If you want to speed up the time it takes you to launch your favourite applications or documents, Windows has a nice feature built in for creating keyboard shortcuts which often gets over looked.

Before we go any further it’s also worth noting if you’re a Windows 7 user that if all you want is to quickly launch applications that you’ve already got pinned to your Windows 7 task bar, you can press Win+1, 2, 3, 4, etc., to launch the corresponding pinned application.

Before creating keyboard shortcuts you should be aware that shortcut keys work differently in Windows depending on the location the shortcut is placed. If the shortcut is on the desktop or in the Start menu hierarchy, this can be inside a folder – for example named shortcuts, you can use the assigned shortcut key to start the assigned program, or switch to the program if it’s already running. If the shortcut is not on the desktop or in the Start menu hierarchy, you cannot use the shortcut key to start the program, but you can use it to switch to the program when it is running.

To create the shortcut you need to:
1. Right-click the file or application you wish to create a shortcut for and select Create shortcut
2. Move that shortcut anywhere you want. In the example above, I put mine into a folder on the desktop, called shortcuts
3. Right-click the shortcut and select Properties. In the Shortcut tab of the Properties dialog, click in the Shortcut key input and type your preferred shortcut. Click Apply and then Ok

Create a Windows keyboard shortcut