How to Bind a Program to a Hotkey
If you work with many different programs on your business computer and want to save time, you can bind programs to hotkeys. You can then quickly launch any program by using the correct hotkey. Microsoft Windows 7 makes it easy for you to assign hotkeys to your programs. But beware: You can launch a program by mistake or forget the hotkey you assigned to a program and end up launching a different one.
Launch Windows Explorer and navigate to the folder that contains the program.
Right-click the program executable -- usually a file ending with an EXE extension -- and select "Send to" and then click "Desktop (create shortcut)" to create a shortcut on your desktop.
Right-click the shortcut on your desktop and select "Properties" from the context menu to open its Properties window.
Click the "Shortcut" tab at the top of the window to switch to it, if it's not already selected.
Click once inside the "Shortcut key" box.
Press one of the function keys -- F2 for example -- on your keyboard to bind the program to it. This overrides any function already assigned to the function key by default.
Hold "Ctrl-Alt" and press a key to bind the program to the "Ctrl-Alt-[Key]" hotkey.
Hold "Ctrl-Shift" and press a key to bind the program to the "Ctrl-Shift-[Key]" hotkey.
Click the "Apply" button followed by the "OK" button to save the new settings and close the Properties window.
Kirk Bennet started writing for websites and online publications in 2005. He covers topics in nutrition, health, gardening, home improvement and information technology.