A Quick Windows Vista Trick

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Posted on 2/11/2007 @ 10:37 PM in #Non Techie | 13 comments | 3116 views

Okay, there will be more I am sure, but here is an awesome trick.

Is there any program you see yourself running and exiting a lot? For me, it has to be notepad. Between incessant CTRL+C's and CTRL+V's, it is incredibly helpful to store that connection string, ip address, or peice of code in notepad.

So, how do you run Notepad? CTRL+ESC, type "notepad" hit "enter"? Hmm .. okay try this ...

1. Click the "Start" button, and then click on "All Programs", and under "Accessories" find "Notepad", Right click Properties on that sucker (Shown Below).

2. Give it a shortcut key as shown below.

3. Hit "OK".

Now, while in your favorite program (Visual Studio? MS Word?), hit the shortcut key.

WALLA !! NOTEPAD :-)

On 2/12/2007 1:04:18 AM Brian H. Madsen said ..

Hey Sahil - thanks for the tip...very handy and i now have a whole range of shortcut keys to my most used programs!!! awesome!

On 2/12/2007 1:11:36 AM hDrummer said ..

You know, it works in Windows Xp too ;)

On 2/12/2007 2:21:52 AM dau said ..

and where is the vista trick?
it works also with win2k

On 2/12/2007 2:40:56 AM bala said ..

Works in XP too. What's new here?

On 2/12/2007 2:49:37 AM Jason said ..

Hasn't this "trick" been in Windows since 95?

On 2/12/2007 3:32:47 AM Sverker said ..

Hi, You can give programs shortcuts as you describe in your post in Win XP also.

On 2/12/2007 5:37:54 AM lvildosola said ..

Perhaps you should take a look at SlickRun (http://bayden.com/SlickRun/). It certainly helps to get to those apss, sites, etc. real easy.

On 2/12/2007 6:02:22 AM Mark Wisecarver said ..

Groovy...thanks. ;-)

On 2/12/2007 6:24:52 AM Steve Pietrek said ..

Sahil, I do this in XP also. Very time-consuming.

On 2/12/2007 7:20:04 AM Eric Wise said ..

Slick.

On 2/12/2007 8:29:26 AM Sahil Malik said ..

Yep this works in other OS's too. But in Vista it makes more sense because you can't use the keyboard to navigate easily through the start menu. The "search" makes it easier to some extent, but for the most frequently used programs, I'd rather just hit CTRL+ALT+{?}. Anyway, 'ts a good thing to know anyway :)

On 2/13/2007 6:01:11 AM Greg Postlewait said ..

That one has been around for a long while. I regularly map Windows Explorer (Ctrl-Alt-E), DOS (Ctrl-Alt-D), and Calculator (Ctrl-Alt-C), Notepad (Ctrl-Alt-N). Sucks when I go to a workstation that doesn't have the mappings; the user wonders what the heck my hand is doing!

On 2/13/2007 6:50:16 AM Sahil Malik said ..

Hey Greg, Windows explorer is already mapped to WIN+E, so no need to map that. :) SM

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