We all like the convienience and ease that pointing and clicking with a mouse gives us, but for sheer speed and productivity it’s hard to beat the good old keyboard shortcut for getting things done – just think about editing a text document how many of you select your text with the mouse go to the edit menu, select ‘copy’, then go to where go want to insert the text and the go back to the edit menu and select ‘paste’? Not many I’m sure, most will use the trusty ctrl+c and ctrl+v to copy and paste respectively.
Whilst the majority of shortcut keys that were used in previous versions of Windows are still aplicable in Windows 7, the re-designed interface also throws up some interesting shortcuts, and some of our favourites are listed below.
[Win]+1 (upto +9) – This is a cool little trick that takes advantage of the new interface – this allows you to run the 1st (or 2nd, 3rd etc upto 9th) program pinned on yourtaskbar.
[Win]+[Alt]+1 (upto +9) – In a similar manner to the shortcut above, this one will open the jump list for each of the programs pinned on your taskbar.
[Win]+B – Activate the system tray, and allows you to select a program using the cursor keys.
[Win]+E – Open Windows explorer to the ‘Computer’ view.
[Win]+F – Open the search box.
[Win]+G – Cycle through gadgets
[Win]+L – Lock the screen.
[Win]+M – Minimises all active windows.
[Win]+P – Choose display mode / switch monitors.
[Win]+R – Open the ‘Run’ dialog box.
[Win]+T – Cycle through the Taskbar programs, they can then be activated using the Enter key or the space bar.
[Win]+Home – Minimises all Windows except the current Window.
[Win]+Spacebar – Makes all windows transparent.
[Win]+Left/Right arrow – Dock the current window to the left or right of the screen.
[Win]+Up/Down arrow – Minimises or maximises the current Window.
[Win]+minus/plus sign – Zoom in / out.
[Win]+Pause/Break – Open the System Properties Window.
[Alt]+Tab – Switch between open Windows.
[Alt]+[Enter] – Opens the properties dialog for a selected file.
[Alt]+Up arrow – Go up a level in Windows Explorer.
[Alt]+[Shft]+[Num Lock] – Activates ‘virtual mouse’ (Move the pointer with the arrow keys on the keyboard)
[Alt]+P – Toggle preview pane in Windows Explorer.
[Ctrl]+[Shft]+E – Expand folder view in Windows Explorer.
[Ctrl]+[Esc] – Opens the Windows Start Menu.
[Ctrl]+[Shft]+[Esc] – Opens the Task Manager.
[Ctrl]+Full Stop – Rotate picture clockwise.
[Ctrl]+Comma – Rotate picture counter-clockwise.
[Ctrl]+[Shft]+Click taskbar program – Open that program as an Administrator.
[Ctrl]+[Shft]+N – Create a new folder in Windows Explorer
[Shft]+[Del] – Deletes a file without sending it to the recycle bin.