Unless I’m mistaken, there are three ways to use keystrokes in Windows to switch tasks. The most famous is ALT+TAB which has been around in Windows ever since version 3.0. The second is ALT+ESC (which I don’t recommend because it has a habit of only working “when it wants to”). The third, introduced in Windows Vista and also present in Windows 7 is the “3D” way of doing it, Win+TAB, which to the best of my knowledge only works when an Aero theme is enabled.
Before the first Vista Service Pack, Win+TAB did not work well and in fact did make the entire Windows UI crash, mainly due to video driver issues. However after that and on in to Win7, Win+TAB does in fact work like it’s supposed to.
But does anyone use it?
Here’s my experience with Win+TAB:
Win+TAB works flawlessly with normal windowed apps, with “normal” meaning “not a video game”. If you attempt to task switch using Win+TAB with a game running even in a windowed state, you’ll probably have problems because the heavy amount of screen draw required – even if you have a high-powered graphics card.
I also notice Win+TAB does work best in single-monitor environments. This is not to say that Win+TAB doesn’t work with a multi-monitor setup, but you do get the best experience from the single-monitor environment, such as a laptop.
There are certain times when Win+TAB is in fact preferable to ALT+TAB, such as a “guaranteed way” of getting to the Desktop.
I’ll explain.
There are certain times when you want everything minimized and return to the Desktop. Ordinarily this is done with Win+D or Win+M. However there are some apps that simply won’t “obey” that for whatever reason and simply will not minimize no matter what. In that instance, if you press Win+TAB and cycle through whatever you have open, one of the choices will in fact be the Desktop. Choose that and ta-da, every thing is minimized like it’s supposed to be. And if it should happen that won’t-minimize-no-matter-what app “disappears” and you want it back, you can always Win+TAB back to it.
Anyway, the point is yes, Win+TAB does have a legitimate purpose other than just for fancy-schmancy 3D task switching.
Do you use Win+TAB in your Windows Vista or Windows 7?
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Nope. Only by accident. Seems a worthless piece of eye candy to me.
WIN+TAB works quite nicely, and may indeed be useful at times. There is also a quick launch button (“Switch between windows”), at least on my Vista task bar. But that calls for the use of mouse/touchpad, which is not so efficient.
Oh THAT’S how you do it! After all these years!!!!
Cute– but the Taskbar has served me well all this time. Useless eye-candy.
Me neither. It’s just flashy bit of useless graphics. The Taskbar does the job just fine.
Only when I hit the Windows key instead of the Alt key when alt-tabbing. Otherwise it’s a waste of resources.
Since I’m a holdover DOS keyboarder-type, I always go for keyboard shortcuts over mouse movements, just out of habit I suppose. So to answer your question, I do use this…now.
I always used alt-tab, so now I know both work, which is quite helpful (alt+tab has the desktop as a “window” as well).