I ran into a bit of a unique issue today, and it had to do with the Onenote Screen Clipping Shortcut key. Now if you’re a long time OneNote User, you’re probably used to the Windows+S shortcut key for starting a screen clipping.

Well, in Windows 8.1, Microsoft hijacked that shortcut key for search everywhere. Either way, OneNote’s shortcut was changed to Windows+Shift+S. I’ll admit, it took me a little while to get used to, but I’m good now.

However, one of my users is running Windows 8.1, and OneNote 2010, and OneNote is still using the Windows+S shortcut key, but it doesn’t work. To fix this, you can take 1 of 3 paths.

1. Disable the Windows +S shortcut key for Windows.

Once you free it up, OneNote will be able to use it. To do this, run the following command:

reg.exe add HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced /v DisabledHotkeys /t REG_SZ /d S /f

2. Change the OneNote Shortcut to a different Key combination

For Office 2010, open registry editor, and naviate to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\OneNote\Options\Other

Note: The 14.0 designates Office 2010, Use 15.0 for Office 2013, 12.0 for Office 2007.

There should be a DWORD value of “ScreenClippingShortcutKey”, if there isn’t, create one (32-bit DWORD). Change the value to 41 (Hexadecimal) and you’re new shortcut key will be Windows+a.

3. Get a New Version of OneNote

It’s free for personal use, so why don’t you get the new version? I’m only limited because it’s in an enterprise environment, and I’m waiting to roll out the entire office suite.

I went with the first option, since pressing start and typing seems to have the same, if not better, search capabilities.

Hope that helps!

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