Is there a way to map a command to the keyboard to open a program or a file in Windows?

Question

Is there a way in Windows to map a command to open a program and a file location to the keyboard?

Answer 1

This feature is built-in to Windows and has been for a long time.

So long as you have a shortcut to the program or file location, you can right click on that shortcut and select Properties.

In the Shortcut tab there is a field called Shortcut key, click here and then do the shortcut you wish to use to run that program.

There are some limitation on the type of shortcuts you can use, as Windows uses many shortcuts for default commands and these cannot be remapped by default.

Generally, you'll end up with CTRL-ALT- as your shortcut.

Advanced Method

Another way to do this is to create a folder anywhere on your computer, and then add the path to that folder to your PATH statement, then fill that folder with shortcuts to files, folders, programs, etc, and rename each of the shortcuts in that folder using acronyms or shortened forms.

Then you can "call" the items in this folder using the Run box, command prompt, or other methods.

I personally ran this method for years in my early IT career.

I'd open Firefox by pressing WIN+R, entering "FF", and hitting the Enter key.