How to disable or enable fn keys in HP laptops?

I have been struggling with fn keys with my new HP laptop. In all (many) new HP laptops these keys are mapped to action keys by default. Action Keys are nothing but special function keys that can be used to up/down the volume, brightness projector, etc. And this is not only with HP Laptops but almost all new PC makers have this as a default behavior. This may be useful if the PC or the Laptop is used for home entertainment, where most of the function keys are used for controlling the audio and video. But if the PC is being used for other purposes, function keys should have their original action associated.

But if you want to use the F1 key for Help you have to press Fn+F1. This is the default behavior and this is annoying at times as it requires one more key to pressed and held, and we are not used to it with the earlier version of Windows. I checked with HP service center, they said it cannot be changed. I guess they did not want to help me, I was shocked. Later I came to know from a friend that it can be changed in BIOS settings. It was as simple as 1,2, 3.
Follow this procedure

1. restart the pc

2. keep tapping ESC (or the key which takes you to bios settings )

3.go to system configurations

4. there find the Action Key Mode

5. Disable it

That's it...

Listing details of files and folders in a Directory in c#

You can get the list of files and folders in WIndows explorer or in a DOS prompt. It's often useful to get content of a folder dynamically using some scripts or programs, especially if you need these details in some applications. Below is a chunk of C# code which gives you the details for files and folders of a given path. You can add additional fields to your out based on your need.

Make an executable file, i.e exe, and use it in your application or run it from the command prompt. Results can be redirected to a text file or csv file.


using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Linq;

using System.Text;

using System.IO;

namespace WinConsole

{

class ListFilesOfDirectory

{

public static long size = 0;

public static long totalSizeInMB = 0;

public static long maxSizeInMB = 0;

public static void listFiles(string path)

{

DirectoryInfo di = new DirectoryInfo(path);

DirectoryInfo[] folders = di.GetDirectories();

long[] listOfDir = new long[folders.Length];

int i=0;

foreach (DirectoryInfo d in folders)

{

size = 0;

listOfDir[i] = GetSizeOdDirectory(d);

i += 1;

totalSizeInMB += size / (1024 * 1024);

if (maxSizeInMB <>

maxSizeInMB = size / (1024 * 1024);

}

// display results in tab separated txt file

Console.WriteLine("**\t**\t**\t**\t**");

Console.WriteLine("File\t\t\t\t Size in MB");

for(int j=0;j

{

Console.WriteLine(folders[j].Name + "\t \t \t"+listOfDir[j].ToString());

}

Console.WriteLine("**\t**\t**\t**\t**");

// Console.ReadKey();

}

public static long GetSizeOdDirectory(DirectoryInfo directory)

{

DirectoryInfo[] dir = directory.GetDirectories();

foreach (DirectoryInfo d in dir)

{

GetSizeOdDirectory(d);

}

FileInfo[] files = directory.GetFiles();

foreach (FileInfo f in files)

{

size += f.Length;

}

return size;

}

public static void Main(string[] args)

{

string path=args[0].ToString();

listFiles(path);

}

}

}

The server threw an exception. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80010105 (RPC_E_SERVERFAULT)) MS Word automation solution

I was frustrated by this error every time I run the below code. I did a lot of googling nothing worked. Even Microsoft said it a known issue we don't recommend this.

Then later just to try I just put one try-catch block and it worked perfectly. To date I have not seen that error.