How to delete/change nVidia hotkeys?

I have the following setup: Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3 (build 2600), 4G of Memory, LOTS of free space NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT [Display adapter] Samsung SyncMaster [Monitor] (23.1"vis, s/n HVMSA00612, October 2009) Samsung SyncMaster [Monitor] (23.1"vis, s/n HVMSB02065, November 2009) Driver Version 6.14.11.9562 11/20/2009 Each monitor running 2048x1152 32bit colour

The problem is that something in the nVidia suite of software has co-opted the Ctrl-Alt-H hotkey to switch it's profiles. I need that hotkey for something else and have never, ever needed to switch profiles on the fly (not much of a games player). However I have failed miserably in locating the place to delete or change this hotkey. The nView utility doesn't list ANY hotkeys, let alone the bothersome one. I've tried unloading, not letting load and disabling services I associate with nVidia. Nothing seems to do the trick. I've appealed the issue in the nVidia user forums, but the only reply I got indicated my 'issue' was not of interest to the largely gamer-focused user group. Ergo, I ask here.

Anybody got any ideas?

Thanks in advance, GM

Solution 1:

I've noticed this too, and I've also found your thread on the NVIDIA forums.

An easy free solution, depending on what you intend to assign the hotkey to, is to use Autohotkey's function called ControlSend. Using Autohotkey you can capture the key combination and ControlSend can override it's current functionality and send it to a specific application or window, instead of NVIDIA's application.

The basic syntax would be similar to this:

^!h::
ControlSend, ahk_parent, ^!h, ahk_class CLASS_GOES_HERE
return

The Window Spy utility that comes with Autohotkey can tell you the window class if you simply hover over the window while it's running. Replace the class CLASS_GOES_HERE with the class given to you by Window Spy.

Since NVIDIA doesn't have an apparent way to unmap the key combination, overriding seems to be the easiest free solution available.

For another easy, but not free solution, there is Hotkey Commander. It is shareware (15 days free trial, $15 to buy) and allows you to add, reset, and remove hotkeys implemented by other applications:

Solution 2:

Get Glary Utilities (which is free) or TuneUp Utilities (Awesome), Advanced SystemCare, etc. and go to the STARTUP PROGRAMS tab.

Nvidia Graphics Cards, when first installed, places a Hotkey process in Startup. It may simply say "rundll32.exe", but if you click on the properties tab, you will see the actual key is pointing to C:\Windows\system32\nvHotkey.dll,Start or something similar.

It is SAFE to delete this from your Startup Programs. It adds a few Nvidia Card-specific Hotkeys. I know this is a year old post, but if someone else sees it, I hope this helps. You can then go through the list and remove a bunch of other junk in your Startup that is probably not needed if you still have something like this DLL set to run.