CaPNotifier

eVeR lEFT THE cAPS lOCK oN? Ever felt like a NUMbskull for leaving the NUM lock on? Or maybe your keyboard or system doesn’t have lights or other notifications. CaPNotifier is a small, free application that notifies you about the NUM, CAP, and Scroll locks as well as the Shift, Control, and Alt keys.

By default, CaPNotifier starts with Windows, so the first sign we saw of it in action was a small pop-up window with a message that our Scroll lock was off. We found CaPNotifier’s icon in the system tray; clicking it let us check for updates, open the Settings, and Exit the program. We opened the Settings, which mainly consisted of a series of checkboxes for showing an alert whenever any of the three Locks were turned on or off or any of the three keys pressed. We also tried CaPNotifier with the startup option deselected, which required a reboot but let us load Windows faster and then activate the program via its desktop icon. A message on the Settings sheet asked for bug reports (if any) and advised us to press the Calibrate Program button if we experienced any problems. The only other feature is an update log we could open from the About menu, which also accesses Updates and the developer’s site. There’s no Help file for this ultra-simple tool, but its Web page has FAQs and help for troubleshooting installation problems. The only other thing is a large button for displaying the current state of the CAP and NUM locks. Pressing this produced pop-ups indicating whether the lock in question was on or off.

CaPNotifier is easy to see in action: Turn the NUM lock on or off, and its CP icon appears in the notification area with a message indicating its state. Same with any lock or key in question, though we’re glad the keys are optional since they’re not always welcome. One issue: In 64-bit Windows, we received a Quit or Continue message when changing the settings. But we clicked Continue, and CaPNotifier functioned normally.