On Friday of last week, we first covered about a free tool named MetroApp Link that lets you place shortcuts of native metro apps on your Windows 8 desktop. The program is very useful for users who would like to launch metro apps right from the desktop, without switching to the all new Start screen.
As you may know, Windows 8 doesn’t allow you pin metro apps to the taskbar and also create app shortcuts by default. To pin shortcuts and pin apps to the taskbar, you need to take the help of a third-party freeware named MetroApp Link (see our how to pin metro apps to the taskbar).
If you are a keyboard addict, you may want to create hotkeys to run metro apps. Users who have tried to create a hotkey to launch an app must be knowing that it’s impossible with default settings. To help Windows 8 users, we have come up with a smart solution to easily create a keyboard shortcuts to launch metro apps with keyboard shortcuts.
NOTE: While it’s not possible to create shortcuts for third-party metro apps and launch them with the help of keyboard shortcuts, one can create hotkeys to launch native metro apps such as Mail, Music, Weather, Finance, Games, Maps, Video, Reader, People, News and Windows Store apps.
In this guide, we are going to show you how to create keyboard shortcuts to launch Metro apps:
Step 1: Download MetroApp Link tool from this page. This tool helps you create shortcuts of metro apps on desktop.
Step 2: Run the tool, and create the Create shortcut button next to the metro app that you wish to launch with a hotkey.
Step 3: Once you have the shortcut on desktop, right-click on it, and then select Properties.
Step 4: Switch to Shortcuts tab, select Shortcut key box, press a key combination that you would like to assign as shortcut.
Step 5: Finally, click Apply button. You are done! From now onwards, whenever you want to launch the app, simply press the hotkey.
If you want to create keyboard shortcuts for five or ten metro apps, we suggest you create a folder on desktop to save all shortcuts icons to avoid cluttering your desktop. You can also move shortcuts to the taskbar and then use Windows and numeric keys to launch apps.
