SSMS – Ctrl-F1 Shortcut Stopped Working in SSMS 2014

keyboard shortcutsssms

I've had the Ctrl–F1 query shortcut bound to sp_whoisactive for years (this technique is described in How to assign CTRL+F1 to sp_whoisactive in ssms 2012?). A few days ago, it stopped working. If I hit Ctrl–F1, SQL Studio now launches Books Online in Internet Explorer. Has anyone else seen this problem? Is there a fix?

I confirmed that the shortcut it still set. Changing the shortcut does not fix the problem, Ctrl–F1 still launches BoL. Cycling SQL Studio has had no effect.

FWIW, this happened after IT restarted the server while I was logged in, so SSMS did not shut down clean.

I can of course use another keyboard shortcut (though sadly it seems Ctrl–1 is hardcoded to sp_help), it just bothers my OCD to use a different shortcut for the same command on different machines.

Best Answer

Here's a long shot: I think your Management Studio has for some reason changed the keyboard mappings to the 2012/2014 default setup, which is more similar to the regular Visual Studio apps. This changed as of SQL Server 2012 so, among other things, Ctrl+F1 now opens Books On-Line.

To verify if this is the case for you, you probably won't be able to execute queries using Ctrl+E or view estimated query plans using Ctrl+L.

I found a way to reset the keyboard shortcuts to the "classic" setup and wrote a blog post about it a while ago. The short version is:

  • Open the "Tools" menu i SSMS,
  • Select "Import and Export settings...",
  • Select the "Reset all settings" option, click "Next",
  • On the last page of the wizard, you have the option to back up your current settings. I would recommend you to do this.

Hope that helps.

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