Switch between Windows

[Henry Jones]

There is a little icon on the left side of the taskbar. How can you put
use different windows and then switch between them?

 

[Bill Frisbee]

Henry,

It does it automatically with open programs. Think of it as a 3D Alt-Tab.

Bill F.

 

[Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE/WM]

There is a little icon on the left side of the taskbar. How can you put
use different windows and then switch between them?

Open several windows.
Click the button.
Click one of the windows.

 

[Synapse Syndrome]

Open several windows.
Click the button.
Click one of the windows.

Don't forget you can use the mouse scroll wheel or the cursor keys with the
return key as well.

ss.

 

[Henry Jones]

Very cool. I tried it a couple of times and it was amazing, but not that
functional when I can just click on the taskbar to get to a window faster.
But I guess those Microsoft Programmers had some fun with this task.

Thanks everyone for responding.

 

[mxh]

Don't forget you can use the mouse scroll wheel or the cursor keys with
the return key as well.

ss.

Also hold Windows Key + Tab. Repeatedly pressing Tab switches windows.

mxh

 

[Bill]

Very cool. I tried it a couple of times and it was amazing, but not
that functional when I can just click on the taskbar to get to a
window faster. But I guess those Microsoft Programmers had some fun
with this task.

I thought Flip-3D was a bit gimmicky too at first, until I had over 10
windows open and found that scrolling through them with the mouse lets
me see what is where much more efficiently than trying to find it in
the taskbar.

Something I noticed about grouping of similar items in the taskbar
with thumnails is it doesn't let you move through the thumnails, but
scrolling on the screen lets you see each individual window.

For typical home users Flip-3D is not a big deal since many of them
don't even leave a few windows open, they close a window instead of
minimizing or simply opening another over it as if they think leaving
windows open is somehow bad. Maybe they think that's how bugs get
in...hehe.

To this day, a few of my less intelligent friends are still freaked
out when I show them something on the computer and they see two dozen
windows all open and I have to remind them "It's OK...it's called
multitasking!".

 

[Roy Coorne]

Bill wrote:
....

For typical home users Flip-3D is not a big deal since many of them
don't even leave a few windows open, they close a window instead of
minimizing or simply opening another over it as if they think leaving
windows open is somehow bad. Maybe they think that's how bugs get
in...hehe.

....

We suppose that opening windows consumes RAM.


Roy, THU(tm)

 

[Bill]

Bill wrote:
...

We suppose that opening windows consumes RAM.

So? Buy some more memory, it's cheap.

If you're running Vista, you probably have 1gig or more of memory.
With 1gig on my old P4 I can open at least two dozen typical
application windows without any problems and no appreciable
performance hit. With more memory one can open many more programs.

If people with older computers have XP with 512megs of memory and they
want to install Vista, my first recommendation is to upgrade to at
least 768megs to maintain performance, and preferably 1gig. Vista
isn't going to be cheap, so what's another $50 to double your RAM?

With 64-bit editions, I suggest at least 1gig for very basic usage,
and 1.5gig or more is highly recommended for typical use. In testing,
I found that x64 starts to work at the 1gig point, but opens up nicely
at 1.5gig. If you want to run lots of apps or open large documents,
then 2+gigs is the only way to go.

 

[Dale]

I agree whole-heartedly. It's a new operating system. Get new, and
appropriate, hardware.

I suggest, though, a minimum of one giga-byte of RAM in all cases and
preferably two giga-bytes. If potential Vista users can't afford, or won't
buy, the appropriate hardware, they can't blame the OS for not performing
like they wish.

The original published requirements for XP included 64MB of RAM. I worked
for a company a few years back that decided, with no testing or forethought,
to upgrade all 500 desktops to XP because they all met the requirements of
64MB of RAM. It virtually shut the company's PCs down for three days until
they purchased RAM to upgrade to a whopping 96MB.

Pre-SP2, XP would run fairly well with 256MB of RAM. After putting SP2 on
my wife's PC, XP performed so poorly with 256 MB I had to throw it out
because it wasn't worth the money to upgrade the RAM.

So, my point is, again: you gotta pay to play. If you don't have the right
hardware, don't blame the OS for not performing.

Dale

 

[Guest]

Its a good little icon but i have lost it please can u make it come back for me
Pat

 

[Ronnie Vernon MVP]

Pat

There are a couple of ways you can do this.

1. Right click an empty spot on the Desktop and select New/Shortcut. For the
Location of the item, Copy and Paste the following line:

C:\Windows\System32\rundll32.exe DwmApi #105

Click Next and name the shortcut "Switch Between Windows" and click Finish.

You can use the default icon for the shortcut or designate the default icon.
To get the default icon right click the shortcut and select
Properties/Change Icon Button.

Click the Browse Button and navigate to C:\Windows. Scroll down and select
Explorer.exe and click Open. The default icon is in the 3rd row, 5th from
the left. Select this icon and click OK. Click OK again and your done.

If this seems too complicated, there is a Switch Between Windows icon in
each user account on the system. Open Computer and navigate to
C:\Users\Default\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch.
In the Quick Launch folder, you will see a shortcut for Switch Between
Windows, right click this shortcut and select Copy. Go back to the Desktop
and Right Click/Paste.