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After some update, Alt F7 hotkey stopped working in Far Manager and Total Commander.

I tried stopping all processes like explorer, realtek utility, nvidia utility, one drive — didn’t help.

When booting in Safe Mode however, Alt F7 works just fine, so it’s not the hardware problem.

How do I find out which application or Windows component stole the hotkey?

Soonts
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  • Are you by any chance trying to use the right ALT+F7? If so, does the left ALT+F7 still work? Let me know the answer to this question and if it confirms my suspicion, I'll write you an answer with how to fix it. – LPChip Oct 10 '16 at 14:24
  • @LPChip Tried both. Doesn't matter which ALT, the behavior is the same. – Soonts Oct 10 '16 at 14:37
  • Ah, too bad. Then I don't know. I thought it might be a case of ALT becoming ALT-GR, but the left ALT never turns into an ALT-GR, only the right one. – LPChip Oct 10 '16 at 15:12

8 Answers8

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Open NVidia GeForce Experience Settings -> General

Disable Share totally (newer: In-Game Overlay). This will free the binding of Alt F7 among lots of others.

If you do use Share feature you can use this alternative:

Press Alt + Z when you are on desktop for example: Settings -> Keyboard Shortcuts Change the binding of Alt + F7 to something else.

Gunnar Bernstein
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Ors
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  • Great help, I'd never think of NVidia GeForce Experience settings to 'steal' those shortcuts! My solution was to change all those shortcuts from Alt+F# to AltGr+F# .. It's even easier to use an AltGr combination with a single hand! ... Only exception is the Alt+z combo, but I'm hesitating to change that one as well (sometimes I accidentally press that combination, quite annoying, and I use GeForce Experience seldom anyway!) – P Kuijpers Jun 10 '17 at 13:05
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    I don't see options for "Share" in General (as of today). – Marius Jan 12 '18 at 13:54
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    Ok, so I had to first enable, and then disable (again) "In-game Overlay" before I got my F7 back. – Marius Jan 12 '18 at 14:04
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    Thank you! I can't believe the only way to figure out Windows 10 hotkey short circuits is to pray that a SO question has already been asked on it... – Shadoninja Nov 23 '18 at 20:54
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    Newer version of NVidia Experience have another UI and the toggle "In-Game Overlay" that is responsible for key mapping. Turning it off fixed my issue! Many thanks for the tip! – bychkov May 17 '19 at 19:38
  • I was so furious about that as it worked on my old laptop (no NVidia) and not on the recent one! Disabling "In-game Overlay" or changing particular binding to something different working just perfect! – Nerxis Jan 10 '20 at 12:30
  • To just remove a shortcut, use Del or Backspace – mlvljr Jul 11 '20 at 12:59
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Could not add comments and upvote answer with Nvidia Geforce Experience as an issue. It helps me too, but I does not reinstall, I just disabled Alt+z hokey in settings - "share" functionality.

Sopholos
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    Welcome to Super User! Unfortunately, your answer does not meet the good answer standards for which we strive. It is probably better suited as a comment. Once you have sufficient [reputation](https://superuser.com/help/whats-reputation) you will be able to [comment](https://superuser.com/help/privileges/comment) on any post; instead, [provide answers that don't require clarification from the asker](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/214173/why-do-i-need-50-reputation-to-comment-what-can-i-do-instead). – Cas Oct 12 '16 at 07:15
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Yes, NVidia GeForce Experience was the reason! However, on my PC it was not called "Share", but "IN_GAME OVERLAY". As soon as I disabled the IN_GAME OVERLAY, all shortcuts in Far started working.

Terry
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I also had the same issue, after not having the shortcut functioning now for well over 2 years, I am still automatically using it. So today I wanted to figure out.

I found that both on my PC and Laptop the culprit stealing my shortcut was the Geforce Experience. Just deleted the shortcut from there and now it's working for me.

I thought I share this here because I think it is a much used software that could lead to the same problem by others.

Varga Szilard
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I had same issue, and strangely enough, it was resolved after updating Nvidia Geforce Experience.

Ptichka
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In current version of GeForce Experience (3.8.0.89) the feature that needs to be switched off or adjusted, is called In-Game Overlay. By default, it uses Alt+F7 to pause/resume broadcasting.

Andrey Drogolyub
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Media Player Classic Homecinema v 1.7.13 caused me this.

Also Chrome did not start (closed immediately), and some other weird app closing.

My best guess is using Global Hotkeys function of MPC-HC. Hard to test, because not happening immediately opening MPC-HC, but incorrect working stops when I close it.

gerleim
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The accepted answer worked for me too (https://superuser.com/a/1139293/1051438), but: If Geforce Experience doesn't have full internet access it may not show the necessary options to disable the shortcuts. I was behind a VPN, with internet access going through a proxy, so I could download and install Geforce Experience, but not disabling the options, only with direct internet access I could change the options.

Jan
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