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I just bought a new laptop, and am having to learn Vista. (My desktop has XP.)

I was just trying to set some shortcut keys, and wanted to use Alt + Shift + P for Anywho.com, but to my surprise Alt + Shift + P is already taken. It calls Windows Media Player. Now I like WMP and will use it a lot, but I want my Alt + Shift + P for AnyWho.com.

BTW I have PC Magazine's Hotkey Detective 2 (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,5082,00.asp), but it doesn't show that Alt + Shift + P is taken.

How to do this?

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3 Answers 3

Reset to default
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This isn't a documented behavior of Vista. However, this is a documented behavior of Windows Media Player itself: ALT+SHIFT+P means Restore the Player from mini Player mode.

This Microsoft article defines mini Player mode as:

When you use the mini Player, the Player minimizes to the Windows taskbar, but you can still access playback controls and view visualizations and information about the currently playing item.

In mini player mode the minimized Media Player looks like this:

image1

You can turn off this mode by right clicking on the taskbar, pointing to Toolbars, and then unchecking Windows Media Player.

image2

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  • Thanks. Very interesting. But is it the case that my Alt + Shift + P cannot be made available for any other purpose?
    – NotSuper
    Oct 21, 2009 at 9:10
  • Yes, if you turn mini-mode off. If you leave it on, then yes when WMP is not running and doesn't establish its keyboard hook. (I believe so, but never tried it.)
    – harrymc
    Oct 21, 2009 at 9:43
  • Excellent--this works as advertised!
    – ewall
    Jul 1, 2010 at 16:56
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Find the icon/shortcut for Windows Media Player, right click on it and do properties and look for "Shortcut Key"

Delete it!

enter image description here

It is also possible (if the above doesn't work) that you have "hotkey" buttons on your laptop that are hard mapped to certain combos such as Alt + Shift + P, and then you have to use the hotkey manager program to change what pressing that button does.

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  • A thorough search found 3 shortcuts for WMP; however, none have a shortcut key assigned.
    – NotSuper
    Oct 21, 2009 at 9:06
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You could redefine the hotkey with AutoHotKey:

!+p::Run http://www.anywho.com/
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