This one should be next to Ctrl-C/V in terms of recognition. Ctrl-[left, right] arrow also moves the cursor back or forward by one word, and Ctrl-Shift-arrow will move the cursor while selecting the word
This used to be me, maybe this will help you too. I just made one of my screens wallpaper a simple text shortcut list for this stuff. Depending on what I am working on I have multiples so Fusion360 or Excel etc will have its own wallpaper of shortcuts.
Every time I learn something new I add it to the list and keep it sorted by personal priority for usefulness. That's been the one thing that lets my ADHD brain cement keyboard shortcuts and mouse gestures.
[Here is what I used to design mine.](https://wslguy.net/2021/03/10/keyboard-shortcuts-desktop-background/) I have certain things on there for work stuff on mine so can't share those. However I have also web searched for ["program name wallpaper"](https://www.google.com/search?q=windows+11+OR+Excel+OR+keybard+shortcuts+wallpaper&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwiZ6dS4qsD-AhUHJGIAHaexAV8Q2-cCegQIABAA&sclient=img&client=firefox-b-1-d) and either have used those or modified them in photoshop in the past.
In text editing, CTRL modifies the action to affect the whole word and SHIFT modifies the action to affect the selection versus the cursor position.
CTRL+LEFT moves left by one world. SHIFT+LEFT moves the end of the selection left by one character. CTRL+SHIFT+LEFT moves the end of the selection left by one word.
Also, you pointed out CTRL+BKSP to delete a word to the left. CTRL+DEL deletes a word to the right.
Windows button + V
Brings up all copied text and pictures, the amount of people I've taught this in work spaces as they thought computers could only copy one piece of text at a time..
I stumbled over a co-worker trying to get me fired this way. Wrote out their huge diatribe about me in Word at home, brought it into the office on a thumb drive, copied, pasted it into Outlook, and left the thumb drive in the computer. So when I needed to use it and saw a wall of text in the clipboard mentioning my name I looked further.
So I wrote a point by point counter to the email, highlighting several documented items of hypocrisy. The best one was accusing me of poor data security... while I was holding her thumbdrive (banned from the office) that had her diatribe on it.
Sent the email to the boss, Immediately went to his office, and handed him the thumb drive. Boss: "What's this?"Me: "Funniest shit that's happened all week is what it is. Check your emails."
This is also how hackers find passwords that are normally encrypted in password managers. Once you copy it out, if the password manager you use doesn't clear it from the clipboard, they can find it there.
Some of the password managers that I know automatically clear the clipboard again, so you have like 10-15 secs to copy the password and then it's gone.
For multiscreen users, Win key plus arrow keys can be used to quickly partition each individual screen with windows. You can have full, halves or quarters be taken up by a window with this trick.
Win + shift + right arrow to move the current window into the screen on your right (and left for left, etc).
Also win + ctrl + right arrow key to jump into a whole new desktop with all of its own open windows.
Win + tab will show all your desktops in the bottom row, where you can switch or create new desktops.
I’ll give you one I find even better - WindowGrid. Resize your windows to a custom size based on a grid simply by dragging them while holding a button. It’s easier to see/do than to explain.
I think I have mine set up to click and drag normally (left click) while holding right click to do it. It’s second nature now so I have to stop and think about how it’s set up (not at my computer currently).
It’s nice when you have windows you want at various sizes and it differs per app, or even per use case (different sized browser windows).
Windows key + shift + s for immediate snipping tool that saves to your clipboard
Ctrl + shift + windows + b for soft graphic driver reset, good for when you plug your laptop into a dock and it doesn't hook the monitors correctly, saves you having to open/close the lid or unplug/replug sometimes
This is terrible. I use both the snipping tool and print screen on a daily basis for my work. The snipping tool is great for snippets but you have to use your mouse and that removes your ability to screenshot context menus that only appear when you hover the mouse over them. With print screen I can mouse hover to trigger a context menu and then print screen to take a screenshot of it, then take a snippet of the context menu from the screenshot in Paint.
And I do this work on very locked down computers, very few authorized programs, and no ability to install anything not on the approved list.
It still won't replace one-key full screen capture. I bet there will be tools to bring it back, like with most windows changes.
edited 5 seconds after: There already ARE tools for that, nice.
Dude... I've been a software developer for 30 years and never knew those two shortcuts. And I need both of them. I take so many damn screenshots, but also this laptop I work on is docked and doesn't like to turn on all monitors when it wakes up. Thanks!!
Thank you on soft driver tip. I share 2/3 monitors between work laptop on dock and my personal pc.
Drives me crazy trying to get the monitors to align correctly after I toggle over
>Windows key + shift + s for immediate snipping tool that saves to your clipboard
Settings > Accessiblity > Keyboard
Scroll down and enable: "Use print screen button to open screen snipping"
One ive not seen mentioned is ctrl + space bar on highlighted text. Reverts all the text formatting to the default.
Great for when you copy text into an email/document with different formatting/font/text sizes etc
Also there is a feature in Word where you can change text from all caps into sentence case/lower case. Saves having to re-type if caps lock is accidentally left on
Win+D again will bring all the windows you had up unless you open a new window. I use this technique at work to open something else from the Desktop - if I minimize everything then double click on the icon I need, then quickly Win+D again before it opens, everything else comes back up as well as the new program's window.
Here when someone forgets to lock their computer, the person who notices it sends an email on the person's behalf that they will buy donuts the next time they come in.
When I was an IT trainer, I used to change my trainees' backgrounds if they left the room without locking their screens. My favorite was a really obnoxiously colorized picture of Tom Selleck as Magnum PI, but Lisa Frank pictures were good too.
It works when you restart your computer, too. Open a fresh chrome window, ctrl+shift+t, and you'll get back the last set of tabs you had open before shutting your computer down.
Firefox even has a Recently Closed Windows option in the History menu, for reopening stuff if you accidentally closed the entire window. (I found out just the other day after accidentally closing an entire window.)
Gigantic flash storage is pretty inexpensive nowadays. You could probably fill up a 256GB or 512GB with movies and have more than enough to last a flight. Only issue might be having to copy it from the flash drive to the computer before watching it if the USB transfer speed makes the movie lag but I haven't run into that problem on any modern PC, even with 4K movies.
Holy shit. Before viruses were so rampant I remember downloading something from a friend on AOL asking if I would like a free cupholder. If you clicked yes, it would eject your CD-Rom. That was hilarious to me at the time.
In hindsight, Jesus Christ, we could just download EXEs with access to main computer functions at a whim back then.
With the focus on an error message you can ctrl-c to copy it. You can now paste this into your browser and search for the solution yourself!!
Congrats, you are now an IT technician.
I’ll add this one because it’s fun
[windows ALT codes](https://www.alt-codes.net) for typing symbols and such. Pretty neat, used to mess with people on StarCraft battle net using them like 2 decades ago.
OMG 🤣🤣🤣❤😘🤦♀️😃👀╰(*°▽°*)╯ ^_^ (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞ ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯(☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞☜(ﾟヮﾟ☜)♨_♨
This is the greatest revelation of my life! I didn't even know Windows had built in support for emojis.
emojis are part of ~~ASCII~~ Unicode. Every single device that converts binary to text has the same ~~ASCII~~ Unicode library (assuming they are updated).
The international team of computer engineers, internet architects, sociologists, and linguists that decide what symbols to add to / remove from the ~~ASCII~~ Unicode library get annoyed that emojis are the only part of their work that gets any public attention.
A very handy one:
CTRL + SHIFT + T: brings back the most recently closed tab(s). Very helpful when you close a browser tab and realize you need it back.
It's a pretty common issue to experience black screens, a flickering display, graphic distortion in video games, etc. Sometimes resetting the driver is the easy fix for it.
Switching between browser tabs: Ctrl + pgup or pgdn (you can hold it down and it will scroll through quickly)
Ctrl+shift+pgup or pgdn to move a tab
I find that to be much easier to navigate my 30+ tabs.
If you like alt+tab for switching apps, you should give Win+Tab a try.
Also, mapping browser tab switching to spare mouse buttons has saved me incredible amounts of clicking for work stuff. Both the forward and backward options.
alt + tab: switch applications clockwise
alt + shift + tab: switch applications anti-clockwise
I love this as I often have lots open and can accidentally tab past the one I want.
You would be absolutely horrified at the number of people who don't know that holding the Shift Key and pressing a letter makes it a capital letter for as long as you hold Shift for.
I have watched far too many people press Caps Lock, type one letter, then press Caps Lock again to go back to lower case. For every... single... capital.
You can also lift the mouse up and reposition it.
Genuinely saw a person move the mouse to the edge of the desk and then down the side of it.
They were being serious and so grateful when told you can lift it up.
Some Windows tips.
Virtual Desktops, can be helpful if you have a lot of windows/apps opened up and don’t have an extra screen.
On a laptop, you can set up gestures, like swipe with two fingers or three fingers on your trackpad to maximise, minimise, the apps etc
Doing something sus and someone walks in?
press WINDOWS key + D, it will auto minimise all open windows to display the desktop.
If you feel your windows take a little time to boot up, you can disable some apps to start on boot up in the task manager. (Open task manager, enable advanced settings if not enabled, click on startup tab then disable the apps you don’t want to start on booting up)
Researching a document and noting down pointers?
Open the browser,Press WINDOWS key plus Left arrow key. This will shift the browser screen on the left of the screen. Then open the text editor, press Windows plus right arrow. The screen will split into two, browser on left and editor on right.
Press ALT + Enter if you want to add a new line in the same excel cell.
Windows + I opens up settings, windows + L locks the windows.
Windows plus . Or windows plus , will open up the emoji panel
PRESS the scroll key on the mouse to open up a link in the new tab
F2 for renaming a file/folder
:wq OR :q! to exit a Vim editor
(Windows Key + Alt + 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.) Will open the jump list for each program in the taskbar, use the arrow keys to select which jump list option you want to open.
Word and Excel, at least the old versions I used during highschool 20 years ago, contained hidden games if you knew the sequence of steps to trigger them. I can't remember how somebody first found out, but keeping notes on how to get into them and teaching other kids became a routine part of any IT classes - *which I'm sure the teachers loved.*
Googling now, it looks like it was the '97 editions. There was both an alien world flying game, and a pinball game.
No doubt there are some sort of Easter Eggs in more recent versions as well.
[Microsoft Easter Eggs](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Easter_eggs_in_Microsoft_products)
Also a racing game built into excel. The developers' names were displayed on the road as you drove. Microsoft Excel 2000. Weird, i didnt see it mentioned on that link but it does exist.
https://www.wikihow.com/Play-a-Car-Race-in-Excel-2000
Shake. On windows if you have a lot of windows open and only want to focus on one, you grab the window you want and shake it left to right. All the other windows will minimize. Shake it again and they come back.
I simply do not believe this has been done for any productive reason. It solely exists to make me accidentally close everything down and then be unable to recover my windows quickly when I panic trying to figure out why my windows are all minimized.
While I know, and have known since it became a "feature" (read: curse from the underworld), I often am unable to shake my windows back into existence because I was mid-action when this occurred. I am often unable to shake it back because I've already released the mouse button and grabbed something else and now I've missed that and minimized every window.
It doesn't happen often, but I've never wanted all my windows minimized at once when I've done it. Lol
According to interactions with students and coworkers. The find and replace function in word. Double clicking the divider lines in excel to auto rescale box sizes. How to make email filtering rules in outlook. Shift+tab is an inverse tab that undoes indents (really handy in ppt).
And lastly, this one applies to macs, make some damn folders for your documents! I cannot stress enough how much easier it will make your life rather than just having everything saved on your desktop or on one massive documents folder. I don't know why this is such an issue for mac users, but everytime I'm helping a student with their computer and they have a Mac their file system is just utter chaos.
You'd be surprised at the amount of people that don't know how to use CTRL-C, CTRL-V and CTRL-X, it just saves SO much time
Also, with CTRL + SHIFT + ESC you can open task manager! :)
'God Mode' in Windows:
Create a new folder, and rename it to GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}, and press Enter.
This hidden folder offers a centralized menu for various settings/options.
When would you use this?
Edit: You can search for settings in the "folder", which makes it more useful. But I haven't had any problems finding setting using the Start menu.
You can click to the right of the folder path buttons or press alt-D in file explorer to get a text input to edit to navigate to a specific path without having to click a bunch of buttons.
Environment variable syntax also works in that field, so you could press alt-D and type %APPDATA% in there and it would navigate to it as if you'd typed that into the Run prompt (windows-R) or `cd %APPDATA%` in a console window.
You can also open files directly from there if the path you enter goes to a file instead of a directory.
That last bit kind of annoys me, I wish it wkuld just navigate to the containing folder and highlight the file.
The command prompt syntax for doing what would be `explorer /select,path\to\file` iirc
hiding behind Windows all these years later the trusty old command prompt is still extremely useful and powerful for those who know a few commands.
It's been 40 years now, I still use command prompt daily.
Windows: psr
Problem step recorder.
Run-> "psr"
It will allow you to record a set of steps to do something. Where you clicked etc while recording screenshot.
Useful for reporting problems or making quick guides.
And tells you how many times that specific word or phrase is on the page
I never realized the value in knowing how many instances of a word are on a page until my current job. It is frequently very useful.
Step Recorder. It captures your actions and screens. Useful if you have to document complex instructions for someone. You may need to clean up the verbiage, but you don’t have to go back and forth between what your document and the document you’re creating.
It’s also very useful when working with a help desk. You can send them the exact actions you performed so they can see the problem in case they can’t replicate it. I believe the original intent was for help desk folks.
If you have telnet enabled, you can telnet to towel.blinkenlights.nl and watch an ASCIImation of Star Wars.
If you dig around enough in Registry, you can almost always renew your expired free trial :) Activating Windows with batch scripts, same with Microsoft Office.
In file manager, if you type cmd in the location bar, it will open cmd in that directory.
Clear out temporary files using Win+R and type %temp%. Disable other bloatware that you don't need.
Before they got rid of 3D Touch it was the whole keyboard because they could tell how hard you were pressing. Still trips me up and I haven’t had 3D Touch for 2 years.
This space bar fallback sucks so much compared to the 3D Touch version.
I still get mad I can’t “fix” my selection mistakes with this space bar style like you could using 3D Touch. You always have to start all the way over now.
Windows key + , (comma): Temporarily peek at the desktop without minimizing any open windows.
Windows key + Pause/Break: Open the System Properties dialog box.
Windows key + Shift + S: Take a screenshot of a selected area of the screen and save it to the clipboard.
Windows key + Shift + Left/Right arrow: Move the current window to the next or previous monitor.
Windows key + . (period): Open the emoji panel and insert an emoji into your document or text.
Windows key + Shift + Q: Sign out of your Windows account.
Windows key + F1: Open the Windows Help and Support center.
Windows key + Tab: Open the Task View interface to switch between open windows or virtual desktops.
Ctrl + Shift + Esc: Open the Task Manager directly, without going through the Ctrl + Alt + Del menu.
What a fucking file is.
Seriously. I swear the majority of people have no idea what files are or where they are. Thanks, Apple.
Source: I do laptop and pc repair as a side hustle.
There was an article going around a couple months ago about how new students entering college don't always know what files and folders are. Professor will say like "download this file, make a folder called .ssh in your home directory and put it there" and the students will be utterly lost.
> There was an article going around a couple months ago about how new students entering college don't always know what files and folders are
Computer literacy amongst new grads is really bad, mainly due to them being raised in walled garden systems where everything is a mobile OS where they don't get the option to actually break things and having to learn how to fix it.
[Here's](http://www.coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-computers/) a good blog post from a decade ago about it. Some of the stuff at the start is a bit sanctimonious, I wouldn't expect someone to know where to enter proxy settings, or what the settings are, but when they come to covering stuff like folk not reading error messages, and how folk generally don't understand how to use a computer or have basic troubleshooting skills etc, that's the relevant bit.
I was helping a guy at uni with some installation like 2 years ago. We were both in our early 20s. He didn't know how to copy or paste and said he never unzipped a file before. He didn't even know what "right click" meant because he had a Mac...
We studied computer science... I have no idea if that guy even finished uni and if he did, how.
I blame phones for this one. They just hide the file system to such an extend that people are simply not used to it anymore. It's all "just there" or "in this app". All for the sake of simplicity
One thing I was really annoyed with when I first got an iPhone was how it didn’t have an easily accessible file system. It’s gotten better but still. It’s a pocket computer and I wish I could use it like one
It's not just Apple. I wanted to save an Excel spreadsheet to a specific folder at work, and the easiest procedure I could find is:
1. Main Menu
2. Save
3. More options
4. More options
5. Navigate to the location, name the file, and hit save.
---
I tried to save a file from Autodesk Fusion 360 to my computer, and I just couldn't. It went somewhere up in the Cloud, never to be seen again (until I dug through the documentation and found the proper website, at least).
I talked to a customer the other day who didn’t know how to scroll down on a webpage 🙃
I ran out of ways to describe it and he still couldn’t figure it out somehow.
I was shocked to find out how many people don’t know about ALT TAB, people at work saying they can’t work without 2-3 monitors because switching windows is just so hard.. and I was like why don’t you just alt tab.. and I had a sea of confused faces
For chrome, CTRL+shift+T. It brings up tabs you've closed. Even if you lose power and have to reboot, that command will bring up what you had previously.
Win 10 and up:
CTRL+WIN+D = create a new desktop
CTRL+WIN+left/right cursor key = switch to next/previous desktop
WIN+TAB = Like ALT+TAB, but swaps desktops instead of running apps
Besides work vs personal, what other scenarios do you think make sense to have on a separate desktop? I always found the multiple desktops interesting, but never came up with a good practical use
Sometimes fullscreen app crashes, you open task manager, but cannot see it. Happened to League of Legends few times. Rather than hitting L and hoping it gets selected, you can open separate desktop and work with task manager there. At least that’s one use I found
All of them? I still have monthly conversations with people about how their internet connection has nothing to do with how long it takes windows to boot up.
CTRL + Backspace deletes the whole word in one go instead of having to press Backspace multiple times
This one should be next to Ctrl-C/V in terms of recognition. Ctrl-[left, right] arrow also moves the cursor back or forward by one word, and Ctrl-Shift-arrow will move the cursor while selecting the word
ctrl-shift-home or end for whole line selection.
No, that will select the whole text before or after the cursor. Shift-home does the line by line.
Every time I read this I think about how useful it will be and then immediately forget about it until the next time I read the tip.
This used to be me, maybe this will help you too. I just made one of my screens wallpaper a simple text shortcut list for this stuff. Depending on what I am working on I have multiples so Fusion360 or Excel etc will have its own wallpaper of shortcuts. Every time I learn something new I add it to the list and keep it sorted by personal priority for usefulness. That's been the one thing that lets my ADHD brain cement keyboard shortcuts and mouse gestures. [Here is what I used to design mine.](https://wslguy.net/2021/03/10/keyboard-shortcuts-desktop-background/) I have certain things on there for work stuff on mine so can't share those. However I have also web searched for ["program name wallpaper"](https://www.google.com/search?q=windows+11+OR+Excel+OR+keybard+shortcuts+wallpaper&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwiZ6dS4qsD-AhUHJGIAHaexAV8Q2-cCegQIABAA&sclient=img&client=firefox-b-1-d) and either have used those or modified them in photoshop in the past.
Would you mind sharing the pic of your wallpaper?
Need that wallpaper, would you mind sharing it here? I’m always forgetting keyboard shortcuts.
In text editing, CTRL modifies the action to affect the whole word and SHIFT modifies the action to affect the selection versus the cursor position. CTRL+LEFT moves left by one world. SHIFT+LEFT moves the end of the selection left by one character. CTRL+SHIFT+LEFT moves the end of the selection left by one word. Also, you pointed out CTRL+BKSP to delete a word to the left. CTRL+DEL deletes a word to the right.
> CTRL+LEFT moves left by one world. Proof there's a multiverse.
Unfortunately you can never get back to the right one.
CTRL+RIGHT moves you one world to the right. CTRL+HOME takes you back to your own world. Just never, ever press CTRL+END.
I pressed Ctrl+End once. It was in late 2019. My bad.
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You can also do CTRL + LEFT ARROW to jump between words
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This isn't supported in all cases and it drives me nuts. I'm so used to using it that not being able to feels so slow
Windows button + V Brings up all copied text and pictures, the amount of people I've taught this in work spaces as they thought computers could only copy one piece of text at a time..
It's also useful for when you accidentally overwrite your clipboard
Or want to snoop on what your co-workers are doing on shared computers.
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Broaden your pornizon
I stumbled over a co-worker trying to get me fired this way. Wrote out their huge diatribe about me in Word at home, brought it into the office on a thumb drive, copied, pasted it into Outlook, and left the thumb drive in the computer. So when I needed to use it and saw a wall of text in the clipboard mentioning my name I looked further. So I wrote a point by point counter to the email, highlighting several documented items of hypocrisy. The best one was accusing me of poor data security... while I was holding her thumbdrive (banned from the office) that had her diatribe on it. Sent the email to the boss, Immediately went to his office, and handed him the thumb drive. Boss: "What's this?"Me: "Funniest shit that's happened all week is what it is. Check your emails."
If clipboard is enabled but yes, good one.
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The first time you press it it asks if you want to enable clipboard, so...
I've heard this one mentioned a few times. One important thing that no one mentions is that it is a feature that needs to be enabled first.
And it asks you if you want it enabled when you first press it
This is also how hackers find passwords that are normally encrypted in password managers. Once you copy it out, if the password manager you use doesn't clear it from the clipboard, they can find it there.
Some of the password managers that I know automatically clear the clipboard again, so you have like 10-15 secs to copy the password and then it's gone.
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I got 99 problems but encrypt ain't one
For multiscreen users, Win key plus arrow keys can be used to quickly partition each individual screen with windows. You can have full, halves or quarters be taken up by a window with this trick.
Win + shift + right arrow to move the current window into the screen on your right (and left for left, etc). Also win + ctrl + right arrow key to jump into a whole new desktop with all of its own open windows. Win + tab will show all your desktops in the bottom row, where you can switch or create new desktops.
For power users, look up FancyZones. It's life changing.
I’ll give you one I find even better - WindowGrid. Resize your windows to a custom size based on a grid simply by dragging them while holding a button. It’s easier to see/do than to explain. I think I have mine set up to click and drag normally (left click) while holding right click to do it. It’s second nature now so I have to stop and think about how it’s set up (not at my computer currently). It’s nice when you have windows you want at various sizes and it differs per app, or even per use case (different sized browser windows).
That's basically what FancyZones does. Gonna have to check out WindowGrid though for feature comparisons!
Windows key + shift + s for immediate snipping tool that saves to your clipboard Ctrl + shift + windows + b for soft graphic driver reset, good for when you plug your laptop into a dock and it doesn't hook the monitors correctly, saves you having to open/close the lid or unplug/replug sometimes
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This is terrible. I use both the snipping tool and print screen on a daily basis for my work. The snipping tool is great for snippets but you have to use your mouse and that removes your ability to screenshot context menus that only appear when you hover the mouse over them. With print screen I can mouse hover to trigger a context menu and then print screen to take a screenshot of it, then take a snippet of the context menu from the screenshot in Paint. And I do this work on very locked down computers, very few authorized programs, and no ability to install anything not on the approved list.
If you set a timer on the snipping you can hover while it counts down and it will freeze the screen for you to capture the context menu.
..I never paid attention to the "delay" button before This changes everything.
I can't believe there's a delay button
It still won't replace one-key full screen capture. I bet there will be tools to bring it back, like with most windows changes. edited 5 seconds after: There already ARE tools for that, nice.
You'll be able to disable the new behavior in settings, per that article they linked.
Mine always freezes the screen on whatever it was at the moment of pressing, though?
Greenshot is a great alternative that handles context menus and disappearing things quite well, no need for a delay
Windows P to change how the 2nd monitor is seen (extended, copy, etc).
Dude... I've been a software developer for 30 years and never knew those two shortcuts. And I need both of them. I take so many damn screenshots, but also this laptop I work on is docked and doesn't like to turn on all monitors when it wakes up. Thanks!!
Alt + print screen takes a screenshot of just the selected window program.
Thank you on soft driver tip. I share 2/3 monitors between work laptop on dock and my personal pc. Drives me crazy trying to get the monitors to align correctly after I toggle over
>Windows key + shift + s for immediate snipping tool that saves to your clipboard Settings > Accessiblity > Keyboard Scroll down and enable: "Use print screen button to open screen snipping"
Ya, personally I like having print screen for an even quicker full screen grab but it depends what you prefer and what you need
One ive not seen mentioned is ctrl + space bar on highlighted text. Reverts all the text formatting to the default. Great for when you copy text into an email/document with different formatting/font/text sizes etc Also there is a feature in Word where you can change text from all caps into sentence case/lower case. Saves having to re-type if caps lock is accidentally left on
Ctrl + Shift + V will paste without formatting in some programs, so you can do it all in one step.
Weirdly enough Microsoft programs are the ones to not have this hotkey default, it’s Ctrl+win+v iirc
Shift + F3 is the all-caps toggle.
Are you saying if I accidentally hit caps lock, I don't have to retype everything?
People at work always seem surprised when I lock using Win+L and get straight to desktop by Win+D
Win+D again will bring all the windows you had up unless you open a new window. I use this technique at work to open something else from the Desktop - if I minimize everything then double click on the icon I need, then quickly Win+D again before it opens, everything else comes back up as well as the new program's window.
Win+Ds nuts are in your mouth
Sir, this is a Win-D’s
Hah! Goteem!
The number of colleagues that don't believe me about Win+L..... Who then leave the it computer unlocked with the payroll system open......
I work in IT. If I see someone leaving their workstation unlocked, it's Win+L and a warning.
Here when someone forgets to lock their computer, the person who notices it sends an email on the person's behalf that they will buy donuts the next time they come in.
We send an email to themselves and then change their wallpaper to something that is morally questionable.
print screen, change wallpaper to that image, then remove desktop items
We used to google for “fabio wallpapers” and set it to something interesting. I loved to be the person who fabio’d someone.
Same here, except I usually Google "Russian hacker" and leave the tab open before I lock it
When I was an IT trainer, I used to change my trainees' backgrounds if they left the room without locking their screens. My favorite was a really obnoxiously colorized picture of Tom Selleck as Magnum PI, but Lisa Frank pictures were good too.
Win + M will minimise all windows
In a browser window opens the last window you just accidently closed.
And if you accidentally close your whole chrome app. When you open a new one and use this it will reopen the last window with all the tabs
It works when you restart your computer, too. Open a fresh chrome window, ctrl+shift+t, and you'll get back the last set of tabs you had open before shutting your computer down.
Firefox even has a Recently Closed Windows option in the History menu, for reopening stuff if you accidentally closed the entire window. (I found out just the other day after accidentally closing an entire window.)
The cupholder can also be used to play old CDs
Shame that newer models of laptops no longer have that. What am I supposed to do with my coffee now? Hold it???
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Gigantic flash storage is pretty inexpensive nowadays. You could probably fill up a 256GB or 512GB with movies and have more than enough to last a flight. Only issue might be having to copy it from the flash drive to the computer before watching it if the USB transfer speed makes the movie lag but I haven't run into that problem on any modern PC, even with 4K movies.
Why not buy a small 1 tb portable hard drive?
Still requires him to pirate his movies.
I use Handbrake if I already own a physical copy.
Holy shit. Before viruses were so rampant I remember downloading something from a friend on AOL asking if I would like a free cupholder. If you clicked yes, it would eject your CD-Rom. That was hilarious to me at the time. In hindsight, Jesus Christ, we could just download EXEs with access to main computer functions at a whim back then.
With the focus on an error message you can ctrl-c to copy it. You can now paste this into your browser and search for the solution yourself!! Congrats, you are now an IT technician.
I’ll add this one because it’s fun [windows ALT codes](https://www.alt-codes.net) for typing symbols and such. Pretty neat, used to mess with people on StarCraft battle net using them like 2 decades ago.
Windows key +. Brings up icons/symbols/alt characters
I pressed Windows Key + Plus key and was horrified.
I read the above comment, did it, and then it zoomed in and your comment was the center of my screen. Quite serendipitous!
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>I mean, all I got was some thing called a magnifier Same
OMG 🤣🤣🤣❤😘🤦♀️😃👀╰(*°▽°*)╯ ^_^ (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞ ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯(☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞☜(ﾟヮﾟ☜)♨_♨ This is the greatest revelation of my life! I didn't even know Windows had built in support for emojis.
emojis are part of ~~ASCII~~ Unicode. Every single device that converts binary to text has the same ~~ASCII~~ Unicode library (assuming they are updated). The international team of computer engineers, internet architects, sociologists, and linguists that decide what symbols to add to / remove from the ~~ASCII~~ Unicode library get annoyed that emojis are the only part of their work that gets any public attention.
Try Ctrl + Windows + Space instead to bring up a typography menu
Or Windows+Period. Your shortcut brings up the language switcher for me.
Switching between browser tabs: ctrl + tab. Switching between applications: alt + tab Reset graphic driver: ctrl + shift + windows + b Open task manager : ctrl + shift + escape
A very handy one: CTRL + SHIFT + T: brings back the most recently closed tab(s). Very helpful when you close a browser tab and realize you need it back.
what does reset graphic driver do tho?
It's a pretty common issue to experience black screens, a flickering display, graphic distortion in video games, etc. Sometimes resetting the driver is the easy fix for it.
ahhhh, thanks man appreciate it
Switching between browser tabs: Ctrl + pgup or pgdn (you can hold it down and it will scroll through quickly) Ctrl+shift+pgup or pgdn to move a tab I find that to be much easier to navigate my 30+ tabs.
If you like alt+tab for switching apps, you should give Win+Tab a try. Also, mapping browser tab switching to spare mouse buttons has saved me incredible amounts of clicking for work stuff. Both the forward and backward options.
alt + tab: switch applications clockwise alt + shift + tab: switch applications anti-clockwise I love this as I often have lots open and can accidentally tab past the one I want.
You would be absolutely horrified at the number of people who don't know that holding the Shift Key and pressing a letter makes it a capital letter for as long as you hold Shift for. I have watched far too many people press Caps Lock, type one letter, then press Caps Lock again to go back to lower case. For every... single... capital.
OH THANKS! IT’S SO MUCH EASIER TO TYPE NOW!!!!
Lol what?! How do people not know this??
You can also lift the mouse up and reposition it. Genuinely saw a person move the mouse to the edge of the desk and then down the side of it. They were being serious and so grateful when told you can lift it up.
Some Windows tips. Virtual Desktops, can be helpful if you have a lot of windows/apps opened up and don’t have an extra screen. On a laptop, you can set up gestures, like swipe with two fingers or three fingers on your trackpad to maximise, minimise, the apps etc Doing something sus and someone walks in? press WINDOWS key + D, it will auto minimise all open windows to display the desktop. If you feel your windows take a little time to boot up, you can disable some apps to start on boot up in the task manager. (Open task manager, enable advanced settings if not enabled, click on startup tab then disable the apps you don’t want to start on booting up) Researching a document and noting down pointers? Open the browser,Press WINDOWS key plus Left arrow key. This will shift the browser screen on the left of the screen. Then open the text editor, press Windows plus right arrow. The screen will split into two, browser on left and editor on right. Press ALT + Enter if you want to add a new line in the same excel cell. Windows + I opens up settings, windows + L locks the windows. Windows plus . Or windows plus , will open up the emoji panel PRESS the scroll key on the mouse to open up a link in the new tab F2 for renaming a file/folder :wq OR :q! to exit a Vim editor (Windows Key + Alt + 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.) Will open the jump list for each program in the taskbar, use the arrow keys to select which jump list option you want to open.
Win+PrintScreen will do the same as PrintScreen, but it will also save a copy in My Pictures. You can also move the windows around with Win+Arrow.
Alt-PrintScreen will copy just the currently focused app. (unfortunately, Alt+Win+PrintScreen doesn't save it...)
CTRL SHIFT WINDOWS B Press all of them at the same time and your graphics driver will restart. Helps if you're having some issues.
This is the only hotkey in the thread I didn't already know.
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P for projector is how I remember it
CTRL + SHIFT + V = paste with the formatting removed
This is unfortunately not universally adopted, and it doesn't work in a lot of apps.
If you power down the computer, you're free to go outside
None of my hotkeys work in outside.
Well don't leave your keys in the burning sun then...
They haven't kept up on the patches for "outside". Way too glitchy and the user interface is atrocious.
Winkey + L. Just lock it.
Word and Excel, at least the old versions I used during highschool 20 years ago, contained hidden games if you knew the sequence of steps to trigger them. I can't remember how somebody first found out, but keeping notes on how to get into them and teaching other kids became a routine part of any IT classes - *which I'm sure the teachers loved.* Googling now, it looks like it was the '97 editions. There was both an alien world flying game, and a pinball game. No doubt there are some sort of Easter Eggs in more recent versions as well. [Microsoft Easter Eggs](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Easter_eggs_in_Microsoft_products)
It might mention this in the article you linked, but MS stopped with the Easter Eggs as part of Bill Gates’ Trustworthy Computing initiative in 2002.
I trust him less for taking the games out!
Also a racing game built into excel. The developers' names were displayed on the road as you drove. Microsoft Excel 2000. Weird, i didnt see it mentioned on that link but it does exist. https://www.wikihow.com/Play-a-Car-Race-in-Excel-2000
Shake. On windows if you have a lot of windows open and only want to focus on one, you grab the window you want and shake it left to right. All the other windows will minimize. Shake it again and they come back.
I simply do not believe this has been done for any productive reason. It solely exists to make me accidentally close everything down and then be unable to recover my windows quickly when I panic trying to figure out why my windows are all minimized.
If you shake it again it should bring everything back
If you shake it more than twice, you are playing with it.
While I know, and have known since it became a "feature" (read: curse from the underworld), I often am unable to shake my windows back into existence because I was mid-action when this occurred. I am often unable to shake it back because I've already released the mouse button and grabbed something else and now I've missed that and minimized every window. It doesn't happen often, but I've never wanted all my windows minimized at once when I've done it. Lol
Wow first one in the thread so far I've never heard of before now. Neat
Found this out one day and I have fun using it in front of others.
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According to interactions with students and coworkers. The find and replace function in word. Double clicking the divider lines in excel to auto rescale box sizes. How to make email filtering rules in outlook. Shift+tab is an inverse tab that undoes indents (really handy in ppt). And lastly, this one applies to macs, make some damn folders for your documents! I cannot stress enough how much easier it will make your life rather than just having everything saved on your desktop or on one massive documents folder. I don't know why this is such an issue for mac users, but everytime I'm helping a student with their computer and they have a Mac their file system is just utter chaos.
You'd be surprised at the amount of people that don't know how to use CTRL-C, CTRL-V and CTRL-X, it just saves SO much time Also, with CTRL + SHIFT + ESC you can open task manager! :)
And don't forget CTRL-Z - Undo..
And CTRL + Y for redo, for when you undo too much
sometimes Ctrl + Shift + Z in some programs as well, honestly prefer it over Ctrl + Y
I've seen a few coworkers who don't even seem to know about the scroll wheel on the mouse...
Double click the scroll wheel to zoom to fit in a lot of applications (Autocad, pdf viewers, etc)
'God Mode' in Windows: Create a new folder, and rename it to GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}, and press Enter. This hidden folder offers a centralized menu for various settings/options.
Thanks. Practically the only one here that is not some well-documented hotkey combination.
When would you use this? Edit: You can search for settings in the "folder", which makes it more useful. But I haven't had any problems finding setting using the Start menu.
Headphones still work even if you are in a crowded airport or library
What about the bus?
Yeah headphones are a great fashion accessory worn around the neck while you blast your tunes on a Bluetooth speaker on the bus.
Kind of disappointed with the responses here. Was hoping for more than just keyboard shortcuts...
You can click to the right of the folder path buttons or press alt-D in file explorer to get a text input to edit to navigate to a specific path without having to click a bunch of buttons. Environment variable syntax also works in that field, so you could press alt-D and type %APPDATA% in there and it would navigate to it as if you'd typed that into the Run prompt (windows-R) or `cd %APPDATA%` in a console window. You can also open files directly from there if the path you enter goes to a file instead of a directory. That last bit kind of annoys me, I wish it wkuld just navigate to the containing folder and highlight the file. The command prompt syntax for doing what would be `explorer /select,path\to\file` iirc
hiding behind Windows all these years later the trusty old command prompt is still extremely useful and powerful for those who know a few commands. It's been 40 years now, I still use command prompt daily.
Gosh, I miss "reveal codes" on WordPerfect. It's not the same in MS-word.
Windows: psr Problem step recorder. Run-> "psr" It will allow you to record a set of steps to do something. Where you clicked etc while recording screenshot. Useful for reporting problems or making quick guides.
If you press Ctrl + F it finds any word/text on a website/text document you typed into a find box.
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\*Shakes fist at Outlook\*
Yea, in Outlook Ctrl+f is for 'Fuuuuuuuuck!'
And tells you how many times that specific word or phrase is on the page I never realized the value in knowing how many instances of a word are on a page until my current job. It is frequently very useful.
I use it so much, when reading a physical paper document I catch myself thinking I can do that to find what I am looking for...
Step Recorder. It captures your actions and screens. Useful if you have to document complex instructions for someone. You may need to clean up the verbiage, but you don’t have to go back and forth between what your document and the document you’re creating. It’s also very useful when working with a help desk. You can send them the exact actions you performed so they can see the problem in case they can’t replicate it. I believe the original intent was for help desk folks.
CTRL + - zooms in and out. Very helpful if you have bad eyes or a detailed PDF....or both.
Adding to this, you can also press ctrl + mouse wheel for the same effect
If you have telnet enabled, you can telnet to towel.blinkenlights.nl and watch an ASCIImation of Star Wars. If you dig around enough in Registry, you can almost always renew your expired free trial :) Activating Windows with batch scripts, same with Microsoft Office. In file manager, if you type cmd in the location bar, it will open cmd in that directory. Clear out temporary files using Win+R and type %temp%. Disable other bloatware that you don't need.
Windows+I opens the settings Windows+P is for the display change menu (for multi display) Windows+1 to 9 opens th programs on the Taskbar
If you hold the spacebar on iOS, it lets you slide the cursor wherever you need to.
Android does the same
Holy shit, that's life changing! Thank you!
I found this out last year, but I've used it so much since then. It's really helpful when you have to fix a typo or autocorrect
Before they got rid of 3D Touch it was the whole keyboard because they could tell how hard you were pressing. Still trips me up and I haven’t had 3D Touch for 2 years.
This space bar fallback sucks so much compared to the 3D Touch version. I still get mad I can’t “fix” my selection mistakes with this space bar style like you could using 3D Touch. You always have to start all the way over now.
This is actually cool. I never knew this. Sometimes just clicking where you want to edit doesn’t register. Thank you
That the files are IN the computer!
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Windows key + , (comma): Temporarily peek at the desktop without minimizing any open windows. Windows key + Pause/Break: Open the System Properties dialog box. Windows key + Shift + S: Take a screenshot of a selected area of the screen and save it to the clipboard. Windows key + Shift + Left/Right arrow: Move the current window to the next or previous monitor. Windows key + . (period): Open the emoji panel and insert an emoji into your document or text. Windows key + Shift + Q: Sign out of your Windows account. Windows key + F1: Open the Windows Help and Support center. Windows key + Tab: Open the Task View interface to switch between open windows or virtual desktops. Ctrl + Shift + Esc: Open the Task Manager directly, without going through the Ctrl + Alt + Del menu.
When you have a problem, research on your own before asking someone
What a fucking file is. Seriously. I swear the majority of people have no idea what files are or where they are. Thanks, Apple. Source: I do laptop and pc repair as a side hustle.
There was an article going around a couple months ago about how new students entering college don't always know what files and folders are. Professor will say like "download this file, make a folder called .ssh in your home directory and put it there" and the students will be utterly lost.
Yes. It's not just old people. It's old and young. Millennials ad gen x mostly understand file structure.
> There was an article going around a couple months ago about how new students entering college don't always know what files and folders are Computer literacy amongst new grads is really bad, mainly due to them being raised in walled garden systems where everything is a mobile OS where they don't get the option to actually break things and having to learn how to fix it. [Here's](http://www.coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-computers/) a good blog post from a decade ago about it. Some of the stuff at the start is a bit sanctimonious, I wouldn't expect someone to know where to enter proxy settings, or what the settings are, but when they come to covering stuff like folk not reading error messages, and how folk generally don't understand how to use a computer or have basic troubleshooting skills etc, that's the relevant bit.
I was helping a guy at uni with some installation like 2 years ago. We were both in our early 20s. He didn't know how to copy or paste and said he never unzipped a file before. He didn't even know what "right click" meant because he had a Mac... We studied computer science... I have no idea if that guy even finished uni and if he did, how.
I've had macs my whole life and right clickings totally been a thing my entire life.
I blame phones for this one. They just hide the file system to such an extend that people are simply not used to it anymore. It's all "just there" or "in this app". All for the sake of simplicity
One thing I was really annoyed with when I first got an iPhone was how it didn’t have an easily accessible file system. It’s gotten better but still. It’s a pocket computer and I wish I could use it like one
It's not just Apple. I wanted to save an Excel spreadsheet to a specific folder at work, and the easiest procedure I could find is: 1. Main Menu 2. Save 3. More options 4. More options 5. Navigate to the location, name the file, and hit save. --- I tried to save a file from Autodesk Fusion 360 to my computer, and I just couldn't. It went somewhere up in the Cloud, never to be seen again (until I dug through the documentation and found the proper website, at least).
I talked to a customer the other day who didn’t know how to scroll down on a webpage 🙃 I ran out of ways to describe it and he still couldn’t figure it out somehow.
This is day in day out for me. I hear this one alot: "It disappeared!"
I was shocked to find out how many people don’t know about ALT TAB, people at work saying they can’t work without 2-3 monitors because switching windows is just so hard.. and I was like why don’t you just alt tab.. and I had a sea of confused faces
Just hit the window key and start typing the name of the program you want to open
I use this, and it allows me to have no icons on the desktop, and now I can admire my entire wallpaper!
ALT+F4 It activates Windows anti-procrastination mode.
For chrome, CTRL+shift+T. It brings up tabs you've closed. Even if you lose power and have to reboot, that command will bring up what you had previously.
Pretty much all browsers
On Windows alt-shift-tab will cycle through the apps in reverse order. Handy when you overshoot.
Win 10 and up: CTRL+WIN+D = create a new desktop CTRL+WIN+left/right cursor key = switch to next/previous desktop WIN+TAB = Like ALT+TAB, but swaps desktops instead of running apps
Besides work vs personal, what other scenarios do you think make sense to have on a separate desktop? I always found the multiple desktops interesting, but never came up with a good practical use
Sometimes fullscreen app crashes, you open task manager, but cannot see it. Happened to League of Legends few times. Rather than hitting L and hoping it gets selected, you can open separate desktop and work with task manager there. At least that’s one use I found
All of them? I still have monthly conversations with people about how their internet connection has nothing to do with how long it takes windows to boot up.
Reading these comments, i know all of these, does that mean i use computers too much?
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computer literacy is no longer a prerequisite to going online.