Lync – Disable Control+Enter When Typing a Message

keyboard shortcutslync

Is it possible to disable or re-configure the control+enter keyboard shortcut that starts a video call to the user I'm chatting with?

I've used this keyboard shortcut to send messages in other IM-clients for years. I have to use Lync at work, and I'm driving my colleagues (and myself) crazy by starting a video call invite for every second message I write…

Preferably I'd like to re-configure this shortcut to mean "send", but I'd go with disabling it if that's the only option.

Best Answer

This has been driving me mad too, since in any other app Ctrl+Enter means 'Send'.

Anyway, I found a post about disabling Ctrl+Enter for Outlook with a registry hack; I thought I'd give it a try for Lync, and to my surprise it did work.

So:

  • Open Regedit
  • Navigate to HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft
  • Right-click Microsoft and add new key Office
  • Right-click 'Office' and add a new key named 15.0 (or whatever your Office version number is)
  • Right-click the version number key, add a new key and call it Lync
  • Right-click Lync and add the new key DisabledShortcutKeysCheckBoxes
  • Right-click the DisabledShortcutKeysCheckBoxes key and select new string value
  • Name it CtrlEnter
  • Right-click CtrlEnter, select modify and set the value to 13,8 (that's thirteen comma eight)
  • Restart Lync (I killed the Lync process and then started it up again)

Now Ctrl+Enter should no longer do anything.

[Update] If you also want to disable Ctrl+Shift+Enter, which by default starts an audio call, you can add a CtrlShiftEnter string value with data set to 13,12.

To quickly apply both above changes you can create a file with a .reg extension (e.g. FixLync.reg), fill it with the content below and run it.

Note: version number 15.0 corresponds to Office 2013, tune this value if necessary! 

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Lync\DisabledShortcutKeysCheckBoxes]
"CtrlEnter"="13,8"
"CtrlShiftEnter"="13,12"
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