Win7 Q for early adopters who respect keyboards

By GW Swicord on January 16, 2012 4:19:54 PM from

Thanks to the Great Recession, I've escaped a direct business need to adopt Win7 and also have not earned enough disposable income to try playing with it myself. Market conditions have also seriously suppressed my interest in reading about said OS, so I'm left in some kind of fogie-newbie land and hope Stardockia can answer a basic question about generational change in the MS OS family.

I've had access to some Win7 rigs in a workplace where I can still earn as a contractor. I've tried on three different Win7 rigs to use Windows+M to minimize all open windows, with no response.

My best guess here is that the change reflects the longstanding MS/Apple/etc. obsession with the next hot thing as a replacement for what's working for people who actually do most of their work with the help of digital technology, and that those 'authorities' consider keyboards to be something that only a dwindling population of geezers would want to use.

Is there a way to tell Win7 that I don't fear keyboards and actually value being able to learn and use keyboard shortcuts for both OS and productivity app functions? Or does the math of 'Internet years' mean that if I'm a so-called knowledge worker and remember Iraq's invasion of Kuwait then I should already be retired with a 401k that hopefully survived the dot-com bust?

+159 Karma | 8 Replies

Hi GW Swicord

Here is a link to the microsoft keyboard shortcuts list for windows 7. You can still minimize all windows on the desktop, you now use

Windows LOGO Key (found between the left CTRL key and the Left ALT key)and the "M" key, just slightly different than what you were trying to do.

Hope this helps you.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/126449

GigaByte69

Quoting GigaByte69,

reply 1

Hi GW Swicord

Here is a link to the microsoft keyboard shortcuts list for windows 7. You can still minimize all windows on the desktop, you now use

Windows LOGO Key (found between the left CTRL key and the Left ALT key)and the "M" key, just slightly different than what you were trying to do.

Hope this helps you.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/126449

GigaByte69

That is what the OP stated in other words. Don't know about others but it works on my Win7 64 bit. No idea why it does not work on the systems you tried it on, could be how the IT department has the systems configured.

Quoting Frankief,

reply 2

There may be another program running that uses the same "shortcut" and that would possibly override your system hot key.

Thanks for the prompt replies.

Perhaps there is some local (roaming profile?) thing that means that the Windows logo key is ignored in some contexts. If I can discuss this with my local IT authorities without offending them, I'll report on the how and why of my inability to use Windows+M to minimize everything when I'm trying to use a computer in front of a classroom.

I just tried Window+M on my machine and it worked. Must be something on your end.

Thanks. It's not "my end," but the "end" of a few machines on a large campus that uses roaming profiles and at least attempts to support OS versions reaching back to XP.

Not sure whether the boxes in question were 'native' Win7, but I'll do my best to report back here if I learn anything that seems useful. Very glad to see signs that keyboard shortcuts weren't generally phased out with Win7 on account of its efforts to support the smeary-screen touch interface stuff.

question... why are you minimising all? if you just want to see the desktop, just click on the square at the bottom right.

Quoting alaknebs,

reply 7

question... why are you minimising all? if you just want to see the desktop, just click on the square at the bottom right.

That requires a mouse, for one. There's also Win+D, which doesn't minimize, but does show the desktop. Maybe that works well enough, and isn't disabled, perhaps?

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Win7 Q for early adopters who respect keyboards