Issue with shortcut automatically created on desktop

[Neil Ginsberg]

I installed NPP on Windows 7 Pro (64 bit). I use Ctl+Alt shortcut keys to open various apps, and I went into the properties of the shortcut that was automatically created by the install program and assigned it Ctl+Alt+J. However, when I tried to open the program with Ctl+Alt+J, instead of opening NPP, Windows instead prompted me to tell it which program I wanted to use to run the file. This has never happened before.

The shortcut itself worked fine. But the Ctl+Alt+J shortcut key didn’t work. (I tried others as well, in case it was something with the J shortcut.)

I checked everything in properties, and everything looked fine:

Target = “C:\Program Files (x86)\Notepad++\notepad++.exe”
Start in = “C:\Program Files (x86)\Notepad++”
Run = Normal Window

I couldn’t figure out what was going on.

Finally, I went to C:\Program Files (x86)\Notepad++, right-clicked on notepadd++.exe, and selected Create Shortcut. I had it create a new shortcut on my desktop.

I then removed the Ctl+Alt+J shortcut key from the old shortcut, and then applied it to the new shortcut, and, voila! it worked fine, just like it was supposed to.

So I went into both shortcuts – the one that NPP created, and the one that I manually created, and I couldn’t see any differences. All the settings looked identical. Yet somehow the one that I manually created worked with a Ctl+Alt+J shortcut key, and the one that NPP automatically created prompted me for a program when I used a shortcut key.

Anyway, FYI.