Hello Dave. Thank you for providing this information. It will come in very handy. However one thing I would like to remind everyone of when needing to start Jaws for Windows is the fact you can open the run dialog box, type "jaws11" without the quotes of course and substitute the number that you want to start. This comes in very handy when you work with two versions of Jaws for whatever reason. -----Original Message----- From: jfw-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:jfw-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Farfar Carlson Sent: Friday, October 15, 2010 2:05 PM To: jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Tips for a JAWS-Friendly Desktop Tips for consistent and reliable re-launch of JAWS After my last message I thought I'd give some tips that have helped me a lot in the past when needing to close JAWS and re-launch -- and I do this just about every day. This speaks to having your desktop organized in a way that minimizes ambiguity when you're trying to launch JAWS when no speech is running. And yes I know we have Narrator, but it's so much faster just to know the keystrokes than launching Narrator, navigating, launching, and then shutting down Narrator again. So here's how I have my desktop arranged. 1. I always cut any desktop shortcuts from the "all users\desktop" folder and paste into the "<UserName>\desktop" folder under "Documents and Settings". N.B. that I'm using XP parlance here. Rationale is that a lot of applications including JAWS get installed with the shortcut in the "all users" desktop folder, and frankly I don't know why. However the result is that even if you sort your desktop shortcuts by name, you'll notice a few shortcuts starting at the top left that are grouped and sorted all by themselves. Some shortcuts we can't do anything with -- e.g. My Computer, My Documents, My Network Neighborhood, Recycle Bin. We can turn them off, but we can't group them with all the rest. However newly-installed applications similar to JAWS often also install their shortcut up there, and are not sorted with all the others. So that's why I cut/paste any that I can from "all users\desktop" to "<UserName>\desktop" so that they are arranged with the majority of my shortcuts. 2. Make sure that one, and only one shortcut starts with the letter "J". Which is of course JAWS. And more importantly the current version of JAWS that you use all the time. If you have multiple versions of JAWS on your desktop then I advise you give them a different first character in the shortcut label. In my case, JAWS 9.0 is labeled 9JAWS and JAWS 11.0 is labeled 11JAWS. The only shortcut on my desktop right now that starts with the letter "J" is Jaws 12.0. Rationale is that when you have no speech, and you're on the desktop (Windows+M to get there) the only shortcut that will be selected when you press the letter "J" is the version of JAWS you want to launch. Then pressing Enter will launch exactly what you intended. 3. Now arrange your shortcuts. The next time you're on your desktop, make sure none of the shortcuts are selected. Press Ctrl Spacebar until you hear "not selected". Then press the Applications key (or Shift F10) and in the context menu, arrow right on the "arrange icons by" submenu, and press Enter on Name. This will sort all your shortcuts alphabetically by their labels (Except for those aforementioned special shortcuts that stick in the upper-left corner). 4. Check all your JAWS shortcut properties and make sure that the one you always want to launch by default has a hotkey Ctrl Alt J. Make sure that no other desktop shortcuts have that hotkey. Assign other hotkeys if you wish, but have one and only one with Ctrl Alt J. A nice program to list all your hotkeys is Hotkey Detective, which I believe is still found on the jfwlite web page, under programs. 5. Finally create a "Kill JAWS" desktop shortcut. To do this, locate the file "jfwkill.exe" somewhere in your folders under Program Files. Others on this list have given instructions in the past on how to set up this shortcut, so I'll defer to them. However when you've created it, make sure it's the only shortcut on your desktop starting with the letter "K". I won't repeat myself as to why, just go back and read the rationale above. Kill JAWS is very handy to have when you've lost speech, and you can't seem to launch a darn thing. And even Narrator doesn't tell you much. Happens to me on every even-numbered day in any month with an odd number of days. The first solution I try in these cases is to Kill JAWS. I don't bother with a hotkey for this one, since I'm never confident that a hotkey will work when things are all jammed up. However I've found that Windows+M will give me my desktop and pressing K and then Enter will kill the recalcitrant JAWS so I can resume working. 6. If all else fails when things are totally buggerd, then I reach for the power button and hold it down for 5 seconds, take a sip of tea, and then turn on the computer again. Dave Created in the Audio Recording and Mixing Studios, San Jose, California -- JFW related links: JFW homepage: http://www.freedomscientific.com/ Scripting mailing list: http://lists.the-jdh.com/listinfo.cgi/scriptography-the-jdh.com JFW List instructions: To post a message to the list, send it to jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send a message to jfw-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word unsubscribe in the subject line. Archives located at: //www.freelists.org/archives/jfw Alternative archives located at: http://n2.nabble.com/JAWS-for-Windows-f2145279.html If you have any concerns about the list, post received from the list, or the way the list is being run, do not post them to the list. Rather contact the list owner at jfw-admins@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx -- JFW related links: JFW homepage: http://www.freedomscientific.com/ Scripting mailing list: http://lists.the-jdh.com/listinfo.cgi/scriptography-the-jdh.com JFW List instructions: To post a message to the list, send it to jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send a message to jfw-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word unsubscribe in the subject line. Archives located at: //www.freelists.org/archives/jfw Alternative archives located at: http://n2.nabble.com/JAWS-for-Windows-f2145279.html If you have any concerns about the list, post received from the list, or the way the list is being run, do not post them to the list. Rather contact the list owner at jfw-admins@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx