ERROR: How to avoid accidental pressing of special keys (Windows Key, Ctrl+Escape, etc.) [17261]

This article applies to:

E-Prime 3.0
E-Prime 2.0
E-Prime 1.x

Detail
Windows defines certain keys on the keyboard or combination of keys to mean special things. For security and application stability reasons, E-Prime permits most special key combinations such as the Windows key, Context Menu key, Ctrl+Escape, Alt+Tab, and Ctrl+Alt+Delete to function as they normally would. This does have the side affect that an experiment could terminate if a user presses one of these keys or combinations. Data collected to that point can be retrieved using the E-Recovery utility.

3rd party utilities can be used to filter out these keys and combinations and make them essentially ignored. Please contact your network administrator before using a 3rd party utility that filters keyboard responses because they some have the potential create a possible security risk (i.e., not allowing Ctrl+Alt+Delete). There are a number of freeware 3rd party utilities that can prevent the Windows Key and other "hot keys" from functioning. Psychology Software Tools provides an example of how to use one of these utilities but does not encourage or discourage this utility or any other utility that provides these same capabilities.

NOTE: Psychology Software Tools is not affiliated with the following website nor utilities. Use of these utilities should be done so at your own risk.

Psychology Software Tools has found a 3rd party utility that can ignore special keys when they are pressed.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download304.html

After downloading and extracting the WKeyKill.zip file, you can configure what keys you would like to ignore with the WKSetup.exe program that is included in the download.

• To enable the "key ignore" program, double click on the WKeyKill.exe program.
• You can press the special keys prior to running the experiment to ensure they are being ignored.
• Please note that although the program can configure ignoring of Ctrl+Alt+Del and Alt+Tab, these special combinations cannot be ignored.
• To restore the ignored keys, double click on the WKeyKill.exe program again.
• The application has a setting to show a message when the application is shutdown when you double click on it.
• Ultimately, pressing the special keys and having them work as intended will also indicate that the application has shut down.