How can I temporarily disable the alt+tab shortcut when I'm playing games in Windows XP?

March 5, 2008 7:35 PM

How can I temporarily disable the alt+tab shortcut when I'm playing games in Windows XP?

I've done a lot of Googling and I can't seem to find an easy answer to a problem that I can't imagine is all that uncommon. Ideally, I'd like a lightweight, freeware utility that would live in the system tray and either allow me to manually enable and disable the alt+tab shortcut (and maybe the other Windows keyboard shortcuts), and/or have it disable keyboard shortcuts automatically when certain games are running. When not gaming, I use alt+tab all the time, so permanently disabling it (using the registry or what have you) is not the best option.

The only software I've found is WinLock, but it costs $20 and seems a little bloated for the simple task I'm looking for. Surely someone out there has found a solution to this issue, with all the millions of Windows gamers out there?

posted by good in a vacuum to computers & internet (2 comments total)

AutoHotkey should let you remap this shortcut to send something else. It's very easy to write your own scripts, and you should be able to do exactly what you want with it. It also fulfills your lightweight and freeware requirements.
posted by phaded at 8:23 PM on March 5

Thanks, phaded! I hadn't heard of this little app. Took a bit of searching and experimenting, but I finally managed to write a script that disables alt+tab only when Team Fortress 2 is running, which will be nice since I won't have to remember to enable and disable it every time I start and stop the game.

Here's the script I'm using, in case anyone else wants this functionality:

#ifWinActive Team Fortress 2
*!Tab::return

posted by good in a vacuum at 10:05 PM on March 5