ok the best i have come up with so far is to open your gmail drag the icon/favicon on the url address bar to your desktop then put it elsewhere perhaps in documents,
then in documents right click the gmail shortcut ,select propetries and in the shortcut key field, click in it ,then select the key you want to use. this will reassign the keys to open your gmail. just tried it for seven forums and it works. although it makes you press ctrl, alt and the key you chose. but is a work around,the same process can be applied to a program.