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I have Windows 10 dual-booting with macOS on a Macbook Pro. When it's running Windows, I want the Win+Space key combination to open Launchy, like it used to back in Windows 7 - mainly 'cos this is the same combination used to run Spotlight on macOS and so it'll give me a far more consistent experience between the two operating systems.

The problem is that when I try to bind Win+Space in Launchy, I get an error "The hotkey Meta+Space is already in use, please select another" - which I'm guessing is because on Windows 10, Win+Space is a built-in hotkey for switching keyboard layouts. I can't find any way to unbind it. I've found a couple of registry modifications that have worked successfully for unbinding other Win+X key combinations - so I've managed to disable Win+E for Explorer and Win+M for Minimize all Windows, just to check it works - but I can't work out how to disable Win+Space. I've tried putting a literal space into the registry key, and I've seen a couple of posts saying you need to right-click the registry key to edit the binary data and enter the appropriate virtual key code - which would be 0x20 or 20 00 for Space, if I understand it correctly? - but I can't get this to work either. I'm not sure whether I'm trying to do something impossible or I just can't get the syntax quite right - any ideas?

Dylan Beattie
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2 Answers2

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Kind of old but in the Local Group Policy Editor you can disable all windows hot keys. The steps are

  • Open Local Group Policy Editor
  • Expand User Configuration/Windows Components then double click on file explorer
  • Scroll all the way down, then open up disable windows hotkey

I still can't find a way to disable just win space bar, so this will have to do. I use win + l too much to justify it, but I hope it works for you!

Joel Hines
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I happen to be using Flow Launcher, but have the same problem. I just:

  1. Configured Flow Launcher to use "Win+Alt+Space" instead.
  2. Installed Microsoft PowerToys
  3. Used PowerToys to map "Win+Space" to "Win+Alt+Space"

screenshot of PowerToys' Keyboard Manager

Flow Launcher cannot directly use the "Win+Space" hotkey, but PowerToys can, and can remap it to the alternate which activates Flow Launcher. The same should work for any program that wants to use a hotkey/shortcut that PowerToys can remap.

arantius
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