Disable Win+X Shortcut Keys on Windows

Windows 7 and Vista have all the same Windows+X shortcut keys as other versions of Windows, such as Win+E for explorer and Win+D for the desktop, but adds in all of the Win+<num> keys to launch the shortcuts in the Vista Quick Launch menu (or switch to apps in Windows 7), as well as Win+X for mobility center, etc. But what if you want to disable all these extra keys?

Turns out you can disable all the extra keys at once with a single registry entry, which I’ve provided as a downloadable registry hack.

Just open up regedit.exe through the start menu search box and navigate to the following key (create if it doesn’t exist)

    HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

Create a 32-bit DWORD value called NoWinKeys and set the value to 1. You’ll need to log on and back off for the changes to take effect.