quickrun

简体中文

Bind custom Win+R aliases to any Windows program.

Windows lets you launch notepad or powershell straight from Win+R, but not third-party apps — typing word does nothing, even though winword mysteriously works. quickrun fixes that:

quickrun -b "C:\...\WINWORD.EXE" -a word

Then Win+R → word → Enter. That's it.

• No admin rights — everything lives in your user registry hive
• Instant — no restart, no logoff, works the moment you bind
• Permanent — survives reboots; stays until you unbind
• Safe — quickrun tags its own entries and never deletes bindings created by app installers
• Aliases also work in the Explorer address bar

Install

Option 1: one-liner (recommended)

Paste into any PowerShell window:

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Unknownuserfrommars/quickrun/main/install.ps1 | iex

This downloads the latest release exe to %LocalAppData%\Programs\quickrun and adds it to your PATH — no admin prompt, and quickrun update can later update itself in place.

Prefer a machine-wide install in C:\Program Files? Run from an elevated shell in a clone of the repo:

.\install.ps1 -SystemWide

(Not the default because Program Files needs admin rights for every future self-update.) You can also just grab quickrun.exe from Releases and manage it yourself, yt-dlp style.

Option 2: pip

pip install -e .

This gives you a quickrun command via Python's Scripts directory.

Option 3: no install

python quickrun.py <command> ...

Usage

quickrun bind <path\to\app.exe> <alias>     # bind an alias
quickrun -b <path\to\app.exe> -a <alias>    # same thing, flag style
quickrun alias <old_cmd> <new_alias>        # alias an existing command
quickrun alias --cmd <old_cmd> <new_alias>  # terminal alias (PowerShell) instead
quickrun list                               # show your bindings
quickrun unbind <alias>                     # remove one
quickrun unbind all                         # remove all quickrun-managed bindings
quickrun del_alias <alias>                  # remove a quickrun alias
quickrun find <name>                        # search the PC for an exe, offer to bind
quickrun quickstart                         # auto-detect installed apps
quickrun quickstart --ui                    # choose app areas interactively
quickrun update                             # self-update from GitHub (also: -U)
quickrun --version                          # print version

Examples

quickrun bind "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Root\Office16\WINWORD.EXE" word
quickrun -b "D:\Tools\Everything\Everything.exe" -a ev
quickrun alias powershell ps
quickrun bind "%LocalAppData%\Programs\obsidian\Obsidian.exe" notes

Alias: rename something Windows already knows

quickrun alias winword word
quickrun alias powershell ps
quickrun del_alias ps

alias resolves the old command through App Paths or PATH, then writes a new permanent user-level App Paths entry. It refuses to overwrite existing names unless you pass --force.

Terminal aliases: alias --cmd

Win+R aliases don't work in a terminal (shells don't read App Paths). For that there's --cmd:

quickrun alias --cmd quickrun qr     # now "qr" works in PowerShell

A plain Set-Alias only lasts for the current session, so quickrun persists it by writing a tagged Set-Alias line into your PowerShell profile scripts (both PowerShell 7 and Windows PowerShell 5.1), which run at every shell startup. It takes effect in new terminal windows. quickrun del_alias qr removes it again; quickrun list shows terminal aliases in their own section. (cmd.exe is not covered — this is a PowerShell feature.)

Find: locate an exe you don't know the path of

> quickrun find obsidian
Searching for "obsidian" ...
1 result(s) in 1.2s

  Found: C:\Users\you\AppData\Local\Programs\obsidian\Obsidian.exe
Alias to bind it to (press Enter to skip): notes
[OK] Win+R -> "notes" now opens C:\Users\you\...\Obsidian.exe

find checks the registry (App Paths + installer records) first, then scans the usual install folders with a depth limit and a hard ~10s time budget — typically it answers in 1-3 seconds. Multiple matches show a numbered list to pick from; pressing Enter at any prompt skips without binding.

Quickstart: auto-detect installed apps

quickrun quickstart            # opens the interactive picker (in a console)
quickrun quickstart --no-ui    # skip the picker, scan every area
quickrun quickstart --area coding --area work      # scripted subset
quickrun quickstart --apps "telegram, obsidian"    # look for your own apps
quickrun quickstart --dry-run  # only show what would be bound
quickrun quickstart --yes      # bind without asking

Quickstart detects common apps and proposes friendly aliases:

Area	Apps	Aliases
Working	Word / Excel / PowerPoint / Outlook / OneNote / Access	word msword / excel / powerpoint ppt / outlook / onenote / access
Browsers	Chrome / Firefox	chrome / firefox
Coding & AI	VS Code / Notepad++ / Claude / Codex / Cursor	vscode / npp / claude / codex / cursor
Utilities	7-Zip	7z
Media & Games	VLC / Steam / Spotify	vlc / steam / spotify
Chat	Telegram / WeChat / QQ	telegram tg / wechat wx / qq

Names that already mean something on your system (e.g. excel if Office registered it machine-wide) are skipped, never overwritten — unless you pass --force.

In a console, quickstart opens a small keyboard picker by default: Up/Down moves, Space toggles, Enter continues, A toggles all areas, Q cancels. Nothing is pre-selected — pick what you want. The last row, Custom apps, lets you type comma-separated names (e.g. telegram, obsidian, notion); each one gets a quick find pass, and found/not-found results are summarized before a single confirmation.

--no-ui skips the picker and scans every area (this is also the automatic behavior when output is piped or scripted). --area and --apps also bypass the picker.

Command reference

Command	Aliases	Options
bind <exe> <alias>	b, -b, -bind	-a/--alias (flag-style alias), -f/--force overwrite existing
alias <old_cmd> <new_alias>	a, -alias, --alias	--cmd terminal alias via PowerShell profile, -f/--force overwrite existing
del_alias <alias>	da, -del_alias, --del_alias	removes Win+R and/or terminal aliases; -n/--dry-run, -f/--force
unbind <alias> / unbind all	u, -u, -unbind	-n/--dry-run, -y/--yes, -f/--force also remove entries quickrun didn't create
list	l, ls, -l, -list	--all include installer-created user entries
quickstart	qs, -q, -quickstart	picker by default; --no-ui, --area <area>, --apps "a, b", -y/--yes, -n/--dry-run, -f/--force
find <name>	f, -find, --find	interactive; Enter skips
update	up, -U, --update	(standalone exe only)
--version	-V

Alias rules: case-insensitive, no spaces, no \ / : * ? " < > |. A trailing .exe is stripped automatically.

How it works

When you type a name into Win+R, Windows checks the App Paths registry key before (and in addition to) the PATH:

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\<alias>.exe

That's exactly how winword works — Office registers winword.exe there under HKLM at install time. quickrun writes the same kind of entry under HKCU (your user hive), which is why it needs no admin rights and applies instantly. Each entry quickrun creates gets a QuickRunManaged marker value so unbind and list can tell its own bindings apart from ones installers made.

FAQ

Are bindings permanent? Yes. They're registry values — they survive reboots and stay until you unbind them. The one thing that can break an alias is the target app moving or being uninstalled; just rebind if that happens.

Do I need admin rights? No. Everything is per-user (HKCU).

Does launching go through cmd.exe? I saw a console flash. No — Win+R resolves the alias and starts the target exe directly; no shell is involved. GUI apps open with no console at all. A brief console window only appears if the alias points at a console program (that window is the program), or if you launch quickrun itself from Win+R (it's a CLI tool; it now keeps its window open so the help is readable).

Can an alias shadow a built-in name? Yes — HKCU wins over HKLM, so you could make notepad open something else for your account. That's why binding over an existing name requires --force.

How do I update? quickrun update (or quickrun -U) checks the latest GitHub release and replaces the exe in place. If you installed via pip, use git pull + pip install -e . instead.

How do I remove everything? quickrun unbind all removes every quickrun-managed binding after confirmation. quickrun stores nothing anywhere else.

Building the exe

pip install pyinstaller
pyinstaller --onefile --name quickrun --console quickrun.py

The result is dist\quickrun.exe — a single self-contained file, yt-dlp style. install.ps1 does the build (if needed), copies the exe to %LocalAppData%\Programs\quickrun, and adds it to your PATH.

License

MIT