Windows Vista has all the same Windows+X shortcut keys as other versions of Windows, such as Win+E for explorer and Win+D for the desktop, but adds in all of the Win+<num> keys to launch the shortcuts in the Quick Launch menu. But what if you want to disable all these extra keys?

Turns out you can disable all the extra keys at once with a single registry entry, which I've provided as a downloadable registry hack.

Manual Registry Hack

Just open up regedit.exe through the start menu search box and navigate to the following key (create if it doesn't exist)

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

Create a 32-bit DWORD value called NoWinKeys and set the value to 1. You'll need to log on and back off for the changes to take effect.

Downloadable Registry Hack

To disable: Unzip the file and then double-click on the NoWinKeys.reg file to disable all the shortcut keys.

To enable: Unzip the file and then double-click on the RestoreWinKeys.reg file to re-enable all the shortcut keys.

Make sure that you log off and back on in order for this change to take effect. You could also restart explorer.exe through task manager if you wanted.

Download DisableWinKeys Registry Hack