkey script to intercept the hotkey and do nothing with it. It looks like ^c::Return would do the trick.

– Nathaniel – 2010-04-12T15:44:48.913

I have two PCs at work; one w/ admin rights and own w/o. I ended up going with How To Geek's Suggestions for the box that I have admin rights to and with @Nathaniel's suggestion on the machine w/o.

– Tim Visher – 2010-04-12T17:09:12.690

See my update. I'm now not using a registry hack. – Tim Visher – 2010-04-12T18:58:04.907

Disabling the combo altogether for the whole system is not necessary; just open Console2, go to Edit->Settings->Hotkeys, and change the Close Tab hotkey to something else.

Synetech

Posted 2010-04-12T15:03:05.237

Reputation: 63 242

The problem is just particularly offensive in Console2. It's till pretty offensive everywhere else. :) However, this will at least relieve part of the paint point. – Tim Visher – 2010-04-12T16:35:03.973

“Everwhere else”? Like where? The Start Menu? The desktop? Why are you pressing Ctrl-W to select a word in those places? – Synetech – 2010-04-13T16:26:56.603

This article describes various means and programs : "Remapping the Keyboard Layout in Windows", either yourself via the registry, or by using the utilities SharpKeys or KeyTweak.

harrymc

Posted 2010-04-12T15:03:05.237

Reputation: 306 093