jfrank

Jul 16 2008

launchy hot key broken

Published by jfrank at 2:59 am under resources

I use Launchy for Windows, it is a command line launcher that allows the user to forget the start menu is even there. Which is a dream come true. It is also customizable and generally useful.

I somehow broke my launch key setting by resetting it to an invalid combination. Alt-Space is the default, and I had set it to something that simply didn’t bring up the Launchy window. This is a problem with Launchy because there is no ‘official’ way to reset the hotkey without first bringing up the launchy window.

In short, if you ever have this problem, instead of attempting a reinstall, which doesn’t work just do this:

How To Fix Launchy’s Hot Key:

Kill Launchy.exe from the task manager.
Open launchy.ini in your users application data folder.
For windows XP users, this is:
C:\Documents and Settings\yourusernamehere\Application Data\Launchy\Launchy.ini

Add or replace these ini style keys:

[GenOps]
hotkeyAction=32
hotkeyModifier=134217728

Save the file, and restart Launchy.exe
Use Alt-Space (which is what you just reset the hotkey combo to be)

10 responses so far

10 Responses to “launchy hot key broken”

# Wardo Dudeon 10 Oct 2008 at 7:30 am

Thanks so much for posting this! Big Help!
# Brendaon 14 Jan 2009 at 11:34 pm

Oh man… thanks! You have saved me some time and headache.
# AhhhH!on 02 Jun 2009 at 6:35 am

This is strange, it never worked for me…
# Pippson 23 Jul 2009 at 12:41 pm

Would it be possible to use this ingenious ini file tweak to allow Launchy to launch by pressing only the Windows ‘Start’ key? That is of course on the basis that I have first disabled my Windows key from opening the Start Menu by performing a common tweak to my registry. This would provide a very elegant way of circumnavigating the Windows Start Menu altogether. What do you think?
# jfrankon 27 Jul 2009 at 11:26 am

I don’t know about this. I think you could probably configure that through the Launchy GUI directly. If you would like to try it though, you’d have to find the corresponding key code for the windows key. Once you find it, you can use the ini file to set it, and see if it works. The windows key in my opinion works better as a modifier though, I use Win-L for logout for example, and there are many other builtins such as that. As long as you can do it with one movement, it isn’t going to save you that much time to have a single key. alt space vs win key is not that much of an improvement. That’s my 2 cents
# Ianon 04 Aug 2009 at 10:08 am

Great tip. I had reset mine a while back, uninstalled and reinstalled multiple times…thought I had everything out of the registry and all. I guess it is the corresponding Application Data folder that ought to be deleted to get rid of prefs too.

Changed the ini file like you said. Works now. Thanks.
# jcriscoon 18 Aug 2009 at 8:31 am

I am having the same failure to launch. But when I looked at the luanchy.ini file the hotkey action and modifier appear to be set properly as listed above.

I can run Launchy from the task paper though.

Any thoughts?
# Steveon 19 Jan 2010 at 2:17 am

Thanks for this. Launchy really should do something about this!
# Zachon 23 Feb 2010 at 8:36 pm

You are absolutely my favorite person on the internets right now. You win at Launchy.

Thanks!
# irmaon 28 Mar 2010 at 3:55 am

Thanks!