Change Windows Mobile Today Screen SoftKeys

One of the best ways to customize your Windows Mobile device is by changing the softkeys on the Today screen. If you're like me than you probably never use the default Calendar shortcut on the left key. I can just tap my appointments on the today screen. I changed mine to launch the HTC ActionScreen application which gives me a list of actions like New E-mail, New SMS, etc.

Always be careful when editing the registry. Watch your typos and double-check your changes.

To change the left softkey:

1. Open your registry editor of choice.
2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Today\Keys\112
3. Change Default*
4. Change Open**
5. Soft reset your phone.
   

*Default is the name you want displayed on the Today screen above the softkey.
**Open needs to be set to the path of the executable you want to run. (Ex: \Windows\htcactionscreen.exe)

The change to Default will probably show on the Today screen momentarily, but you will probably need to do the soft reset to get it to launch your app.

To change the right-hand softkey you need to follow these same directions except you navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Today\Keys\113.

I have heard of some free applications that can do this for you automatically, but I prefer this method to using up memory with more software.