Manual Hotkey Editing

The windows Hotkey widget does not accept all keys which means that some Hotkeys cannot be entered directly using the Setup dialog. For example the hotkeys Win+Space, Ctrl+PageUp, Ctrl+Enter cannot be entered.

These hotkeys can still be used but to do so VirtuaWin’s virtuawin.cfg file must be manually edited.

  1. Open VirtuaWin’s setup dialog and go to the required Hotkey setting, note the name of the hotkey.
  2. Set the hotkey so the modifier for the key is correct, the key is unimportant. For example if Win+Space is required then set the hotkey to Win+A.
  3. Press the ‘Explore Config’ button on the Setup Expert page to open an explorer listing your VirtuaWin configuration files (for earlier versions of VirtuaWin without this feature you will need to locate these files manually)
  4. Close VirtuaWin setup and exit VirtuaWin.
  5. Run Notepad and then drag the virtuawin.cfg file from the Explorer window onto Notepad.
  6. Use the following table to locate the right line to edit:
    Hotkey Name Virtuawin.cfg Line
    Desktop Cycling – Next CycleUp#
    Desktop Cycling – Previous CycleDown#
    Direct Desktop Access – Desk 1
    Direct Desktop Access – Desk 2
    Direct Desktop Access – Desk 3
    .
    .
    .
    Hot_key_1#
    Hot_key_2#
    Hot_key_3#
    .
    .
    .
    Hotkeys – window list Hot_key_Menu#
    Hotkeys – window menu HotWMenu#
    Hotkeys – dismiss window DismissHotkey#
    Hotkeys – sticky toggle Sticky_key#
  7. Change the numeric value given for this key using the following table:
    Keyboard Key Name Virtuawin.cfg Value
    Backspace 8
    Delete 46
    Down 40
    End 35
    Enter 13
    Escape 27
    F10 121
    F11 122
    F12 123
    F1 112
    F2 113
    F3 114
    F4 115
    F5 116
    F6 117
    F7 118
    F8 119
    F9 120
    Home 36
    Insert 45
    Left 37
    Num Lock 144
    Numpad * 106
    Numpad + 107
    Numpad – 109
    Numpad . 110
    Numpad / 111
    Numpad 0 96
    Numpad 1 97
    Numpad 2 98
    Numpad 3 99
    Numpad 4 100
    Numpad 5 101
    Numpad 6 102
    Numpad 7 103
    Numpad 8 104
    Numpad 9 105
    PageDown 34
    PageUp 33
    Right 39
    Scroll Lock 145
    Space 32
    SysReq 44
    Tab 9
    Up 38

    Note: Not all key and modifier combinations have been tested, some may not work.

  8. Save the virtuawin.cfg file and exit notepad.
  9. Start VirtuaWin, and test the key, if it does not work as expected open the Setup dialog and check the hotkey settings (you may have edited the wrong one or got the wrong value).

Note: The key shown in the Setup hotkey field may not appear to be correct, for example Insert can be displayed as Num 0, this appears to happen for any key that is on the numeric keypad.