Windows – ny way to disable certain keyboard shortcuts in Windows 7

keyboard shortcutsprojectorwindowswindows 7

There is something going on with my Windows 7 machine where attempting to unlock the workstation the Win key is "stuck" on (not quite sure what is causing this).

What this causes is that when I am entering my password, which contains a "p", Windows thinks I am pressing Win + p as if I want to change my display settings to enable a projector. This is highly annoying when attempting to unlock my workstation!

The workaround I've found to "unstick" the Win key is to cycle through the projector/display settings once, land back on the original value, and then resume entering my password as normal.

But is there any way to completely disable the shortcut for Win + p ? In all likelihood I will never hook up a projector to this machine, or on the once-in-a-lifetime chance that I do, I am more than happy with having to go into the Display Settings myself.

Best Answer

One more variant is described at WindowsSecrets.COM, and includes a registry patch:

  • Setting HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\NoWinKeys to 1 disables all Win+x key combinations at once (which is not what the OP wants, but I just mention it for completeness)
  • Navigating to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced\, create/edit DisabledHotkeys as "Expandable String Value", and add the keys you do not want to be triggered along with the "Win" key (e.g. adding 12P would disable Win+1, Win+2, and Win+P)

According to the post, those changes would require a restart (a logoff/logon should be enough for HKEY_CURRENT_USER changes) for the registry to be re-read.

Side-note: I'm not sure whether other apps could re-use hotkeys disabled this way, so take into consideration that this might not be the case.

Other questions here you might wish to lookup:

Update: Just found a post at MSFN explaining how to re-assign those hotkeys to other applications. They used AutoHotkey to accomplish that. This app can be used to disable or re-assign hotkeys, and thus probably gives the most flexible solution. If I understood correctly, you could disable the P key by simply putting #p::return into its config.

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