Member Avatar for paradox814

When you press the ALT button, a letter will usually appear underlined so that you can press ALT+letter that is underlined to do a certain shortcut. My question is, I remember finding a way so that this letter was always underlined in windows, but i don't know where it is anymore, can you please help me?

Currently the underline will only appear when I press the alt button, but I always want it underlined and I can't find where to change this setting.

Thanks

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Dani AI

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Quick expert note: the behavior you described is controlled by a per‑user accessibility preference — pointed to the UI toggle that fixes it and was right that some running apps won't pick up the change until restarted. Modern Windows exposes the same preference under Accessibility/Keyboard as “Underline access keys when available.” (support.microsoft.com)

If you need to enforce it for a user or script it, the preference is kept in the user registry hive under:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Accessibility\Keyboard Preference

Many guides show the string value named "On" (set "1" to enable, "0" to disable); some documentation for newer builds also references "KeyboardCues." You can create a .reg file to set both values for safety (back up first, merge, then sign out/in): 

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Accessibility\Keyboard Preference]
"On"="1"
"KeyboardCues"="1"

Use caution when editing the registry. Changes are per user and may require signing out and back in to take full effect. (superuser.com)

If underlines still don’t appear in a particular program, that app may ignore the Windows cue (many modern/UWP or cross‑platform toolkits draw their own UI), so it’s an application limitation rather than a system setting. Developers can change the flag programmatically using the SystemParametersInfo API with the SPI_SETKEYBOARDCUES flag if they need to update behavior at runtime. For immediate user fixes, toggle the Accessibility setting and restart the affected application or sign out/sign in. (docs.oracle.com)

Summary for the thread: ’s original problem was the standard Windows keyboard‑cue hiding; ’s toggle is the right fix for interactive use, and the registry/API options above are available if scripting or per‑user deployment is needed.

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Member Avatar for Member #127113

Right click on Desktop > Properties > Appearance > Effects > here uncheck the 'Hide underline letters.....'

Member Avatar for bobbyraw

Good one, and some programs with have to be closed and reopened for the setting to take effect

Member Avatar for paradox814

woohoo, thanks thunderstorm, worked like a charm!

Member Avatar for Member #127113

Welcome :)

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