OK, calling this "hacking" is super generous, but for years I have had a registry file that added some useful extensions to the context menu of My Computer, including the ability to jump directly to the Services list and the Devices list, without having to click through "Manage...".

Since I upgraded Windows 7 to Windows 10, however, those menu options have disappeared, and the registry hacks in my file no longer work.

I am guessing Windows 10 uses a different registry key for the My Computer icon?

Anyway, when I try to merge my old reg files I get the message "Cannot import (filename): Error accessing the registry." This comes up even when I try to merge from an admin command prompt.

Has anybody else encountered this and figured out a workaround?

Here's my original registry hack:

Add the Disk Management context menu:

Add context menus for Services, Device Management and Events:

I am being paralyzed by a case of "router block" and hoping some of you kind DC souls can help me out.

I'm WAY overdue for an upgrade to my wireless router. I know enough about this subject that I'm not going to just go down to Best Buy and pick between the 3 boxes they have on display. But I'm not enough into the "hack your router" space to make a clear, informed choice either.

My problem is, my main need for the router is the ability to set up sophisticated site filtering rules, based on MAC addresses, on a schedule.

The routers that seem to do this the best are the Netgear routers with Live Parental controls, which is actually integrated with OpenDNS.
All reports I've read say this is the most reliable way to set up site filtering on a schedule. (Although info about routers is plentiful online if you are interested in speed, throughput, etc. it's MUCH harder to find objective or even descriptive info about the less-techie features like parental controls / filtering.)

But the Amazon reviews of the mid-priced (~$100) Netgear routers I'm interested in are full of horror stories of devices that don't work terribly well, and that tend to fail on the day their 1-year warranty expires. Also Netgear appears to have an expensive, convoluted support process to get service on defective units, which seems to be based on a "soak the dummies" philosophy.

So all things being equal, I'd avoid Netgear, but they seem to be the ONLY ones with the kind of filtering controls I need. (Both powerful AND easy to use)

I've read that on routers that are running some form of Linux like OpenWRT, you can use Linux's IPTABLES to do sophisticated filtering. But I don't know Linux, and I don't want to have to climb over its substantial learning curve just to set up a new router and filter some websites.

Anyway, sorry for the long message, but I've been trying to get this decision made for weeks, and everything new I learn just makes the problem seem deeper.

Has anyone had an luck with setting up filtering on Netgear routers? If so, have you been running the router for more than a year? How is the reliability?

Alternately, are their other routers I should be looking at that implement this feature in a way that's both powerful and easy-to-use?

Saw this great post over at FreewareGenius called Another Forty-Three of the Best Free Windows Enhancements

It's part two of a series, and looking though it I saw a lot of interesting stuff, but the only tweak that really seemed like something I needed was BrowserChooser. This is an app that intercepts any link to the browser on your system and lets you choose which browser to open it in - IE, Firefox, Opera, Chrome, etc.

It set up easy, but didn't really work all that well on my system.

But the real issue was that when I uninstalled it, it didn't even come close to putting things back the way they were - browser links, HTML files, web shortcuts, web links from inside of Outlook - all broken.

I just spent half an hour going through the registry and hacking out the entries it left behind and restoring the affected values to the original settings. Not even sure yet I'm back to 100%.

But I thought I'd post a note for anyone considering using this app - watch out, you may get more (or less) than you bargained for.