Computer Tips From A Computer Guy

Posted: 26 Feb 2010 03:28 AM PST

Knowing the built-in shortcuts for Windows saves us tons of precious time. For example, our previous article on Windows 7 keyboard shortcuts is useful, but what if we could make our own shortcuts for the Windows tasks we do the most?

A free piece of software called WinKey not only allows you to create keyboard shortcuts for opening your favorite programs, it also allows you to change the default keyboard shortcuts in Windows.

When started, the program lists all current shortcuts it is managing. Notice the last shortcut on WinKey's list is a link to their Web site.

To make a new shortcut, click Add. A new window opens with a blank selection menu. First, choose the command for which you want to use a shortcut. To do this, click the icon that looks like a piece of paper. It will open a file selection menu.

Navigate to your Program Files folder and choose a program you would like to open with a shortcut.

For our example, we are going to choose Paint Shop Pro. So, we select the Paint Shop Pro EXE file and click Open. The Paint Shop Pro icon now appears at the top of the Shortcut Properties box.

Next, we select a shortcut combination for opening this program. To do that, click the down arrow next to Shortcut key. The program will display all of its available shortcut combinations. Choose any combination you want. We have chosen Windows Key + F2.

The only other setting we need to set to open Paint Shop Pro with this shortcut is how we want the program to display when we open it.

To choose this, click the drop-down menu arrow next to Run. You can choose to have the program open in a normal window, one that is maximized or one that is minimized.

All that is left now is to click OK. You will see your new shortcut display in the WinKey menu. To test your shortcut, press the key combination you assigned to your program. The program should start instantly.

You can change any of the the current shortcuts at any time by selecting the shortcut and clicking Properties. Everything is customizable.

WinKey works smoothly in our test with both Windows Vista and 7, and the developer states it will work with any version of Windows. It is a very small download at just over 1 MB, and is available from PC World and Softpedia.

Note: If you use Office 2007 a lot, check out our previous post on creating custom keyboard shortcuts for Word 2007. Enjoy!