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I'm running Cygwin on windows with cmder as a terminal for zsh.
The way I got it to be a bit similar to what my linux setup has is I placed a shotcut (.lnk) on my desktop with a keyboard shortcut (which I assume is handled by explorer.exe) for ctrl+alt+t.
However, when I use the shortcut, the startup time is enormous (same for mintty), multiple seconds at least. At the same time, starting off by simply clicking the icon twice results in near instantaneous startup.
Why is this the case, and is there any faster alternative to starting up a terminal?

Moved to AutoHotKey as a long-term solution.

1 Answers1

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The problem probably arises, because the global shortcut does not start a new program instance if there is already one running.

I use AutoHotKey for global keyboard shortcuts, because I have it running anyhow. With this small configuration (AutoHotkey.ahk), CTRL+ALT+T starts a new Cygwin shell via C:\Cygwin\cygwin.bat:

^!t::Run C:\Cygwin\cygwin.bat

Another approach is mentioned there:

Pin the Shortcut to the taskbar and use SHIFT+WINDOWS+3 (if it is the 3rd item) to start a new instance.

mpy
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  • I'm talking about cold startup time, when there isn't a single instance running. A screenshot of the global shortcut system I'm referring to is available here: http://puu.sh/9nBpC/ab69d2d01e.png I will look into AutoHotKey, but I'd like to figure this out before that. –  Jun 10 '14 at 17:47
  • Yes, I've got your point. However a quick test on my machine gives a fast startup with these two methods proposed. Have you tested the `SHIFT+WINDOWS+NUMBER` method -- this should be very easy to check. – mpy Jun 10 '14 at 17:54
  • Shift+Windows+Number does improve startup time, but I like to keep my taskbar clean, so it's not a long-term solution. –  Jun 10 '14 at 17:56
  • This seems to be a general windows issue (see possible duplicate comment above), so I really suggest you give Autohotkey a try, it very handy for other things as well. And yes, you can hide the systray icon with `#NoTrayIcon`, if this disturbs you -- me too... `;)` – mpy Jun 10 '14 at 18:06