A few months ago I set it up so I could run all the programs I commonly use from the Run command in Windows XP. Let me tell you, it’s awesome. It was something I’d been meaning to do for a while and now I could hardly live without it. Best of all, it’s very simple to do. Here’s my process:
- Make a directory somewhere; I used “C:\run\”.
- Fill the directory with shortcuts for evey program you want quick access to.
- You now have to make Windows look in that directory when you try to Run something. Go to Control Panel -> System -> Advanced -> Environment Variables. In the ‘System variables’ section, find the PATH variable and click Edit. Scroll to the end of the ‘Variable value’ list (using Ctrl + right arrow, for example) and append a semicolon and the directory you filled with shortcuts; for example, “;C:\run\”.
And that’s it. You should now be able to run anything you’ve put in that directory with the Run command.
Viiiiiiiiisttttaaaaa
Not as cool!
One of my favourite little Windows tricks is to add hotkeys to any shortcut. Find any shortcut, right click, go to properties and you can add a “Ctrl + Alt + KEY” hotkey.
I’ve been looking at the word ‘word’ too hard and now it looks like it should actually be spelled ‘werd’.
Awesome shortcut, though. I’ll have to give it a try on my PC that runs XP.
I don’t know much about computers, but as far as I’m aware, the default directory for Run command shortcuts is “C:\WINDOWS”. Instead of changing the directory, you should be able to just put your shortcuts in there.
Mmmhm, that’s true, but also a bit messy.