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My laptop (Acer Aspire 6930) has a hotkey to open the web browser. However, I just got Firefox. How can I change the hotkey so that it opens Firefox instead of Internet Explorer?

I already contacted Acer. They told me to phone them (at cost), which I would rather avoid since it's such a trivial matter.

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migrated from stackoverflow.com Nov 7 '09 at 1:59

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3 Answers

up vote 2 down vote

It is stored in the registry somewhere, and it's different across keyboards from my experience. It would be easiest to just install AutoHotkey and use this:

SC##::Run, C:\Program Files\Mozille Firefox\Firefox.exe

You will need to replace ## with the scan code of the key and the path with your Firefox path. You can find the scancode of the key with this script:

SetFormat, Integer, Hex
Gui +ToolWindow -SysMenu +AlwaysOnTop
Gui, Font, s14 Bold, Arial
Gui, Add, Text, w100 h33 vSC 0x201 +Border, {SC000}
Gui, Show,, % "// ScanCode //////////"
Loop 9
  OnMessage( 255+A_Index, "ScanCode" ) ; 0x100 to 0x108
Return

ScanCode( wParam, lParam ) {
 Clipboard := "SC" SubStr((((lParam>>16) & 0xFF)+0xF000),-2)
 GuiControl,, SC, %Clipboard%
}

simply run the script, then press the web browser hotkey to find the scan code. Change SC## in the first script to this scan code, and you're good to go.

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up vote 0 down vote

On my system, I just had to select Firefox as default browser (tested on Vista and Windows 7 - it might be different with other versions or specifically modified for OEM).

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Ya, it's already my default browser. – Matt Nov 6 '09 at 21:27
In that case I'm sorry, all I can think of is a keyboard driver that could particularize the hotkey settings, some let the user choose, some other don't. There is an application from Microsoft - MSKLC - which allows you to define a new keyboard from an existing one. I can't guarantee it allows to redefine the hotkeys though, but it's a quick download and it won't mess with your system. It's worth a try: msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/goglobal/bb964665.aspx – RedGlyph Nov 6 '09 at 21:39
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up vote 0 down vote

Thanks for your answers guys. I actually figured it out: Acer has a "Launch Manager" that allows you to configure these shortcut keys.

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@Matt - if you associate your StackOverflow and SuperUser accounts you'll regain ownership of this question. – ChrisF Nov 10 '09 at 21:24
@ChrisF, if the question was moved before he created the SuperUser account, he won't. – Gnoupi Nov 10 '09 at 22:00
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