Speeding up explorer.exe global shortcuts

1

I'm running Cygwin on windows with cmder as a terminal for zsh.
The way I got it to be a bit similar to what my linux setup has is I placed a shotcut (.lnk) on my desktop with a keyboard shortcut (which I assume is handled by explorer.exe) for ctrl+alt+t.
However, when I use the shortcut, the startup time is enormous (same for mintty), multiple seconds at least. At the same time, starting off by simply clicking the icon twice results in near instantaneous startup.
Why is this the case, and is there any faster alternative to starting up a terminal?

Moved to AutoHotKey as a long-term solution.

user141633

Posted 2014-06-10T17:25:18.567

Reputation:

Question was closed 2014-06-11T08:43:53.267

Answers

0

The problem probably arises, because the global shortcut does not start a new program instance if there is already one running.

I use AutoHotKey for global keyboard shortcuts, because I have it running anyhow. With this small configuration (AutoHotkey.ahk), CTRL+ALT+T starts a new Cygwin shell via C:\Cygwin\cygwin.bat:

^!t::Run C:\Cygwin\cygwin.bat

Another approach is mentioned there:

Pin the Shortcut to the taskbar and use SHIFT+WINDOWS+3 (if it is the 3rd item) to start a new instance.

mpy

Posted 2014-06-10T17:25:18.567

Reputation: 20 866

I'm talking about cold startup time, when there isn't a single instance running. A screenshot of the global shortcut system I'm referring to is available here: http://puu.sh/9nBpC/ab69d2d01e.png I will look into AutoHotKey, but I'd like to figure this out before that.

– None – 2014-06-10T17:47:56.920

Yes, I've got your point. However a quick test on my machine gives a fast startup with these two methods proposed. Have you tested the SHIFT+WINDOWS+NUMBER method -- this should be very easy to check. – mpy – 2014-06-10T17:54:25.133

Shift+Windows+Number does improve startup time, but I like to keep my taskbar clean, so it's not a long-term solution. – None – 2014-06-10T17:56:06.750

This seems to be a general windows issue (see possible duplicate comment above), so I really suggest you give Autohotkey a try, it very handy for other things as well. And yes, you can hide the systray icon with #NoTrayIcon, if this disturbs you -- me too... ;) – mpy – 2014-06-10T18:06:17.457

Asked: 2014-06-10T17:25:18.567

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Active: 2014-06-10T18:22:21.143