A complete guide to Windows 7 keyboard shortcuts

[Tracey Capen]

TOP STORY A complete guide to Windows 7 keyboard shortcuts By Becky Waring One of the best ways to increase your computing productivity doesn't cost a cent: learn the keyboard shortcuts for your most-used commands. To help you stop mousing around and become a keyboard maestro, I rounded up the best resources for finding, using, and creating shortcuts. The full text of this column is posted at WindowsSecrets.com/2011/02/17/01 (paid content, opens in a new window/tab). Columnists typically cannot reply to comments here, but do incorporate the best tips into future columns.

[jimdot]

In the screen shot of "GodMode" it shows your list of functions catagorized. I created the "GodMode" folder on my Win 7(x64) machine, but my list is not catagorized like yours. It's just a long alphabetical list of functions that takes allot of searching to find something in the list. I tried to create my own sub folder & it lets me but as soon as I try to open it,,, it disapears. Do you have any ideas why mine would not be catagorized, or how I can get it that way??

Thanks & have a great day!! Jim

[Peter Grainge]

I wondered if you knew the Alt Shift Arrow shortcut is from Word. It has been there for years and it still amazes me how few people know of it.

In Word tables it will not work if the rows have different columns.

[JZeitlin]

Some additional Aero Snap tricks that most people don't know about:

• You can drag the bottom border of the window to the bottom of the screen, and that will cause the window to expand vertically to fill the entire height of the screen without changing the width. To restore the window back to its pre-expansion size, maximize it (to full screen) and then restore it.
  
• Snapping to left/right using the mouse doesn't allow you to put windows on the "inside" edges of dual-monitor systems if you've extended the desktop; you must use the keyboard shortcuts for that.
  
• On left/right snap, you can restore the window to the previous shape and location by using the opposite keyboard shortcut - e.g., WinKey+LeftArrow on a window that's snapped to the right half of the display.

[Poltor]

As I don't use most of the programs mentioned, despite finding the article interesting, I don't need them.
In my opinion, Microsoft didn't help by making it possible to do things in many different ways - I would rather have the system of 'if this, then that' rather than 'if this, or this, or this or this, then this, that or the other'.
Perhaps I'm not cut out for the electronic generation.

[AzDayton]

The Win+Left/Right hotkey is also the only way to get half-screen windows on multimonitor systems. It also allows you to move a window from one screen to another. For example, supposed you have two monitors, left and right with the desktop stretched between them. If your window is in the middle of the left monitor, then Win+Right will put it on the right side of the left monitor in half-screen mode. Doing it again will put it on the left side of the right-hand monitor, and again will put it in "normal" (restored) mode in the right monitor. It sounds complex, until you use it, and see that really you're just moving between three positions on each monitor until you reach the right-most or left-most positions.

I'd like to also toss in a shout for Macro Express (http://macros.com). I've been using this program for years and years, and it just keeps getting better. Works fine in Win7, WinXP, Win2K, WinME, and Win98. I don't think I had it in Win95, so can't say. Anyway, it can "record" macros, but it also has an extensive macro modification/building system. Not really a language, more like building blocks that you use to put together your macro command-by-command. There's a text-editor mode too, but I'm not conversant in its use. Naturally it has branching and looping and user interactions & etc, as well as being able to use some really powerful things like lists in external text files, files in a directory, and so on. One of my favorite macros (pre-Win7) was one that would pick a random image from a folder I specified and apply it as my background. I had it do it every half-hour, or whenever I hit Ctrl-Alt-Shift-W. Oh, I forgot to mention, it also has numerous activation methods, including a Icon Tray menu, Time (of day, every x min/hour/etc, do on startup, etc), fastkeys (entering a few keystrokes - very useful for typing out lengthy text), and much much more. I even have one for a standard signature line, which I use to sign every email, blog, and forum article I write in any program!

- Dayton - Thu. 02/17/2011 @ 08:25:45

[subarctic]

In the Firefox part, you mention a tab selector shortcut using the 'Command' key plus a number. which key is the command key?

[becky-6294]

In the Firefox part, you mention a tab selector shortcut using the 'Command' key plus a number. which key is the command key?

Another reader emailed me about this too. I'm so sorry for the error. I'm primarily a Chrome user, so I somehow didn't notice this mixup when checking over the copy. It should read Control + 1-9, rather than Command.

Thanks for pointing it out!

[becky-6294]

Very cool about the OneNote shortcut also working in Word...will use it there too! Although I use OneNote a lot more, finding Word just too unwieldy these days.

[becky-6294]

In the screen shot of "GodMode" it shows your list of functions catagorized. I created the "GodMode" folder on my Win 7(x64) machine, but my list is not catagorized like yours. It's just a long alphabetical list of functions that takes allot of searching to find something in the list. I tried to create my own sub folder & it lets me but as soon as I try to open it,,, it disapears. Do you have any ideas why mine would not be catagorized, or how I can get it that way??

This was my default view, but you can change yours by going to the View menu and choosing Group By>Application, rather than Name.

[becky-6294]

I'd like to also toss in a shout for Macro Express (http://macros.com). I've been using this program for years and years, and it just keeps getting better. Works fine in Win7, WinXP, Win2K, WinME, and Win98.

Thanks for the tip. Does anyone else have experience with either Macro Express or ActiveWords, another similar program? Would like to get some reader opinions.

[Peter Grainge]

I needed to move information from one place to another, bit by bit. There was no way either program helped. I created a macro using Macro Express. It worked the same way as if I were doing it manually but much faster and without the boredom. It did mean the machine could not be used for anything else so I showed my line manager. He agreed the macro was doing my job so I went out for an hour or so.

I simply wouldn't work without it. Great for regularly used text too.

[Nap]

Becky

Thank you for a very comprehensive well thought and complete article. Suggestion - How about doing an article on trouble shooting windows problems deploying tools that are readily available such as Event Viewer, Windows Manager, Sysinternals, varoius utility programs in Windows such as Procmon and Perfmon, downloadable Windows debugging tools, and perhaps a brief mention of PowerShell 2.0. OK it is a long list and I am sure that experienced power users could extend it - so maybe a series of articles. If all these thing have been covered before then apolgies for wasting your time reading this but may be you could post the URLs for same.

[oakdale]

I was pleased to see AutoHotkey mentioned. The only interest I have to declare is that of a user who would find life difficult without it. For ten years I used Macro Express and like AzDayton found it very useful, though the editing is rather kludgy. But eventually I came across AutoHotkey and have been using for things that I don't believe could be done with Macro Express, certainly not by me. I use it for monitoring Dropbox, rather than mouse down to the tiny icon to see the tooltip as well as for opening and closing TrueCrypt volumes. Admittedly the syntax is a bit of a mongrel mixture of commands and assignments, but it prevents me from the effect of hitting Caps Lock or Num Lock by mistake. And, for me, <Windows>E opens xplorer2 instead of the wretched Windows Explorer. And if you want to write an application with a gui the functionality is there. The help is also pretty good.
There is also AutoIt of course, which is also free, unlike Macro Express, and unlike AutoHotkey, which is an open source fork from AutoIt, is now closed source. probably the only reason I use AHK is that AutoIt didn't do hotkeys when I made my choice.
There's no doubt a bit of scripting can make life a lot easier. Besides, it can be fun!

[TerFar]

As I don't use most of the programs mentioned, despite finding the article interesting, I don't need them.
In my opinion, Microsoft didn't help by making it possible to do things in many different ways - I would rather have the system of 'if this, then that' rather than 'if this, or this, or this or this, then this, that or the other'.
Perhaps I'm not cut out for the electronic generation.

One reason is that some users like to keep their hands on the Keyboard whilst other users are mouse-centric! So because you can drag an application window against the left screen edge and it fills exactly half the screen or you can use Winkey+left arrow to achieve the same result caters for both. However, using Winkey+right arrow key returns the window to its exact original position which isn't quite so easy with the mouse.

So these multiple options improve the apps versatility.