Among the main combinations of useful keys on Windows, one of the most used is the ALT + TAB which is used to switch from one window to another . But Alt-Tab's features don't end with window swapping, and there are also several other hidden and lesser known keyboard shortcuts that make the Alt-Tab switcher faster and easier to use.
There are also ways to change the effect of the Alt + Tab keys, perhaps by disabling window previews that appear on the screen or by changing their design using an external application.
Most people use Alt-Tab in a normal way to see windows open on Windows.
Just press Alt + Tab, keep pressing the Tab key until you reach the desired window, and make your choice by releasing the Alt key.
The same thing can be done using the arrow keys, always with Alt-Tab pressed, to select the desired window.
Pressing Alt + Shift + Tab on the keyboard selects the windows in reverse order which can be convenient, in certain cases, if you have many windows open.
The Alt + Tab switcher can also be used with the mouse, making the choice of the window to activate and see on the screen by hovering over the thumbnail with the cursor.
To use Alt + Tab without holding the Alt key all the time, you can; press the key combination Alt + Ctrl + Tab and release everything.
The thumbnails for selecting the windows remain on the screen until the choice is made by clicking the mouse or pressing Enter and using the arrows.
The Esc key closes the Alt-Tab Switcher in any case.
In Windows 7 you can use the Windows-Tab key combination as a switcher which shows the windows opened in 3D with Flip3D effect.
In Windows 10 the Windows-Tab combination opens the activity viewer, including virtual desktops and also the Windows 10 activity history or Timeline.
Having said that, if you do not like the fact that the Alt-Tab switcher displays previews of open windows in transparency, you can disable, in Windows 7, Aero Peek (which on Windows 8 does not exist, if not for the desktop view).
To disable the transparency of the windows in the Alt-Tab menu, press the Start button, right-click on Computer and select Properties .
Click on the advanced settings and, in the performance settings, uncheck the Enable Aero Peek box among the visualization effects.
ALT + TAB now shows open windows without previews.
In Windows 7 and Windows 10 and 8 you can disable the view of miniaturized windows by showing, in the switcher, only the icons of open applications as happens in Windows XP.
To activate the old style of the Alt + Tab selector, first press the left Alt key, keep it pressed, press the Alt right key, release it and finally press Tab, always with the left Alt pressed.
If you like this classic Alt-Tab menu style, you can use it by changing a registry key.
To do this, open the registry editor by typing the regedit command in the search box or in Run.
From the editor, navigate to the following key from the left tree:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \
Then press the right mouse button in the right pane, create a new DWORD value with the name AltTabSettings and a value of 1.
Now you will see the classic Alt-Tab switcher every time you press the Alt + Tab key combination.
To return to the normal Windows 7 switcher you can delete the AltTabSettings key.
If you want to use a different window selector and improve the Alt-Tab functions, you can install an external tool.
The best of these is Alt Tab Terminator which replaces the standard Alt-Tab menu with a richer one and a more complete view, made of previews and textual list.
It allows you to browse all open activities by pressing the Alt-tab key without having to scroll.
Alt-Tab Terminator replaces the default Alt-Tab and Windows-Tab functions of Windows and is compatible with all recent 32 and 64 bit versions of the Windows operating system.
For example, you get bigger previews of the program windows, there are options to close the windows from the preview view, you can end the process or open a new instance of the program.
On the sidebar is the list of all program titles for a better overview.
If you wanted something more invce effect you can use Win7SE, a tool to quickly select windows from the corners of the screen that creates a really nice and useful effect on Windows 7.
