There are a lot of little things that annoy the typical PC gamer, and that includes pressing the Windows key by accident. Imagine being in the heat of the battle when suddenly the game has minimized because you pressed the Windows key. When you return to the game, you discover that you’ve lost. This gaming nightmare can be overcome with simple software fixes.
If you bought a gaming PC, it might come bundled with a game managing software (e.g., MSI’s Dragon Gaming Center) that can enable/disable the Windows key for you. Similar tools are also available online. For instance, Microsoft has its Fix It 50465 program for disabling the Windows key (with an accompany Fix It 50464 program for re-enabling it). Simply download, run, and follow the steps in the setup wizard window. You may need to restart your computer afterwards.
You can also disable the Windows key through the Windows Registry Editor. Be careful not to do modify the registry unless you know what you’re doing, because making even a single change there can cause consequences so dire that you’ll have to reinstall Windows.
To disable the Windows key manually, press Start, type regedt32 and press Enter. In the left navigation pane of the Registry Editor, expand Computer and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE> System> CurrentControlSet> Control> Keyboard Layout folder. Right-click this folder, select New and select Binary Value. Name this entry as Scancode Map. Double-click this entry and type the following:
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 03 00 00 00 00 00 5B E0 00 00 5C E0 00 00 00 00
You need to type, because copy-pasting the characters won’t work. The spaces are simply for clarity; exclude typing them. Click OK, close the Registry Editor and restart your computer.
To re-enable the Windows key manually, locate the ScanCode Map entry you created in the Registry Editor and delete it.
