Chip Pearson says that he actually "fixed" his keyboard by taking that key off.
Others say that they left the key, but removed the spring underneath.

But you could use a couple of macros (one to disable and one to enable):

Option Explicit
Sub disableF1()
Application.OnKey "{f1}", ""
End Sub

This would toggle it back to normal.

Sub enableF1()
Application.OnKey "{f1}"
End Sub

If you're new to macros, you may want to read David McRitchie's intro at:
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/getstarted.htm

Rob wrote:

...probably because it's close to F2

It's annoying because I don't want the help screen to appear and it takes
ages to load. I know the obvious solution is to stop pressing F1, but that's
just too simple, so I was wondering if there was a way to disable the F1 key?

Thanks

Rob

--

Dave Peterson