Making Fujitsu ix500 scanner’s CardMinder Viewer not globally steal the Alt-F3 shortcut
Posted by jpluimers on 2020/10/30
I hate applications that globally install Windows shortcut keys without the setup/install either warn about it or make it configurable.
In this case it is about CardMinder Viewer that ships with the Fujitsu ix500 scanner and installs a global shortcut, by default Alt-F3.
CardMinder Viewer is especially bad because the “settings” are not in the application: the settings are part of the Windows notification area (usually on the lower left of your screen; many people call it “the tray” as it was called tray in the Cairo research that led to Windows 95 and Windows NT 3.5).
So here is how to get rid of the Alt–F3 shortcut to be stolen:
- Press
Alt–F3to start the card minder viewer:
- Hoover over the notification area icons until you find the “CardMinder Viewer” icon in the tray (the one on the lower left of the text in the below screenshot)
- Right click that icon to show the menu:
- The settings dialog displays showing the
Alt–F3shortcut:
- Press the
Backspacekey to empty that field, then theOKbutton to close the dialog, now you get an error:
---------------------------
CardMinder
---------------------------
Specify a shortcut key.
---------------------------
OK
---------------------------
- Lets try that again by first pressting
F3, then holdingAlt,ShiftandCtrl, then clickOK:
- Test with
Alt–F3andBackspacethat the shortcuts are not stolen any more. - Test with
Ctrl–Alt–Shift–F3is not stolen either (this is actually a happy-coincidence bug in CardMinder).
The registry diff this created was this:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\PFU\CardMinder\V2.0L10\Finder] "ShortCutKey"=dword:e0000072 "ShowFinder"=dword:00000001 "VerifyPwdEveryTime"=dword:00000001
–jeroen
Based on [WayBack] Jeroen Pluimers on Twitter: “The braindead @Fujitsu_Global scanner application #CardMinder insists on stealing a global Windows shortcut key (by default Alt-F3), and does not allow you to remove it: [CardMinder] Specify a shortcut key. [OK] Why does this app thinks it is soooo more important than any other?… https://t.co/FMn3TqIbdM”
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 
Leave a comment