#36: Navigating Windows by keyboard

Now and again, it’s useful to be able to use Windows without mouse or touch, especially should the unexpected happen . Accessibility needs aside, it’s been possible to move around and control Windows since the very early days, just by using combinations of keystrokes.

ALT+F4 is maybe the most memorable (for closing a window), apart from CTRL+ALT+DEL .

A few other window management keystrokes worthy of mention:

WindowsKey+up/down/right/left arrows – maximize the current window to fullscreen (up), back from fullscreen to previous size or minimizes it (down), and snaps the window to one side of the screen or back (left/right).

ALT+TAB / SHIFT+ALT+TAB – cycles through the current open windows (and add SHIFT to go backwards). Releasing the ALT+TAB combo then jumps to whichever window is highlighted; press CTRL+ALT+TAB to just display the open windows, let you move between them and jump to one by clicking on it or pressing ENTER.

ALT+left/right arrow – moves back and forward, as in clicking the back/forward arrow icons in a browser

WindowsKey+number – jumps to the nth application on your taskbar; if you pin an app/window to the taskbar, it remains in the same place so you could use WindowsKey+1 to jump to Explorer, Win+2 to go to the browser etc.

See more here . Many more.

Powered Up

As previous ToWs have mentioned (here , here , here etc ), the collection of utilities called PowerToys is well worth installing; one of its default apps is a shortcut guide showing some key WindowsKey + nnn options. (Press WindowsKey+SHIFT+/ to display temporarily).

On the topic of PowerToys, one of the utilities is a special “Run” app which does a good bit more than the standard WindowsKey+R command which displays the old fashioned Run dialog;

PowerToys Run has a load of special characters to make additional searches; entering ?? something will search the web using your default browser, or (optionally) put o: something to?search your OneNote notebooks for that term.

Somewhat controversially , the default activation keystroke for PowerToys Run is ALT+Space, which has been a Windows shortcut to display the context menu of the current window since Windows 2.0. Pressing that combo followed by M or S would be used to move / resize (using the arrow keys) or N and X would minimize / maximize that window.

In a curmudgeonly article, El Reg complained that old school keyboard warriors would be most upset . They also suggest that the pre-Win95 icon for that top-left corner of a window was a Spacebar, supposedly to illustrate that you press ALT+SPACE to open it.

The "spacebar" icon may just be coincidentally so, somewhat like the padlock / handbag icon that the more observant may have noticed in last week's ToW...

Never fear, keyboard fans – you can simply remap the PowerToys Run activation key to something else (like WindowsKey+Space) so the ALT+SPACE combo will continue to work like it’s 1987 .