I use Launchy, a great program launcher for Windows and Linux, that indexes your Start menu, icons on the desktop and lets you quickly and easily launch them. It’s also smart about letting you type the least amount, and learns as you repeat the same shortcut over and over. I mapped the shortcut key to Windows+Space which is the most convenient for me.
Recently I also installed Google Desktop to be able to search my computer and Outlook quickly and easily. It turns out that GD also maps the Windows+Space key which I never use — I got used to Ctrl+Ctrl for the GD quick search window.
Although not as convenient as using the UI to change it, GD does allow some minor tweaking of the keyboard shortcuts via registry settings on Windows. I found the answer here, but I’ll summarize:
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Exit Google Desktop by clicking the Desktop icon in your system tray and selecting Exit.
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Open your registry editor.
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In HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google\Google Desktop\Preferences, create a DWORD value named hot_key_flags.
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Double-click the value you’ve just created and enter the number that corresponds with your preference. Alternatively, you can entirely delete the hot_key_flags entry to enable all Desktop shortcuts.
Value
Meaning
0
Disable all Desktop shortcuts
1
Enable only Ctrl-Alt-G
2
Enable only Windows-G
3
Enable only Ctrl-Alt-G and Windows-G shortcuts
4
Enable only Windows-Space
5
Enable only Windows-Space and Ctrl-Alt-G
6
Enable only Windows-Space and Windows-G
7
Enable all Desktop shortcuts
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Close the registry editor.
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Restart Google Desktop to apply the new settings.
