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SofiaRomero's avatar
SofiaRomero
Copper Contributor
Jul 08, 2024

Desktop Keyboard Shortcut Keys Very Slow To Respond

This is something that I have only encountered in Windows 11, although I have seen plenty of reports of it occurring in Windows 10.


Here is one such report on Windows 10 Forums. Here is a Super User article.

If I create a Desktop keyboard shortcut key and run it from the keyboard, it takes about 3 seconds to respond. If I double click on that same Desktop shortcut, it opens immediately.
I have tested a few different shortcuts, and it appears that they are all affected.

I haven't found a fix yet. Maybe it's a bug.


Or maybe someone on this forum may know how to fix it.

  • borate_slurry's avatar
    borate_slurry
    Copper Contributor
    The issue has been around for at least ten years, and reported endlessly.
    To fix it open Services, scroll down to Superfetch or Sysmain, stop and disable it, reboot.
  • msft745's avatar
    msft745
    Copper Contributor

    SofiaRomero 

    one thing that can cause this was if there are any processes running in the 'suspended' state (windows will suspend processes automatically thru the "Background apps" setting).

     

    Apparently the hotkey code sends a message to each process before executing the hotkey app, and since suspended processes cannot respond it has to wait for them to time-out first. Thankfully it seems to be done in parallel, so you only have to wait for one timeout no matter how many suspended processes there are. This bug was present in windows 10 at least up thru 2020 and probably later.

     

    Check for suspended apps in task manager, and try disabling background apps to see if it speeds up hotkeys.

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