My friend and coworker Chris Hubbard (blog coming soon? it’s here!) showed me a cool Vista feature. I typically keep my Taskbar 2 rows tall. One for my applications, and one for my Quick Launch toolbar. Many people think I’m nuts, since even I can’t always remember what all the icons are, but more often than not I still find it easier to launch an application that way over searching the start menu–when my hand is already on the mouse, that is. I used Bayden SlickRun on my XP machine a lot, and loved it, but I just haven’t customized my Vista machine as much yet. Of course with the searchable start menu SlickRun loses a bit of it’s pizazz. And, as a mini-bonus, my clock shows the time, day of week, and date, which can be handy.
But I digress. In Vista by default you can activate the Win+# hotkeys to activate the Quick Launch shortcut in the specified location (1-based, so 0 == 10). In my screenshot above, Win+1 opens PowerShell, and Win+8 opens Reflector. As you reorder the shortcuts (you can drag and drop them to reorder) the hotkeys open the new shortcuts.
Very cool!
August 22, 2007 at 23:29
Nice tip! I didn’t know about Windows Key + Number.
August 22, 2007 at 23:29
BTW, the Quick Launch hotkeys only work if you have the Quick Launch toolbar showing. Also, becareful about resizing the toolbar. It can reorder the items (which will really mess up your hotkey assignments!).