How in the Tech

Assign Hotkeys to Launch Specific Programs in Vista

By Adam Myers ⋅ September 30, 2008 ⋅ Tags: Shortcuts

I’m a long standing member of the keyboarder’s cult – a savvy subset of computer users who have memorized keyboard shortcuts for all their heavily used applications. Using the keyboard to preform functions, rather than the point and click approach of a mouse and GUI, is amazingly efficient. You are probably already aware of copy/paste or CTRL+C/CTRL+V or ALT+TAB to switch between running programs. Vista’s redefined Start Menu is a welcome addition to those of us that prefer the keyboard. Consider this process:

• Hit Windows Key (or CTRL+ESC) to bring up the Start Menu.
• The cursor is already active in the Search Box; begin typing the first few letters of the program you wish to launch.
• Vista’s integrated search will begin pairing down the search results as you type. When you see your program in the results area, stop typing and just hit enter.

That’s pretty handy once you get in the habit of using it – it really doesn’t matter how disorganized your Start Menu becomes because the search+run method is so logical. However, maybe this is still a bit too much typing for you – especially on programs you run multiple times daily. An obvious solution is to assign a keyboard shortcut that will launch the program for you. You may be surprised that Windows provides this functionality already without any additional downloads. Here is what you do.

1. From any application shortcut, right click and chose Properties.



2. You’ll automatically be taken to the Shortcut tab. On this tab there is a form field titled Shortcut key defaulted to None.



3. Windows forces your key combination to begin with CTRL+ALT but the third key is up to you. In my example I’ve set the keyboard shortcut to CTRL+ALT+P to launch PuTTY, a free Unix Terminal Emulator. As I use this program quite often, it’s much easier to use the keyboard rather than searching for it in my start menu, or even adding it to my desktop.