Category Archives: Windows

Desktop Tour 2023

Here’s a tour of my current home office setup as of January 2023. Over the years it has gone through many iterations – triple monitors, many machines connected via complex KVM switching, etc. The current state is the result of stripping down the overly complex setup, going too far, and then adding a few things here and there. I’ve been running with the current configuration for a few months now, and I really like it. Continue reading Desktop Tour 2023

Adding an Automatic BCC to Outlook

(This post was originally published April 23, 2009)

Note: This article is a bit out of date (in regards to newer versions of Outlook), but contains some interesting information in the comments section (which is reproduced here). At some point I will bring this article up to date, since I might have some new use cases for this functionality (i.e., automatically archiving posts to Evernote).


By using the built-in rules in Outlook you can automatically CC an email address on outgoing messages (and even specify additional criteria like keywords in subject lines, etc.), but there is no option to use BCC. This article will show how to modify Outlook to automatically BCC an email address on all outgoing messages. Continue reading Adding an Automatic BCC to Outlook

Preventing an automatic reboot after Windows Update runs

If you have Windows Update set to run in the middle of the night (as most of us do), it is rather annoying to return to your computer in the morning only to find that it has automatically rebooted due to an installed update. There is a way to prevent this from occurring, but it does require a registry hack (Windows XP/Vista/7/8).

  • Run regedit and browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREPoliciesMicrosoftWindows
  • Create a new key under Windows and call it WindowsUpdate
  • Create a new key under WindowsUpdate called AU
  • With AU selected, in the right-hand pane right-click and create a new DWORD. Call itNoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers
  • Double-click the DWORD and give it a value of 1.
  • Reboot and Windows Update will stop automatically rebooting your computer.