WinKey + R not always working in Windows 10

When I press WinKey+R to bring up the run-command, it started not working all the time. I don't recall if it's been there since I've installed Windows 10 or appeared after, but I would like it if I didn't have to install it all over again.

I don't use a wireless keyboard.

Tests I've done:

• WinKey+D (or L, A,X, K, M, Q) works fine all the time, as does the WinKey itself to open the Start Menu.
• When I'm in Chrome browser (for example) and I scroll a page, it's enough for WinKey+R to be ignored. I have to change focus to another window (e.g., to Command Prompt) and only then can I press (WinKey+R) twice to open the Run dialog. (But it's not consistent when I have to do this – it might work first try!)
• WinKey+X followed by WinKey+R, for example, doesn't yield any result.
• If I click the taskbar (the one that used to contain the 'Start' button) and press WinKey+R, it works!

I was thinking that it could be due to some program catching the key-combination, but I can't seem to find any (did scans with S&D, AVG, Ad-Aware).

Any ideas what it might be or how I can debug this?

2 Answers

I encountered the same problem, that all other shortcuts with WinKey seemed to work perfectly fine, except for WinKey+R.

Symptoms

WinKey+R sometimes (rarely) worked on the the first try, sometimes after the 2nd or 3rd try, and sometimes it did not work at all; except when first focusing the Windows taskbar.

Cause

This occurred immediately after installing Windows 10 (more precisely upgrading from Windows 7 to 10). So, installing Windows 10 was most probably the cause (on my system) for this is.

Solution

For me, uninstalling Adobe Flash did solve this problem

[EDIT] my "solution" seems to have been a fluke: it seemed to work for a about a week, then it reverted to the old problem ... so I still have no idea what causes this problem

[EDIT 2] this problem is solved / does not occur anymore since updating to Windows 10 ver. 1607

(I speak broken English..) My symptom is the same as russa above. This is definitely caused by the hot key occupation. I suggest you can cancel something in msconfig and reboot, and when you find you can use win+r smoothly, check for the hotkey of the software you cancel. Or you can find the target software when you close this software, or the software works incorrectly. For me, I have found that when my WOX is working, I can't use win+R. And when I press win+R, my Wox will become a short bar, I can only restart Wox to let it recover.wox

So I untick this above, and solve the problem successfully.