Downloaded this Zip file twice and each time I tried to unzip it, my Norton Internet Security suite blocked it and reported that it contained a Trojan named: Trojan.ADH.2.
Wow. I made a scan with Virus Total to see if other security software will report it as troublesome.
It seems that Norton, McAfee, Comodo and Rising will consider our file trojan. 🙁
All other security software will consider it OK.
Charles
12 years ago
I found another use for this.
The HP Touchsmart has a physical ‘Home’ button that is used to launch HP’s own touch software. There’s a registry key that controls what happens when this button is pressed, and it works with….ta-da… any EXE file! With this little script, I can now make the Home button launch the Start Screen – very nice.
The thickness of the bezel around the screen on the Touchsmart makes it a bit tricky to use the ‘swipe’ action to access the charms – so this really helps.
I’m glad to see people found this useful for other things too. 😀 So cool!
Milan
11 years ago
Hello, your shortcut is handy…
Please could you wtite an EXE, what will “Focus Desktop” and send “Alt-F4” to it to display Shut Down Windows Dialog?
Or is there classic shortcut for this?
This no longer work in W8:
C:WindowsSystem32taskkill.exe /im explorer.exe
Hello there 🙂
Thanks for quick reply, however the action I need is not there.
I want to invoke this dialog: http://web.iol.cz/pages/storage/shut_down_windows.png
what can be only done by:
1. left clicking on the empty space on desktop
2. pressing +
…because there is no known shortcut for this, the only method is that you have used in the EXE launching Start Metro Screen: script what will focus desktop and then send + to it. I’ll pay you few bucks via PayPal, if you can modify your current script to the this action and make exe from it. Thanks
That collection includes shortcuts for reboot, log off, etc. It makes it faster for you to shut down your system, for example. You really want just that window to be shown?
Yes, it is hard to explain, I need that for some very special purpose, what I need, is just invoking that window, not to do anything other with the computer. Your approach to sending key strokes is the only way I think.
What’s wrong with just pressing the “WIN” key to take you to that screen? Seems like an overly complicated way to simulate a button everyone has on their keyboard?
Well, every real gamer has the Win-key ripped off the keyboard. :))
BTW: How will you use Win-key in batch or cmd files? 🙂
Rex
11 years ago
Great and useful tool but missing one option…that is, the option where win 8 signs out into “Advanced Boot Options”. At the moment there are 3 ways of accessing this: 1. through the General tab of PC settings; 2. holding down the Shift key while clicking Restart; 3. entering the line “Shutdown.exe /r /o” through the command prompt.
Is it possible to enter this option into your application…it would indeed be great if this could be done. You would in fact have ALL boot options in one place. Please contact me if you have plans of including this option.
Here you go. Create a text file and name it something.vbs
Edit the file and paste in the following code
Set objShell = CreateObject (“WScript.Shell”)
objShell.SendKeys “^{ESC}”
Save the file and create a shortcut to it.
Right-click the shortcut and choose Properties, then in the Target line preceed the target with Explorer.exe
Make shre you have a space between Explorer and your target path.
Change the icon to something from System32imageres.dll then pin the shortcut to your Taskbar.
Shift + Right-Click on the taskbar shortcut and choose Properties and remove the Explorer.exe stuff and click Ok to close. You now have a fancy Start Menu shortcut.
You can essentially write your own if you want – it is literally a one liner script compiled into an autoit UPX executable:
Send(“{LWIN}”)
KS
11 years ago
Thanx man. Lol. I knew someone other than Microsoft would come up with this. My clients thank you too!
Paul Clary
11 years ago
I downloaded and unzipped your script file on the desktop of my new Win 8 computer and it works just as you said it would. Thank you for the file.
Goodcoin
11 years ago
Nice work! It’s especially neat when pinned to the far left side of the taskbar, where the start button used to be. Although, the start hotspot is better to be disabled in such case.
vhanla
11 years ago
Using ways to trigger or simulate keypress via sendkeys or keybd_event is considered a bad practice because sometimes it will alter the normal behaviour of your keyboard (it is considered as a last resort), better use WinAPI -> PostMessage(,WM_SYSCOMMAND, SC_TASKLIST,0)
Richard
11 years ago
Thank you so much. Works like a charm ; )
abdellawi
11 years ago
thank u : thousand times
very nice
with no risque for my pc
JT
11 years ago
Thanks for your work on this useful tool. Although I’m not sure why but now my shutddown/hibernate shortcuts I created don’t work. Anything to do with this lil program? I haven’t installed or even changed anything else.
Ciprian Adrian Rusen
11 years ago
This program has nothing to do with your shut down/hibernate shortcuts and it doesn’t impact them in any way.
Just move your mouse to the far bottom left corner and the start icon appears!
That’s it, as far left and bottom as it will go, click!
You don’t need to download anything!!
Joe
11 years ago
My gosh, I love it when I do a search for a Windows 8 annoyance, and I immediately find somebody else that has had the same problem. This is even better, in that you created a work around which thumbs its nose up at these Win8 oversights. I think I have about 3 or 4 work around shortcuts on my Win8 installation now!!! Anyways, THANK YOU!!!
Glad to help Joe. Don’t hesitate to pay us a visit now and then. We publish Windows 8 articles every week. I’m sure you will find other interesting articles.
fandangoeduptheriver
10 years ago
I still don’t get it.
What’s the point of this button shortcut?
Move mouse to bottom left corner and click.
I’d rather see a button that goes to a desktop installed programs list!
Hmm. Saw the video.
MS was bad, for not placing a mini tour instruction shortcut, on desktop and start screen, like other operating systems in past.
Net said MS was going to send instructions in email,
to all Win 8 users, but I never received.
If I do remember correctly, when I installed Win 8, there was repeating animation to go to corners of screen for actions.
That’s what helped me explore, and find start screen. My memory is bad, but not enough to forget how to get to start screen, after a couple of times.
But if someone bought a preinstalled version, there would not be visual cues, and I see now, your nice shortcut, can help other users.
For me, I was hoping your shortcut, would open up an installed desktop only programs start menu list. That would be L taco supremo.
Maybe, something to look into in future?
Thanks.
ps. Desktop is like sitting in movie theater in the middle seats.
Start screen is like down in first row, looking up at giant screen, getting dizzy!
Leslie Mason
10 years ago
Ciprian,
A while back you got some heat on the following note.
Downloaded this Zip file twice and each time I tried to unzip it, my Norton Internet Security suite blocked it and reported that it contained a Trojan named: Trojan.ADH.2.
It could have been that the AV scanners were picking up something, but I just ran into a similar problem.
It had nothing to do with your code, but a lot to do with the HUGE green “Download Now” button that appears just ahead of your zip download.
I clicked it and while I don’t think I received any viruses, I did receive a bunch of junk apps and toolbars that I hated.
I was really upset, but your article and the rest of the site seemed legit, so I took a chance.
The odd thing was, I did not even get your app I don’t believe.
Possibly if you could make your zip download in some way more prominent using oversized font and some color. Possibly a few lines of empty space right after the zip file.
BTW, your real “Show Desktop” app worked great once I figured things out.
I think you did not download the Archive attached at the end of the article but you clicked on the ad at the bottom of the article, which took you to some dodgy site. Unfortunately Google does a poor job at filtering malicious websites that have ads on their AdSense service. If you have the URL of that malicious website, share it here and I will ban it from ever being displayed on our website.
I’m sorry for your problems though and appreciate you sharing the experience you had.
Zane
10 years ago
This is awesome. I remote into my Windows 8 PC from my iPad and it was no way to switch screen without bringing up keyboard and then pressing the start key. Now i have pinned this Icon on taskbar and it works like Windows 8.1.
K. Chris Caldwell
9 years ago
Thank you so much.
I needed just this solution to assist someone less “computer-able” in getting back and forth between the Windows 7 Desktop and the Windows 8 Whatever.
And, if I can be just a touch negative for a moment, shame on Micro$oft.
Chris Kurisu
9 years ago
Thanks for this. Works perfectly.
Anonymous
8 years ago
THIS IS STUPID IT DID NOT WORK AND IS TOO HARD !!!!!!
Downloaded this Zip file twice and each time I tried to unzip it, my Norton Internet Security suite blocked it and reported that it contained a Trojan named: Trojan.ADH.2.
That is a false alarm. We do not distribute malware and this executable is only a file that sends a keyboard combination input to Windows 8.
Wow. I made a scan with Virus Total to see if other security software will report it as troublesome.
It seems that Norton, McAfee, Comodo and Rising will consider our file trojan. 🙁
All other security software will consider it OK.
I found another use for this.
The HP Touchsmart has a physical ‘Home’ button that is used to launch HP’s own touch software. There’s a registry key that controls what happens when this button is pressed, and it works with….ta-da… any EXE file! With this little script, I can now make the Home button launch the Start Screen – very nice.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlMobilePCHotStartButtons1
“ApplicationPath”=”c:\programpath\otherprogram.exe”
The thickness of the bezel around the screen on the Touchsmart makes it a bit tricky to use the ‘swipe’ action to access the charms – so this really helps.
I’m glad to see people found this useful for other things too. 😀 So cool!
Hello, your shortcut is handy…
Please could you wtite an EXE, what will “Focus Desktop” and send “Alt-F4” to it to display Shut Down Windows Dialog?
Or is there classic shortcut for this?
This no longer work in W8:
C:WindowsSystem32taskkill.exe /im explorer.exe
Try this article: http://www.digitalcitizen.life/biggest-library-windows-7-shortcuts
You will find other interesting shortcuts.
Hello there 🙂+
Thanks for quick reply, however the action I need is not there.
I want to invoke this dialog:
http://web.iol.cz/pages/storage/shut_down_windows.png
what can be only done by:
1. left clicking on the empty space on desktop
2. pressing
…because there is no known shortcut for this, the only method is that you have used in the EXE launching Start Metro Screen: script what will focus desktop and then send+ to it. I’ll pay you few bucks via PayPal, if you can modify your current script to the this action and make exe from it. Thanks
The keys are missing in my post because I’ve accidentally put them to HTML brackets.
Correct is:
2. pressing Alt+F4
That collection includes shortcuts for reboot, log off, etc. It makes it faster for you to shut down your system, for example. You really want just that window to be shown?
Yes, it is hard to explain, I need that for some very special purpose, what I need, is just invoking that window, not to do anything other with the computer. Your approach to sending key strokes is the only way I think.
Please, please 🙂 will you do it for me (in your free time)? :))
If so many thanks 🙂 As I said, I can send you some payback via Paypal 🙂
Can you give me a reminder towards the end of next week? I should be done with some deadlines on my book writing until then.
ok, thanks
Hello again, here is the nice reminder you’ve requested 🙂
…could you tell me your email? 🙂
Ok. I will work on it these days and come back to you. You can contact me at 7tutorials at gmail.
nice 🙂 thanks 🙂
What’s wrong with just pressing the “WIN” key to take you to that screen? Seems like an overly complicated way to simulate a button everyone has on their keyboard?
There is nothing wrong with that. This is for people who use the mouse and get around mostly by using visible shortcuts.
Well, every real gamer has the Win-key ripped off the keyboard. :))
BTW: How will you use Win-key in batch or cmd files? 🙂
Great and useful tool but missing one option…that is, the option where win 8 signs out into “Advanced Boot Options”. At the moment there are 3 ways of accessing this: 1. through the General tab of PC settings; 2. holding down the Shift key while clicking Restart; 3. entering the line “Shutdown.exe /r /o” through the command prompt.
Is it possible to enter this option into your application…it would indeed be great if this could be done. You would in fact have ALL boot options in one place. Please contact me if you have plans of including this option.
If you need to run shutdown.exe with some parameters, you can create a shortcut yourself and add those parameters to it.
You can find a guide on creating shortcuts, here: http://www.digitalcitizen.life/how-create-shortcuts
I know that, and I did create a shortcut…but the question was can you include this option in your app and will you?
I will not include this together with the Start Screen shortcut.
I might create shortcut pack for Windows 8 later on and publish it. Something similar to this: http://www.digitalcitizen.life/biggest-library-windows-7-shortcuts
Is it possible to have the source for this?
Cheers,
Stuart
Sorry but no.
Here you go. Create a text file and name it something.vbs
Edit the file and paste in the following code
Set objShell = CreateObject (“WScript.Shell”)
objShell.SendKeys “^{ESC}”
Save the file and create a shortcut to it.
Right-click the shortcut and choose Properties, then in the Target line preceed the target with Explorer.exe
Make shre you have a space between Explorer and your target path.
Change the icon to something from System32imageres.dll then pin the shortcut to your Taskbar.
Shift + Right-Click on the taskbar shortcut and choose Properties and remove the Explorer.exe stuff and click Ok to close. You now have a fancy Start Menu shortcut.
Thanks Pat, that is perfect!
Source is autoit.
You can essentially write your own if you want – it is literally a one liner script compiled into an autoit UPX executable:
Send(“{LWIN}”)
Thanx man. Lol. I knew someone other than Microsoft would come up with this. My clients thank you too!
I downloaded and unzipped your script file on the desktop of my new Win 8 computer and it works just as you said it would. Thank you for the file.
Nice work! It’s especially neat when pinned to the far left side of the taskbar, where the start button used to be. Although, the start hotspot is better to be disabled in such case.
Using ways to trigger or simulate keypress via sendkeys or keybd_event is considered a bad practice because sometimes it will alter the normal behaviour of your keyboard (it is considered as a last resort), better use WinAPI -> PostMessage(,WM_SYSCOMMAND, SC_TASKLIST,0)
Thank you so much. Works like a charm ; )
thank u : thousand times
very nice
with no risque for my pc
Thanks for your work on this useful tool. Although I’m not sure why but now my shutddown/hibernate shortcuts I created don’t work. Anything to do with this lil program? I haven’t installed or even changed anything else.
This program has nothing to do with your shut down/hibernate shortcuts and it doesn’t impact them in any way.
This article might help you though: http://www.digitalcitizen.life/5-ways-shut-down-or-restart-windows-8-computer-or-device
Just move your mouse to the far bottom left corner and the start icon appears!
That’s it, as far left and bottom as it will go, click!
You don’t need to download anything!!
My gosh, I love it when I do a search for a Windows 8 annoyance, and I immediately find somebody else that has had the same problem. This is even better, in that you created a work around which thumbs its nose up at these Win8 oversights. I think I have about 3 or 4 work around shortcuts on my Win8 installation now!!! Anyways, THANK YOU!!!
Glad to help Joe. Don’t hesitate to pay us a visit now and then. We publish Windows 8 articles every week. I’m sure you will find other interesting articles.
I still don’t get it.
What’s the point of this button shortcut?
Move mouse to bottom left corner and click.
I’d rather see a button that goes to a desktop installed programs list!
The point of this shortcut is explained by the video we embedded.
Hmm. Saw the video.
MS was bad, for not placing a mini tour instruction shortcut, on desktop and start screen, like other operating systems in past.
Net said MS was going to send instructions in email,
to all Win 8 users, but I never received.
If I do remember correctly, when I installed Win 8, there was repeating animation to go to corners of screen for actions.
That’s what helped me explore, and find start screen. My memory is bad, but not enough to forget how to get to start screen, after a couple of times.
But if someone bought a preinstalled version, there would not be visual cues, and I see now, your nice shortcut, can help other users.
For me, I was hoping your shortcut, would open up an installed desktop only programs start menu list. That would be L taco supremo.
Maybe, something to look into in future?
Thanks.
ps. Desktop is like sitting in movie theater in the middle seats.
Start screen is like down in first row, looking up at giant screen, getting dizzy!
Ciprian,
A while back you got some heat on the following note.
Downloaded this Zip file twice and each time I tried to unzip it, my Norton Internet Security suite blocked it and reported that it contained a Trojan named: Trojan.ADH.2.
It could have been that the AV scanners were picking up something, but I just ran into a similar problem.
It had nothing to do with your code, but a lot to do with the HUGE green “Download Now” button that appears just ahead of your zip download.
I clicked it and while I don’t think I received any viruses, I did receive a bunch of junk apps and toolbars that I hated.
I was really upset, but your article and the rest of the site seemed legit, so I took a chance.
The odd thing was, I did not even get your app I don’t believe.
Possibly if you could make your zip download in some way more prominent using oversized font and some color. Possibly a few lines of empty space right after the zip file.
BTW, your real “Show Desktop” app worked great once I figured things out.
Thought you might want to know.
Leslie
I think you did not download the Archive attached at the end of the article but you clicked on the ad at the bottom of the article, which took you to some dodgy site. Unfortunately Google does a poor job at filtering malicious websites that have ads on their AdSense service. If you have the URL of that malicious website, share it here and I will ban it from ever being displayed on our website.
I’m sorry for your problems though and appreciate you sharing the experience you had.
This is awesome. I remote into my Windows 8 PC from my iPad and it was no way to switch screen without bringing up keyboard and then pressing the start key. Now i have pinned this Icon on taskbar and it works like Windows 8.1.
Thank you so much.
I needed just this solution to assist someone less “computer-able” in getting back and forth between the Windows 7 Desktop and the Windows 8 Whatever.
And, if I can be just a touch negative for a moment, shame on Micro$oft.
Thanks for this. Works perfectly.
THIS IS STUPID IT DID NOT WORK AND IS TOO HARD !!!!!!