If you’re like many people, you use the Windows key on your keyboard to access your most commonly used programs and files. But what if you don’t want to use the Windows key? Or, what if you want to assign a different key to the Windows key? In this article, we’ll show you how to disable or reassign the Windows key on your computer. ..
Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of Q&A web sites.
The Question
SuperUser reader Auron wants to know:
What can Auron do?
By default, when this key is pressed alone it opens the Start menu. Many applications and a great number of games work in fullscreen mode, and if you press this key accidentally, most of times because you wanted to press the Ctrl or Alt keys, the application usually freezes for a while and minimizes itself. If you are lucky, your videogame will pause, but sometimes it continues even when it is minimized.
Is it possible to disable the ‘Windows’ key?
It would be possible to show the Start menu with another combination of keys? I would like to keep combinations that use the Windows key working, like Windows+L, which leaves current session.
The Answer
Several SuperUser contributors all pitched some great ideas for helping Auron. Phoshi suggests:
If you’ve never used AutoHotkey before, we’d strongly suggest checking out some of our articles on the handy little program including: The Beginner’s Guide to Using an AutoHotkey Script, How to Save Time by Automating Tedious Tasks with AutoHotkey, and Insert Any Special Character with a Single Keystroke.
That can do a lot more, too.
disables it, but
would tell Win&F to run firefox. You could even set the winkey to only be disabled ingame, or require a double-press to fire, or have to hold it down before it triggers, and more!
Another contributor, Junior Mayhé, offers this suggestion:
Finally, MiffTheFox offers a solution that simply disables the Windows key altogether so there is no accidental key presses when using the left ALT and CTRL keys:
SharpKeys is free. You can download it from here
When installed, click on Add button, on Map this key (from key) section click on Type key button. Type F1. on the To this key (to key) section, select Turn Key off item.
Confirm with OK, reboot your Windows (because registry got changed). You’re done!
Thanks to their contributions we have two perfectly serviceable solutions to help remap the Windows (or any) key to a new function and one way to outright disable it.
However, this will disable the key entirely, as in no WinKey shortcuts. However, what I do is that I disable only the left Windows key, and use the right one to enter shortcuts. It’s a sacrifice, but it means that I don’t minimize anything fullscreen by accident.
Have something to add to the explanation? Sound off in the the comments. Want to read more answers from other tech-savvy Stack Exchange users? Check out the full discussion thread here.
