Alt-Tab Replace Power Toy - Anyone get this to work correctly?

[*Vanguard*]

I downloaded and installed several of the utilities included in the Power
Toys for Windows XP
(http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/powertoys.asp). One is
the Alt-Tab replacement toy (taskswitch.exe). Instead of getting a row of
default icons with text that you select from, instead you get a mini-view of
the application's window along with the icons w/text that you switch
between. Sounded good except it behaves very erratically for me.

When I hit Alt-Tab, I expect to get switched to the next task when I release
the keys. Nope, turns out I'm still in the same application where I
started. That is, instead of changing focus to the next task or
application, the current one I am in gets selected. That means I have to
hit and hold Alt while I hit the Tab *twice* to get to the next application.
Sometimes I don't, but most times I do.

Also, I see icons for applications that aren't available (i.e., have no
window). For example, right now when I hit Alt-Tab, I see icons for
SpywareGuard (SG) which has no preview but just red "SG" text, Outlook
Express, and one icon that simply looks like a console window (white center
with blue borders) that also has a half globe symbol (my guess is its caused
by Norton Internet Security (NIS) which is my firewall and included their
anti-virus). NIS and SG are loaded applications but running in the
background. This applications did not appear before installing this Alt-Tab
power toy, so why can't this power toy use whatever was used before for
detecting what to display as the available task list?

Guess I'll have to uninstall this power toy until Microsoft fixes it.

 

[Mark Shroyer]

I downloaded and installed several of the utilities included in the Power
Toys for Windows XP
(http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/powertoys.asp). One is
the Alt-Tab replacement toy (taskswitch.exe). Instead of getting a row of
default icons with text that you select from, instead you get a mini-view of
the application's window along with the icons w/text that you switch
between. Sounded good except it behaves very erratically for me.

When I hit Alt-Tab, I expect to get switched to the next task when I release
the keys. Nope, turns out I'm still in the same application where I
started. That is, instead of changing focus to the next task or
application, the current one I am in gets selected. That means I have to
hit and hold Alt while I hit the Tab *twice* to get to the next application.
Sometimes I don't, but most times I do.

Also, I see icons for applications that aren't available (i.e., have no
window). For example, right now when I hit Alt-Tab, I see icons for
SpywareGuard (SG) which has no preview but just red "SG" text, Outlook
Express, and one icon that simply looks like a console window (white center
with blue borders) that also has a half globe symbol (my guess is its caused
by Norton Internet Security (NIS) which is my firewall and included their
anti-virus). NIS and SG are loaded applications but running in the
background. This applications did not appear before installing this Alt-Tab
power toy, so why can't this power toy use whatever was used before for
detecting what to display as the available task list?

Guess I'll have to uninstall this power toy until Microsoft fixes it.

Yeah, that pretty much sums up my experience with the Alt-Tab
replacement power toy as well. In addition, I found that it was
unbearably slow to draw its window previews on my machine, which is
reasonably quick when performing most operations (1.6 GHz P4-M
processor, 512 MB RAM). Needless to say, that power toy had a short
lifespan on my hard drive.

I guess that's why they call it a power toy: It demonstrates a
potentially useful experimental feature of Windows, but it's certainly
not ready (or even intended?) for production use at this point.

Mark

--
+-----------------------------------------+
| Mark Shroyer <[email protected]> |
+-----------------------------------------+

We all do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking.
- Mark Twain