How to disable Recovery Manager Hotkey combination i.e. Ctrl + Alt + R

[BathshebaSculpt]

Disabling HP Message Service (kill the process in Task Manager, and also disable it in the Startup tab of the Task Manager) seems to have stopped this.  Idk if it was doing anything else useful, but I'm not noticing anything right away so my plan for now is to leave it off and return to enjoying my regularly scheduled ctrl-alt-R functionality.

[goodguy3000hd]

I too am plagued by this nasty "hotkey" that cannot be stopped. I've tried deleting the windows shortcut hotkey (wasn't there anyway), and the above solution of stopping the HP service, but to no avail. I've tried to uninstall the HP recovery software, but it ignores my request, like a virus.

HP--please tell us how to get CTRL-ALT-R to stop launching your recover software. It's just plain rude.

[Brett97]

I figured it out! All i did was uninstall all the HP support things, and it went away. Never used them anyways and it stopped the hotkey from opening up in After Effects. Woo!

[mashenka]

Welcome, fellow traveler, to HP Hotkey Hell! 😉

I too use a bunch of Ctrl-Alt hotkeys, and the HP support-type stuff drives me batty. I poked around and found:

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c00761879

which points you to disabling the hotkey from the file properties. My shortcut's properties indicate "None" for the shortcut key. Boo. But then there's the thread that I used for disabling the Ctrl-Alt-S hotkey that brings up the Support Assistant (sorry, don't know how to get the pretty url):

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Operating-System-and-Recovery/Disable-quot-CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-S-q...

which has you sidestep a proper fix and just rename the Support Assistant program. The renaming had gone well, at least on the second try, so I tried it on the Recovery Manager too. Following file locations, I found the actual program:

C:\Program Files (x86)\HP\HP Recovery Manager\rebecca.exe

("Rebecca"?? Weird. Butanyway.) So I renamed it "rebecca-renamed.exe," restarted Windows and it looks like we're in business. Ran the hotkey and all I saw was my own software's proper behavior. Ahhhh, sweet relief. (And of course, if you do ever need to run Rebecca, you can just rename 'er.:)

[DrFacts]

Simple Fix: This is very strange behavior but I am beginning to expect that from Windows 10. I ran into this problem when I simply wanted to press Ctl-Alt-R to open a folder with shortcuts.

* Find the shortcut called "HP Recovery Manager"

* Right click and choose Properties

* The Shortcut field will say none, but don't believe it

* enter the shortcut field and press another combination like Ctl-Alt-P then save

* Now the new shortcut combo should load the HP software and R should be free

* Oddly, if you delete the Ctl-Alt-P, then HP Recovery will go back to using Ctrl-Alt-R again even though is says none again

* While HP is on the new shortcut, go to your shortcut and assign the Ctl-Alt-R to what you want

* After that, go back and change the HP shortcut to None.

* The result of this on my computer was that HP basically gave up on the R

* If your shortcut assignment is not in Windows then this might not work. In that case, just choose a shortcut combo that you never use and let the HP icon use that unused shortcut combo.

Hope this helps. Why it takes 5 hours of my time to assign a shortcut key is still a mystery. It is also fun that the properties dialog box pops up behind the current window. Thanks Microsoft! Stellar programming work!

[FuturCel]

Tried changing the shortcut a long time ago; even while a new shortcut was assigned to Recovery Manager, Ctrl+Alt+R was opening it and the new shortcut was doing nothing.

On a side note, your jab at Microsoft about Win10 is unfair. I have a Surface Book as my personal laptop now (though I still use the HP at my internship) and Win10 is amazing on it, and works without issues or weird bugs. It's HP's "stellar" programming with their forced built-in apps that have caused me issues, though now I just run my 3D software on the Surface.

Cheers!

[goodguy3000hd]

I spent hours on this issue over the past year, tried quick fixes (changing shortcuts, etc.) but finally found the solution that worked for me:

Uninstall "HP Event Utility" from programs (apps/features).

This will get rid of the ridiculous CTRL-ALT-R and CTRL-ALT-S mappings that ruin the UX for anyone working with more professional programs. It's related to the HPWMISVC service that launces upon startup. (Note: I'm not sure if this may disable some other functionality, but so far, I've not noticed anything I use. Besides, one can re-install this program if desired.)

The fact that HP cannot suggest this relatively simple fix and how much time we must spend figuring it ourselves shows how bad so-called tech support is these days, and how few truly earnest people there are out there.