AutoHotKey – Start with Windows

AutoHotkey is a free, open-source scripting platform for Windows. You can use it to automate repetitive, tedious tasks or to turn just about any action into a keyboard shortcut. Once a script has been written and compiled there may be a need to have it automatically start with Windows. There are two ways to do this: startup folders or the registry. Both techniques are explained below:

This will create a shortcut in the common startup folder to launch an application:

To create it in the user’s startup folder replace A_StartupCommon with A_Startup.

This will use the registry to launch the program. Below, a check is being done as to whether the script is compiled or not. It will still work either way but this way will only touch the registry when out of test mode. WindowsStart is a just a variable containing 1 or 0, based off the user’s settings.