Windows WinKey Shortcut Management

[Mulsiphix]

Examples: Win+E opens Windows Explorer Win+D shows the desktop Is it possible to modify or completely disable the Windows key shortcuts in Windows 7?

 

[Richter]

You can right click a shortcut or application and go to the empty box that says shortcut key. You can configure it from there.
For a list of native shortcut keys that comes on default with windows,
Keyboard shortcuts

 

[Mulsiphix]

You can right click a shortcut or application and go to the empty box that says shortcut key. You can configure it from there.
For a list of native shortcut keys that comes on default with windows,
Keyboard shortcuts

I'm aware of how to assign shortcut keys through application shortcut (*.lnk) files but I was curious about the hard coded shortcuts that come default in windows like those given in the example section of my first post. It is not possible to override a hard coded winkey shortcut using the method you described.

 

[Richter]

I do remember a program from a long time ago that does just that. Its called HotKeyBind. As for its compatibility with windows 7, its compatible with vista, so remember to run it in compatibility mode.
Download HotKeyBind from SourceForge.net
Details about the program here:
Easily Create Windows Shortcut Keys with HotKeyBind

I'm not sure why you want to change these shortcut keys but, I wouldn't mess with them myself....Remember to create system restore points.

 

[jonnyhotchkiss]

Does anyone know how this behaviour is encoded?

Is it a DLL (twinui in Win8?) that "listens"?

Is the action performed, ie Winkey+R on event WM_SYSKEYUP >>> "Run" (which only shows explorer in Task Manager when I go to Process) stored in the registry?!

Would love to add loggff (winkey+ctrl+L) at system level (without installing 3rd party "handlers"/shellextensions)

thanks

 

[crawfish]

You can use gpedit.msc to turn off the built-in Win+X shortcuts; it's under User->Admin->Win Comp->Windows Explorer. Then I use Autohotkey to set up the hotkeys I want to use (and for many other things). This doesn't appear to unbind Win+L, though; I use it everyday, but checking my AHK script, I don't see that I reinstituted it anywhere. OTOH, I did have to rebind Win+E:

#e::
    Run ::{20d04fe0-3aea-1069-a2d8-08002b30309d} ; My Computer
    return

Those are the only two of the standard ones I use.

 

[jonnyhotchkiss]

It's a shame so many different methods are employed to achieve various effects - I read an interesting article which led me to an AppKey location in the reg, and it's here that (some of!) the multimedia key behavior (mail,browse,calculate) is defined, whilst the majority of the 'context>>characterUnderscoreKeys' is defined with ampersands (and Murphy's law dictating that the ones we want to manage... are exceptions to these rules!!)

Just found the AMAZING copy path extension by Nick Carruthers, sadly it seems there's a 64-bit compatability issue (I'm guessing)

Removing 'extended' behaviour from the 'open command window here' option is easy (especially with shellmenuview), whilst this behavior is obviously programmed differently for copyaspath. angryface.