Weekly Computer Tip # 333
4 March 2011


switching between open windows
(Windows 7)

Apologies to those of you who are not using Windows 7 as yet (what are you waiting for! ;) but I simply cannot resist one more Windows 7 tip. (I promise I'll do an Office tip next week!)

Most probably you figured out that when you point your mouse to any button on the taskbar (say, Word or Excel) you'll see a thumbnail-sized preview of any open documents associated to that program. You can still use the "boss key" (remember? ALT+TAB) to switch between all open windows or you can click the taskbar button that corresponds to the window you want to switch to. But Microsoft has introduced a new way of switching between open windows that belong to the same application.

Here's how:

  1. Hold down the CTRL key.
  2. Click the thumbnail on the taskbar.

For example, if you have five Word documents open and you click the thumbnail five times while holding down the CTRL key you will cycle between all open windows. Or if you have a couple of folders open, it switches between all of them.

This might even be faster than the boss key!

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