---
title: "Favorite Windows Keyboard Shortcuts"
url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2006/6/14/favorite-windows-keyboard-shortcuts.md"
canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2006/6/14/favorite-windows-keyboard-shortcuts.html"
published: "2006-06-14T22:32:00"
updated: "2006-06-14T22:32:00"
tags: ["General Software Devel..."]
author: "Roy Osherove"
description: "Jon Galloway has some cool shortcuts for windows , some of which I hadn't considered before: The System Tray (oops, I mean Notification Tray) is a bit tough to get to if you don't know the trick, and it seems like…"
usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)."
license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
---

# Favorite Windows Keyboard Shortcuts

By Roy Osherove June 14, 2006 In [General Software Devel...](https://osherove.com/blog/category/general-software-devel)

**Historical article** · Originally published June 14, 2006; technical details may be outdated.

Jon Galloway [has some cool shortcuts for windows](https://weblogs.asp.net/jgalloway/archive/2006/06/14/Mouseless-Computing.aspx) , some of which I hadn't considered before:

_The System Tray (oops, I mean Notification Tray) is a bit tough to get to if you don't know the trick, and it seems like everything wants to minimize there nowadays.__
**Win-B / Enter to show hidden icons (if necessary) / Right arrow / Right-click button (or Shift-F10)**_

_Quick Launch also requires some keyboard trickery:__
**WinKey (press and release) / Tab / Right arrow**_

Jon is also very right in pointing to the "Context Menu" keyboard key which many MS keyboards have. It saves going to the mouse a lot (I use it to fix typos in word a lot!)

Some favorites of my own:

- Ctrl-Shift-Esc : Open Task Manager
- Alt-Space, then (X - Maximize windows, N -Minimize window)
- WinKey-M : Show Desktop
- WinKey- R : Open the "Run" Dialog
- WinKey - L: Lock windows or Switch user (depends on OS)
- You know Alt-Tab, but did you know about Alt-**Shift**\-Tab??
- Same goes for Ctrl-**Shift**\-Tab (goes backwards)
- Ctrl-\\   - Delete the last word (in many apps includin Explorer, and the post editor for this blog)

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---

## About the author

**Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery.

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Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/