Disabling Win+Enter Narrator hotkey in Windows 8

Wednesday, December 19, 2012


I just picked up my Surface, and a huge annoyance is having Narrator (a screen reader) pop up every time I accidentally hit Win+Enter. (Ctrl+Enter sends mail in the mail app, and I often accidentally hit Win instead of Ctrl.)

The easiest solution I've found for disabling the hotkey is to disable the executable. You can do this by finding Narrator.exe in System32 and turning off the execute permission, or an even easier way is to create a registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\Narrator.exe

And in that key, create a String named Debugger with value %1.

Or merge this reg file. To re-enable Narrator, delete that registry key.

Tags: narrator, win8 | Posted at 12:01 | Comments (23)


Comments

Mark on Sunday, February 10, 2013 at 06:20

Thank you, that issue was so annoying!

Eyal Herlin on Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 01:08

Thanks you for saving my life ;)

bobby on Wednesday, May 8, 2013 at 15:17

life saver !

rhywun on Saturday, August 10, 2013 at 17:18

Thank you!!

tolesa54 on Saturday, September 21, 2013 at 15:20

Thank you!

r3habn on Sunday, December 1, 2013 at 15:49

exactly what i needed, it was driving me crazy! thank you

thanks on Thursday, December 5, 2013 at 08:54

thanks. there is no solution. but you gave me that solution.
thanks...

Victor on Wednesday, February 5, 2014 at 04:06

I never reply on post like this. Though, this problem was so annoying, that I need to say "THANK YOU!!!!"

Martin on Thursday, February 6, 2014 at 14:37

Very good solution. It works very well. Thanks for it.

Grigori Rho Gharveyn on Friday, March 21, 2014 at 06:21

Found THIS: <CAPSLOCK> + <ESC> Worked Great!

Accidentally turned on the Narrator (aka Screen Reader) by hitting the windows logo key and something else, possibly the numeral 1 key above the Q key...

In Excel <CTRL><1> is an easy shortcut to format the properties of objects and cells, possibly hitting that logo key instead of CTRL turned the voice on.

Annoyed by Narrator on Thursday, April 10, 2014 at 21:39

Thank you so much!!

sonfri13 on Friday, April 18, 2014 at 08:16

works wonderfully, thanks.

hate8 on Sunday, May 18, 2014 at 04:44

Love quick and dirty reg fixes, thanks! Much better than so many of the other solutions offered by others.

Why, Windows 8, why?

EJR on Wednesday, July 30, 2014 at 06:13

Thank you SO much.

Graham on Wednesday, March 18, 2015 at 13:27

You saved me. Thanks.

Dan on Sunday, July 26, 2015 at 11:47

Ok, but it starts AtBroker.exe now everytime you hit win enter. (check the Taskmanager to see it)

Hans on Thursday, October 22, 2015 at 04:38

Your solution works in Windows 10 as well.
Thank You!

Why does microsoft hate users of their products?
Disabling this annoyance should be way easier.

Rüstem Zal on Wednesday, February 3, 2016 at 07:19

Thank you

Bill on Wednesday, February 24, 2016 at 01:01

Just wanted to say thanks, this is still helping people years later!

Szmergiel on Tuesday, April 5, 2016 at 05:32

Man, you're life saver :)

thanks on Thursday, May 19, 2016 at 08:47

thanks. so annoying.

junjo on Wednesday, March 15, 2017 at 08:48

many thanks to stop this pest!

Mike on Saturday, June 16, 2018 at 01:41

Thank you Grigori Rho Gharveyn!

Your quick solution of: <CAPSLOCK> + <ESC> worked like a dream.

Much appreciated

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