Keyboard shortcuts to launch applications

[Philip Koritsas]

I have been trying to set up keyboard shortcuts to launch my most used
applications using the follow instructions:

1. Find the icon of the program and right-click on the icon.
2. Choose Properties from the menu and make sure you're in the Shortcut tab.
3. Place your cursor in the Shortcut key field, pick a function key or a
letter you would like to assign the shortcut to, and press it.
4 Hit Apply in the bottom-right corner.
5. To open the program, press Ctrl + Alt + "Shortcut Key" or the function
key you assigned to it.

I tried it with the IE6 main icon on the desktop but it did not give me the
shortcut tab, so I made a shortcut to IE6 and set it up to launch when
pressing F1 - it worked fine. I deleted the shortcut afterwards, but now I
find that I am unable to assign F1 for another application. Since I have
deleted the original icon that the F1 key was assigned to I can't reset it
back to "NONE" again.

Is there somewhere that I can see a list of the user assigned shortcuts to
remedy the situation, or is there a registry hack?


Thanks!
Phil

 

[Bob I]

I believe the info is contained in the following binary key

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Hotkeys


I've never tried "adjusting" it in the editor so I don't know whether
you can "hack" it successfully.

 

[Philip Koritsas]

Hi,

I tried looking in the registry but couldn't find the Hotkeys entry.
However, after a reboot I notice that the F1 function has become available
again so it seems this is all I needed to do. Out of curiosity I re-assigned
a shorcut to the F1 key and took a look in the registry but still no Hotkeys
entry. It's not all that important but is this right?

Phil