Windows Key Shortcuts in Win10
Thanks to a recent article at MakeUseOf.com I came across this weekend, I’ve been wondering if there isn’t some master repository of keyboard shortcuts for the latest and soon-to-be-greatest Windows desktop OS. That article was entitled “7 Quick Tips & Hacks to Optimize Your Windows 10 Experience” and appeared last Thursday (3/12/2015), and came to me the long way around via MajorGeeks.com who in turn picked it up from NTCompatible.com (all good sites, BTW). But after looking around for an exhaustive, all-encompassing source for Windows 10 keyboard shortcuts I don’t seem to be able to find one. I went through the most common combinations to see what I could learn for myself, but would request that those who know of other sources for such info please share it in comments here.
Properly used, keyboard shortcuts can be real time-savers in Windows. Using them means knowing which combos produce desired — and intended — results.
Alphabetic Windows-Key combos
If a letter is missing from the list below, that means it didn’t cause anything to happen on either of the two Win10 test machines I ran it on. That may or may not be significant, so please consider this an experimental reference rather than an authoritative one.
Windows-A Launches Action Center Windows-D Launches (or switches) active Windows Desktop(s) Windows-E Launches File Explorer Windows-F Launches Search pane Windows-H Launches Share pane Windows-I Launches Settings pane Windows-K Launches Connect utility (Bluetooth) Windows-L Launches Lock screen Windows-P Launches Connect utility (Bluetooth) Windows-R Launches Run dialog box Windows-U Launches Ease of Access Center widget Windows-X Launches Administrative Tools menu Windows-1 Launches first application from taskbar, left-to-right ... ... Windows-<n> Launches nth application from taskbar (n is limited by number of items visible) Windows-+ Launches magnifier widget
I’m going to have to do some more research before I can assemble a reasonably complete set of multi-key Windows keyboard shortcuts (like the famous “three-fingered salute” of CRTL-ALT-DEL that brings up the shift user pane, or Shift-ALT-ESC which brings up Task Manager). I’ll pull this together over the next week or two and follow up with another posting on that topic.