Change Screen Resolution with One Keyboard Shortcut

Do you find that you need to frequently change your screen resoltion?  I do several times a day and some reasons are when: doing demos, showing my laptop screen to serveral people at once, switching between monitors, recording/capturing the screen, connecting to projectors, etc.  It is a bit of a pain to go to the display properties each time or use the free little system tray icon utility provided by ATI.

So here's my solution.  I can now very quickly switch between modes (800x600, 1024x768, 1600x1200, etc) with one keyboard shortcut per resolution at anytime.  Here's how...

  1. Download WinKey
    A small freeware app that lets you assign apps and folders to Windows-Key combinations.  See my blog post on WinKey for more info.  Add it to your Startup menu.
  2. Download QRes
    A small (4k) freeware command line app to change screen resolution.
  3. Set WinKey to run QRes
    Here are my assignments.  Make sure your screen supports the resolution setting first.
    If you put QRes under "C:\Program Files\QRes\QRes.exe", you can use this Windows Registry file to import these settings below into WinKey.
    -- Win-Ctrl-8 to run "QRes.exe /x:800 /y:600" for 800x600          (presenting on small TV)
    -- Win-Ctrl-1 to run "QRes.exe /x:1024 /y:768" for 1024x768      (presenting on large TV)
    -- Win-Ctrl-2 to run "QRes.exe /x:1280 /y:1024" for 1280x1024  (presenting on projector)
    -- Win-Ctrl-4 to run "QRes.exe /x:1400 /y:1050" for 1400x1050  (laptop's LCD's native)
    -- Win-Ctrl-6 to run "QRes.exe /x:1600 /y:1200" for 1600x1200  (laptop when docked)

Update on 2/22/07 -- Self Installation Now Avalible!
I've packaged this all up into a nice & easy little self installer. It does the steps above for you.

Install: SetupChangeResolutionHotkey.zip

Vista Users: You must run Setup.exe (not the .msi file) in the zip and reboot to start the app.