Quote:Original post by Extrarius
Since this seems to be about 'useful but highly specialized programs' now, I regularly use a program (created by me) whose only function is to change a single registry value (HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System\DisableRegistryTools). I'm glad somebody in IT realized they could control newbies while allowing competent people to fully utilize the computers by restricting accounts using policies and then making said accounts machine-local admins =-)
And that's exactly why we make students power users instead of admins. =P
Anyway, the most specialized but stupid program I've ever written I wrote quite recently. Novell have a suite called ZENworks for Desktops. One thing ZfD allows you to do, amoung many others, is associate applications to certain users and workstations, to control their availability. There's a program called Application Explorer that is part of this suite, that allows these applications to appear as shortcuts on places such as the desktop, quicklaunch bar, and start menu, instead of the seperate Application Launcher window you're otherwise confined to.
Unfortunately, the people who created Application Explorer decided that the "Start Menu" meant the base start menu folder, not the Programs folder within it. This means on the classic start menu for example, any shortcuts it creates appear at the top of the start menu itself, which causes problems when you're pushing down a dozen program groups. Not statisfied with the idea of modifying application explorer to change the folder it requested, I wrote an app which monitors the start menu folder. When Application Explorer creates a shortcut in the start menu folder, Windows notifies my program, and I copy the shortcut into the Programs folder, and mark the original as hidden so it doesn't appear in the start menu. When Application Explorer deletes a shortcut, Windows notifies my program, and I delete the copy.
Of course, the need for this app could be eliminated by a few hours work from a programmer working on ZENworks, which people have been requesting for the better part of a decade now.
