Tired of going to the All Programs menu in Windows to open an application, but not wanting to clutter the desktop or Taskbar with shortcuts or pinned programs? If you want to keep icons out of sight but still open them quickly, you can create your own keyboard shortcuts to open specific programs on the PC.
To do so, first create shortcuts of a program you want to use. Just locate the original program icon in the All Programs folder, right-click it and choose Create Shortcut. You can drag the new shortcuts to a new folder or location you want to keep them.
Next, right-click a shortcut from the collection and choose Properties. In the Shortcut Properties box, click the Shortcut tab. These keyboard shortcuts all start with Ctrl + Alt keys, so pick a third key to use in the combination with the first two and type it into the Shortcut key box. (Do not use a keyboard shortcut assigned to another function.) Click OK when finished. You may also need to type in the Windows administrator password.
Now, to fire up a program, just press its newly assigned keyboard shortcut. Microsoft has more detailed instructions here.
