VB.Net Windows Application How to Set Hot Keys?

If you only want the hot keys to be operative whilst your application has the input focus, then you can do it somewhat more easily by handling the Form's KeyDown event and setting its KeyPreview property to true so that the handler gets the opportunity to examine keystrokes before they go to whatever control currently has the focus.

If you do this, then you can prevent the keystroke from going to the control at all by setting the KeyPreviewEventArg's Handled property to true.

For example:

Private Sub Form1_KeyDown(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.KeyEventArgs) Handles Me.KeyDown

         If e.KeyCode = Keys.P Then 

             MessageBox.Show("P was pressed") 

             e.Handled = True

         End If

End Sub