Hide Installed Applications from Add/Remove Programs

Normally, anyone would prefer to "see" all their applications installed, to be listed under the Add/Remove Programs window of Control Panel (for Windows, obviously!). I had a particular need to hide or prevent an application from being listed. Went through to Google search - found a neat little trick which is probably the safest.

Assuming you know about editing keys in the Windows registry -

1. Go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{installed application}


2. You may not be able to see the application by its name. Search for the application name under the Uninstall folder.


3. When you find your application, which will have a folder for itself. Under this, you will find atleast two entries - DisplayName and UninstallString.


4. Rename the names of the keys (not their values) to say DisplayName_1 and UninstallString_1.

This should prevent them from being listed; and also facilitate to unhide them when you want to upgrade/apply a patch for that application.

Unable to Access devices through SKY router

Living in London has had its good times and some "scratching-my-head" times. Well, its not about the "place" really, is it. But I could see the difference in how close you are to the advent of new technologies coming in everyday, making life more.. hmm let's say "Interesting" (Complicated, really!)

Over to the topic - I've been brooding over a week on an issue (with a silly fix, obviously). The problem was, all of a sudden, I could not access my Wifi phone from my PC and vice-versa. Same problem accessing my Wireless printer as well. I was convinced that the problem was the firewall configuration on my Ubuntu laptop, tried a few things and was giving up. Didn't find anything useful on the Router as well*. Note that, in all the while, I had no problems accessing the Internet.

Brainstorm - Did some digging up on SKY broadband forums and tried a complete router-reset. Noticed that nifty little configuration called "Wireless Isolation" which was left unchecked after the reset. I remembered that I had left it checked, based on the help-instructions that say -
"If Enabled, the router will be hidden from other wireless devices. For normal situations, this setting should be left at the default value of Disabled."

What it does not say is the corollary - ie.. you will not be able to access other LAN devices!

So, this setting stays unchecked here on - silly!