How to definitively turn off the Foxit updater

The updater in Foxit is really annoying. And even if you turn it off via the GUI the updater application will still run in background. This will delay the main Foxit window start up.

So, here is the trick: the the updater to think that it already checked for updates:
Open the registry (RegEdit) to:

\\\Registry\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Foxit Software\Foxit Reader 7.0\plugins\Updater\LastDay

Edit the LastDay key and put a higher number. In my case, instead of 0518357,1447384350 I put 0618357,1457384350.

If you are lazy, here is the REG file script (copy/paste the text below in a text file and change its extension to .REG then run the file):

 _________________________
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Foxit Software\Foxit Reader 7.0\plugins\Updater]
"LastDay"="0618357,1457384350"
 _________________________

Now Foxit will start almost instantaneously.






Firefox, suck it!

Overtaking applications

There is a nice registry hack that allows you to execute a specific application when you try to execute actually a different application. For example if you try to run notepad.exe, the calc.exe will be launched instead.

Details:
The key you create in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options must have the name of the application you want to take over. For example you can create a new key called notepad.exe and then create a new string with the name Debugger and value C:\WINDOWS\system32\calc.exe.
Now if you try to run notepad, the calculator will be launched instead.

www.osix.net/modules/article/?id=781