Thursday, February 19, 2009

Hotkey Keyboard Shortcuts in Windows 7 beta 1

Some time ago, I posted a blog article describing the short cut keys for Vista.  Looking at the statistics for this site, I see that this article is still being accessed (via Google). While many of those keys still work in Vista, there are some new hotkeys too, as described in a TechNet article.

These new  hot keys are as follows:

  • Win+Home: Clear all but the active window
  • Win+Space: All windows become transparent so you can see through to the desktop
  • Win+Up arrow: Maximize the active window
  • Win+Down arrow: Minimize the active window or restore the window if it's maximized
  • Win+Left/Right arrows: Dock the active window to each side of the monitor
  • Win+Shift+Left/Right arrows: If you've got dual monitors, this will move the active window to the adjacent monitor
  • Win+T: Shift focus to and scroll through items on the taskbar
  • Win+P: Adjust presentation settings for your display
  • Win+(+/-): Zoom in/out
  • Shift+Click a taskbar item: Open a new instance of that particular application

I’ve been using Win7 exclusively on my new laptop for a couple of weeks and am convinced! There are a couple of defencies, but these are driver related issues (and driver makers who do the “we do not support beta OSs” excuse.  But despite that, I’m sufficiently happy with Win7 beta to not want to reboot back to XP.

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1 comment:

Shay Levy said...

There's also the Win+# (number key). BTW, you have a bad link under "in a TechNet article".

-Shay