The Magic of Your Computer's Keyboard

As a woman who squeals and jumps onto furniture at the sight of a furry little cheese-eater, I've become awfully cozy with my computer's mouse. In my defense, though, I've never caught sight of it out of the corner of my eye, unexpectedly scurrying across the floor.

To ease my reliance on my computer's mouse, I can take advantage of shortcuts from my keyboard. And most of them work on pretty much any version of Windows. For example, have you ever noticed the little key nestled comfortably between Alt and Ctrl? The one with the same flying windows thing you see on every box of Microsoft software? That key is cleverly called "the Windows key". OK fine, maybe 'cleverly' is too strong a word, but the little devil is functional! Some keyboards have one on each side, some have only one on the left side.

One thing you can use it for is as a shortcut to Internet Explorer. Hold the Windows key and press E, then let go of both of them. It's like magic! Internet Explorer popped right up! And it happens every time, even if you have a program open! Well, usually. Hey, this is Windows, you can't expect to get the same result every time you press a key! In some programs, holding the Windows key and pressing E will get you to the program's Edit menu. Try it to find out which result you get. It's like a little Windows surprise! In Vista it brings up 'Computer' - which used to be 'My Computer' but the 'My' was a bit redundant, so Microsoft finally ditched that.

If you have multiple windows open and you need to get them all out of the way, you can hold the Windows key and press M (Windows+M). That 'minimizes' the windows, which means they all line up in a neat little row on the Taskbar. You can reopen any of them by just clicking once on its name. Windows+D does the same trick. I don't know why. Diminishes maybe? The difference is that if you minimize the open windows with Windows+D you can get them all back by doing it again. Windows+M just laughs at that.

Windows+ F opens Windows Explorer and takes you straight to the Search feature. The 'F' in this case is for 'Find'. This one doesn't work in Vista, because Vista has its own built-in Search feature. But for XP, 2000, even '98, you can pop right into the Search window by pressing only two keys!

Windows+L logs you off your current user ID and lets you log in as someone else. In case you're having 'one of those' days.

Windows+R opens the Run window. That lets you run .exe or .bat files, or install programs, or a multitude of other things. It's mostly used by the geeky folks who fix computers, so if you don't know what Run does it's probably safer if you stay away from it. Or take a class in Windows!

Windows+U opens the Utility Manager for access to utilities like Narrator and Magnifier and the onscreen Keyboard. In Vista the Utilities Manager is called the 'Control Panel/Ease of Access Center'. Same basic concept, just a fancier name. Hey, they took an entire two characters out of 'My Computer' - they had to compensate somehow!

OK, those are the Windows-key shortcuts from the keyboard. There are other shortcuts, too, that don't involve the Windows key, but I'll have to cover them later 'cause I'm finding it difficult to type right now. One of those non-computer mice just ran across my den and I jumped up on my desk!