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Microsoft is focusing Windows 8 Metro style to be great for touch screen devices, but the keyboard and mouse are also part of a great experience.
Here I’ve put together a few useful tips and tricks to help to do more in Windows 8 in the traditional desktop computer and laptops without touch support.
Don’t forget to leave comments if you have other tips or tricks to update this article.
- Unlock the lock-screen: Double-click with the mouse or press any keyboard key, instead of dragging the welcome screen image to the top.
- Open up the Charms-bar (shutdown, settings, share, and others) by hitting the lower-left corner of the screen with the mouse — clicking required or use Windows Key
+ C.
- Peek your desktop by using
+ Y
- Use
+ I to activate the current opened application setting
- Use
+ P to extend the screen to external monitor/TV
- Always use
to go back to the Start Screen.
- Use
+ F to open file search
- Use
+ P shows multiple-monitor options. This is also useful to connect external monitors
- Use
+ X brings the Power user contextual menu (Command Prompt, Run, Device Manager, Power options and many more.)
- Use
+ W to open Search Settings pane
- Use
+ H to open Search App pane
- Use
+ Q to open Search Apps
- Use
+ Space-bar to switch the input language and keyboard layout
- Use
+ D to show the desktop
- Use
+ L to lock Windows
- Use
+ O to lock the screen rotation
- Use
+ V to view all active Toast notifications
- Use
+ U to open Ease of Access Center
- Use
+ B to select the first item in the notification area and then use the directional arrows to cycle through the items press Enter to open the selected item
- Use
+ Crtl + B to get access to the application that is showing a message in the notification area.
- Use
+ Shift + M to restore all minimized windows
- Use
+ M to minimize all active windows
- Use
+ Shift + B to view all Toast in reverse order
- Use
+ PrnScn to create and automatically take screenshots
- Use
+ Enter to launch the narrator
- Use
+ Z to display the App Bar in a Metro style app
- Use
+ Home to minimize all but the current window
- Use
+ Up Arrow to minimize or restore current window
- Use
+ Down Arrow to minimize or restore current window
- Use
+ Left Arrow to re-size window and move it to the left side (snap)
- Use
+ Right Arrow to re-size window and move it to the right side (snap)
- Use
+ Shift + Up Arrow to extend the current window form the top to the bottom of the display
- Use
+ Shift + Left/Right Arrow to move the current window to secondary monitor
- Use
+ F1 to open Windows Help and Support
- Use
+ 1 – 10 to open programs pinned in the Taskbar in the position indicated by the #
- Use
+ Shift + 1 – 10 to open a new instance of the program pinned in the Taskbar in the position indicated by the #
- Use
+ Ctrl + 1 – 10 to get access to the last active instance of a program in the Taskbar in the position indicated by the #
- Use
+ Home to minimize all windows but the current one
- Use
+ Alt + 1 – 10 to open a new instance of the program pinned in the Taskbar in the position indicated by the #
- Use
+ . (period) to snap the current Metro style app to right or left side of the screen.
- Use
+ . (period)+Shift to snap the current Metro style app to the left or right side of the screen.
- Use
+ J to switch focus between snapped apps.
- Just type any keyword to start a search for anything, app, setting, file, etc.
- Use
+ Tab to cycle through the open apps
- To display everything you can do inside an application, just right-click to bring up the App-bar.
- Most applications don’t need to be closed down — Windows 8 will suspend them if they are not being displayed. To completely close an application down, you could use the new re-designed Task Manager (using the live tile or with the Ctrl+Shift+Esc keyboard shortcut) to do a force quit.
- Move the mouse pointer to the left edge of the screen to view a small thumbnail of the most recently used application.
- Use the Page Up and Page Down keyboard keys to switch between tiles groups on the Start Screen.
- To Pin or Unpin tiles or remove applications, right-click on tiles on the Start Screen
- You can right-click a tile and change the size to smaller (half-tile) or larger (full-tile) –. This might not be supported on every app tile.