keyboard shortcuts - Disable the activation of the menu bar when Alt is pressed in Windows 7

17
2013-08
  • Ps1CsCpp

    In Windows 7 how can I disable the function that activates the menu bar when Alt is pressed?

    Are there some registry values to modify this behaviour?

    • Answers
  • KCotreau

    The answer is no. How could they do that? If they did that, and someone disabled it, they would cut people off from very necessary menu items. It would be a nightmare.

    The only thing you can do is live with that, or activate the menu permanently by clicking Organize>Layout>Menu bar.

  • surfasb

    This one is interesting. I don't know of any programs besides Autokey. Or just end up writing a program. But no registry setting. That would break TONS of programs.

  • Fuhrmanator

    I found this question because I have a new keyboard and sometimes accidentally hit the ALT key when typing emails in Gmail. The focus is lost and any following keystrokes are passed to my browser (which can have very annoying results sometimes).

    The best solution I found, which is an improvement but not perfect, is with a keymapper program called KeyTweak, which as far as I understand, changes the registry.

    In the program, you map Left Alt to Right Alt, and Right Alt to Left Alt. This allows the Alt functions to still work somewhat (Ctrl-Alt-Delete). However, Alt-Tab is partially broken (at least on my Windows-7). It allows you partially to move to the other applications, but when you release the Alt key, the "selection" of the next application isn't made (you can make it with a mouse-click, however).

    It's too bad Windows doesn't have something to prevent loss of focus from errant Alt presses. The Shift and Ctrl keys don't have that effect, for example.

  • lenardgabor

    I've been using AutoHotkey already, so I added this line to my script and it fixed this annoying behavior in almost all applications:

    ~LAlt Up:: return

    It doesn't work in IE but I don't use IE anyway. :)

    BTW, I also killed the annoying start menu popup via:

    ~LWin Up:: return
~RWin Up:: return

    • Related Question

    keyboard shortcuts - Alt+Tab replacement for Windows 7?
  • Charlie

    A number of different Alt+Tab switcher replacement apps have been developed for XP, such as TaskSwitchXP. I've also written one of my own, which I've used for years. Unfortunately, I've found that on Windows 7 these tools don't work anymore. The problem is that they can no longer register Alt+Tab as a hotkey, because it's already registered (presumably by Explorer). As best I can tell, on XP the default switcher did not use the regular RegisterHotKey API, but now it does.

    Does anybody know of a workaround for this, or an Alt+Tab replacement that works on Windows 7? I know they've spiffed up the default one and added the 3D flip switcher (Win+Tab), but I'd still like to be able to replace this with something that works better for me.


    • Related Answers
  • Nicolas Webb

    I've used Switcher before, and it works pretty well. Requires Aero and is more of a replacement for Flip3D than the traditional Alt+Tab. Does keyboard context searching, too.

  • Charlie

    Another candidate is VistaSwitcher, from the same person that created TaskSwitchXP.

    Internally, the trick seems to be that you have to use a low-level keyboard hook to listen for Alt+Tab, instead of registering it as a hotkey (since you won't be able to do so on Win7).

  • Superted

    You should use Dexpot-Virtual Desktop. It does alot of stuff and is free and highly customizable.