Launch your favourite programs with the run command

Rather then clicking through your start menu (which becomes rather imposing when a large number of applications have been installed) or looking through your hard drives files to start your favourite program, you can instead create icons on your desktop. But if you like using your keyboard, either because you have a laptop computer or from habit, there is another way you can quickly launch your favourite programs.

To execute your programs, you will no doubt know that the [CTRL + R] command opens the run box, from where you can type in a command and press enter. While this works for a number of built in Windows programs like Paint (mspaint), the registry (regedit), Internet Explorer (iexplore) or Firefox (firefox), for other programs to work you will need to make a few changes to the registry.

Open the registry editor and go to the following location:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths

Here, all the shortcuts that are accessible from the “Run” command will be displayed, with it being here that new shortcuts need to be created. We will take for example the program JLC’s Internet TV which is used to watch television from your computer. Right click on the “Appl Paths” folder and in the drop down menu that appears, select “New” and then “key”. A new key will then appear at the end of the folder.

Select the new key and press F2 to change its name. In our case, we will choose “ITV.exe”. Once the name change has been made, go to the right hand side of the window and double click on the “(default)” value. Enter the location of the programs executable file, here “C:\Program Files\JLC’s Software\Internet TV\Internet TV.exe”.

Follow this same procedure for all of your favourite programs. Now to start a program, you simply need to press [CTRL + R], type the associated name into the box and pres enter. If the mouse seems faster at first, then over time this will no longer the case. Once the shortcut has been created, this tip will speed up your daily computer use.