Windows Keyboard Shortcuts

Startup Keys

Important Startup commands

F4: By holding this key down at startup time (about one second after you hear the "beep"), you can switch at will between Windows 95 and DOS simply by holding down the F4 key at startup time. If you chose to install Windows 9x to a separate directory than a previous Windows 3.1 installation, holding down F4 at startup time runs your previous version of DOS and Windows. Note that you will lose access to this feature if you convert your drive to FAT32. Windows Millennium Edition lacks this feature.

F5: Bypasses your startup files and starts Windows 9x in "Safe Mode."

F8: By holding this key down at startup time (about one second after you hear the "beep"), you can bring up the startup menu with Safe Mode, command line, Step-by-step mode and other options. There are several startup options that affect the configuration and, in some cases, the mode your computer starts up in. Descriptions are provided on the (F8) Startup Menu screen, so we won't repeat them here, but the one you may find most useful is Safe Mode. Windows Millennium Edition lacks the Command Prompt feature.

"Safe Mode" is useful for troubleshooting, or temporarily bypassing auto-starting programs or device drivers that may be causing your system to crash. If your system crashes or has another serious problem caused by a piece of software or hardware you've recently added to your PC, the system will automatically invoke Safe Mode, in order to allow you to remove or reconfigure the driver software.

Tip: One the items installed with "Accessibility options" is "ToggleKeys." When enabled, it will make a beep sound whenever you press the caps lock key -- useful if you tend to accidentally press it aND TYPE LIKE THIS OCCASIONALLY.

Important Taskbar/Start Menu commands and shortcuts

Finding Files or Folders

You may or may not have heard that F3 is a shortcut for invoking the Find command (for finding files, folders or other information). But try this: Click on the Desktop and then press F3. Notice that the Find dialog that pops up defaults to c:\Windows\Desktop. This isn't a very useful place to begin searching, and may not find the item you're looking for (unless it is on the desktop or in a folder that's on the desktop), but it serves to illustrate how Find works:

Find begins looking at the currently selected folder (directory). To make the current folder switch to the root level of your hard drive (so that the search will examine your entire disk), press Control-Esc and then tap "F" twice.

Control-Esc, as will undoubtedly notice, pops up the Start Menu. Tapping F-F calls the Find command, and then chooses the Find Files or Folders choice from the available find options. As you may have noticed, the "F" is underlined on the Find Command, as are various letters on virtually all other menu and dialog boxes throughout Windows 95; this is an easy way to tell what the shortcut keys for a given command are.

Windows returns a list of all files that matched any part of a name you type into the Find dialog's text box. You can also search inside documents for a specific text string (choose the "Advanced" tab and type the word you want to find into the "Containing text:" field). Naturally, Find operations take longer when the contents of each file must be searched.

Caution: if you move executable files or rename the folder a program is in, Windows 95 may be unable to find the program the next time you try to launch it.

In other words, if you create a shortcut to an executable file and place it on the Windows desktop, then rename the original executable, the shortcut will essentially be severed. With Windows 9x's often-touted long filenames, we can imagine that many users will go gleefully renaming files and directories, unaware that they are severing shortcut after shortcut in the process. Suddenly, none of their applications work, and a computer expert must be called in to undo the damage. We can imagine that a Windows 9x upgrade without proper training and support could result in a tech-support nightmare for many businesses.

Extra keys on the Microsoft Natural Keyboard

Certain types of keyboards, such as the Microsoft Natural Keyboard, the keyboard on the Solo portable computer model from Gateway, and a growing number of others have special keys that enhance the way you can work with Windows 9x shortcuts.

The Start button on the on-screen taskbar is physically manifested as a Windows key on these special keyboards that, when pressed, switches to the task manager and pops up the Start menu to facilitate the launching of programs, documents, and so on.

By holding down the Windows key and pressing another key, it can provide a system level shortcut. The shortcuts will be defined in the Help system, in the applications' menus, and so on.

If you press the "Windows key," the Start menu pops up, with a list of available programs. Pressing the "Shortcut key" pops up a list of options that are normally available by pressing the right mouse button. Interestingly, although there are a few ways of duplicating the Windows key function via the keyboard (Control-Escape or Tab-Enter will both do it),

To simulate the Shortcut key from the keyboard, press Shift-F10

Right-click the Start Button to display additional commands.

Open - this is the easiest way to customize your start menu by dragging items in or out of this window, which represents the contents of the Start Menu.

Explore - similar, but not identical to the File Manager found in Windows 3.x, the Explorer allows you to view your directory structure hierarchically. Various options allow you to show or hide optional information, and sort the lists in various ways. See also The Explorer.

Multi-function windows

Icon in upper-left of any window (in Windows 3.1, this was known as the Control menu): Click this button to open menu commands for moving, resizing, or closing a window. However, using your mouse is a much faster and easier way of doing these things.

Double-clicking this button is the classic Windows 3.x way to close a window, but you can also close a window by single-clicking the "X" icon in the upper right corner.

Title bars: identify a particular window by name and if it is active by color. You can Click and drag a title bar to move the window. The optional Microsoft Plus! pack provides a number of pre-defined color schemes, but you can set up your own using the Display control panel with or without installing the Plus pack.

Shortcut: right-click on the desktop and select Properties from the pop-up menu. Choose the settings Tab to quickly get to the screen where you can adjust your color palette, screen resolution and font size. Note that you do not have to restart your computer to adjust the resolution, provided that the number of colors doesn't change. If you choose a resolution or color setting that your system doesn't support, Windows 95 will warn you the next time it restarts. Minimize button: clicking on the minimize button reduces the window to a TITLE in the taskbar (normally at the bottom of your screen).

Maximize/Restore button: clicking on the name of any window, program or document listed on the taskbar will fully expand the window. Clicking the middle icon in the upper right of the window that displays one rectangle will maximize that window. The icon then changes to two rectangles, symbolizing that clicking it will restore the window to its original size . Note that you can grab the taskbar and drag to make it larger.

Clicking on the button in the upper right of most windows that shows n underscore symbol will minimize that window. You can minimize all windows by right-clicking in the Taskbar and selecting "Minimize all windows."

Borders: click and drag on a border or border corner to resize the window.

Desktop: is the area where you see the Recycle Bin behind PROGRAM MANAGER or an APPLICATION window. You can change the color of the desktop, or put patterns called Wallpaper there. To display the task list, press CTRL-ALT-DELETE.

Scroll bars: let you view DOCUMENTS that are too big to fit in a window. Notice that the scroll bars are proportional; that is, they change size depending on how much data is outside the visible area.

Program group icons: unlike Windows 3.x, PROGRAM GROUPS or folders can be put inside other ones in Win95. Double-clicking on one of these icons will expand it into a PROGRAM GROUP window.

Program Manager and File Manager live! Did you know that the "classic" Windows 3.x Program manager and File Manager are alive and well in Win95? Yes, they're still available. Try selecting the Run command from the Start menu and typing PROGMAN or WINFILE.

By the way, did you notice that the Run command now recalls the commands you've typed recently. Try pressing cursor-up or cursor down to see them.

Program item icons: represent a software program or APPLICATION. Double-clicking a program item ICON starts the APPLICATION it represents. You may want to make a program item icon for a document you use regularly.

Menu bar: is where commands and options are accessed. Clicking a word on the menu bar (or using the keyboard shortcut: alt + the underlined letter of a word on the menu bar) produces a menu of commands.

Try This:

Although you may have noticed that you can view files on your hard disk by double-clicking the icon labeled My Computer and then double-clicking the icon for any of the drives on your system, but check this out:

Right-click the Start button on the Taskbar. Select Open and have a look inside the folders you see here. Notice that you are viewing the Start menu as if it was a Program Manager, similar to that of Windows 3.1. You can arrange your Start menu easily by adding or rearranging files this way.
In fact, if you really, really miss the Windows 3.1 Program Manager and/or File Manager, they're still here! Click the Run button in the Start menu and type PROGMAN or WINFILE to access each one.
Double-click on all program group icons to expand them.
Click on Window of the Program Manager menu bar to activate its pull-down menu.
Click on Tile. All program groups are now neatly arranged.
Click on Options of the Program Manager menu bar to activate its pull-down menu.
Click on Auto Arrange. This option will permanently keep all icons neat & tidy.
Reduce the groups to icons by double-clicking on each control menu button.

Menu headings: clicking a menu heading word will activate a menu of COMMANDS. To deactivate a menu, click anywhere else on the screen. Get in the habit of right-clicking on objects; often you'll find useful shortcuts or additional commands.

Commands: are initiated by clicking on them. A check mark beside a command means that it is activated. Clicking on a COMMAND word that's followed by an ellipsis (...) produces a dialog box. A dialog box like the one below may have some or all of the following components.

Command buttons: clicking on a command button initiates an action. The OK button closes the dialog box and initiating all options selected. The Cancel button closes the box with no changes registering. Command buttons with an ellipsis (...) will produce another dialog box.. Those with (>>) will expand the dialog box for more options. Dimmed text on a command button means it can't be initiated.

Text boxes: are used to type in information for an action you want taken. The most common TEXT BOXES are for specifying what pages you want printed and for naming a document or file you want saved.

List boxes & Drop-down list boxes: are the same thing in that they provide a list of choices. However, to see the different choices in a DROP-DOWN LIST you have to click on the little button with a down arrow on it. Select a choice by clicking on it. Some DROP-DOWN LISTS provide so many choices that you have to use a scroll bar to view all.

Check boxes: are on/off options. To turn an option on or off, click on the box or text beside it. An X mark shows it is on. A blank box means it is off.

Radio buttons: provide you with one choice on how you would like a task to be carried out. For example, do you want all the pages in your document to be printed or just the ones you specify? Make your choice by clicking an empty circle or the text beside it.

Window Management

Proportional sliders

Dragging the edge of any window in or out allows resizing from any side of the window.

The Minimize button reduce windows to the window's name and a tiny icon in the Taskbar.

Windows 95's Task bar provides a simple visual clue as to what windows are open: they are listed at the bottom of the screen (you can drag the bar to different positions). To open a minimized window, you just click on its name.

Although Windows 95 supports file names with up to 250 characters, existing 16-bit PC programs generally don't, without resorting to 3rd party utilities such as Norton Navigator. Be careful if you are sharing files with users of DOS or earlier Windows releases. Although Windows 95 automatically translates long file names into shorter ones for compatibility with DOS, users will find that the translation process inserts strange numbers, exclamation marks, tildes as it truncates long file names.

Tip: you can drag and drop a file with a long file name onto an old 16-bit application and, although the 16-bit app can't read or write the long filename, Windows 95 automatically loads the right file into the app, and when you save, maintains the long filename intact.

Other useful window management commands

hold the shift key as you close a window and all windows belonging to that drive will close at once.
Alt-F4 closes windows and applications (you can even shut Windows 95 down this way).

Exploring the Explorer

"Explorer" is Windows 95's intended replacement for the often reviled File Manager in Windows 3.1 (which, as many Win95 users are relieved to discover, joins the classic Program Manager as optional choices in Win95).

Feeling nostalgic? Here's how to access the Classic File Manager and Program manager in Windows 9x.

Type the following into the Run command dialog (found in the Start menu) to launch File Manager or Program Manger, respectively:

Winfile
Progman

Other useful Taskbar commands (Right-click on the taskbar to access).

Cascade
Tile horizontally
Tile vertically
Minimize all windows

Recycle Bin

Recycle Bin is a special area where you put files intended for future deletion. If you change your mind about throwing them away, you can double-click it to open the bin, and drag them out again.

One drawback: it makes all of your files appear as though they are in the same folder. You can delete files without putting them in this temporary receptacle by holding the Shift key while pressing Delete key or dragging the files to the Recycle Bin.

Note also that you can right-click the recycle bin to access its Properties tab, where you can change settings such as Confirm Delete, the maximum percentage of your drive the Recycled files may occupy, or even turn off the Recycle feature altogether, so that Delete does just that.

Shortcuts

Shortcuts give you the ability to place drive icons anywhere on the desktop. Shortcuts can also refer to files in locations on other computers on a network , or even across the Internet.

Dragging an executable file (e.g., an application such as a WordPad or a paint program) to another location by default makes a shortcut to the original file. Shortcuts have an arrow icon in the lower left corner of the icon.

Various keys affect how dragging operations work:

No keys held down, drag executable file: make shortcut
No keys held down, drag non-executable file (documents, etc.): move original file to new destination on same drive; makes copy if destination is on a different drive.
Shift key held down, drag any file: move original file to new destination
Ctrl key held down, drag any file: make copy of file to new destination

Note how the small symbol in the corner of a icon that's being dragged changes when you hold the various keys down.

Help

Windows 95 provides an extensive Help system. You can use it to look up information on how the commands or functions of virtually any aspect of Windows 95 work.

Let's say, for example, you want to explore the help topics for WordPad, the word processing "applet" provided with Windows 95. Open Help by selecting the word Help from the Start menu.

Then, try typing the first few letters of the word you want help on. Typically, this brings up all items that relate to it. For example, typing "W..O..R.." brings up a section on "word processing" immediately, and, below it, a section titled "WordPad, starting." Clicking a button labeled "Display" shows all entries relating to the chosen topic--some of which don't even mention the words "word processing" in their heading, but relate to the topic. In this case, Help produced two entries: "Writing and editing using Notepad" and "Writing and editing using WordPad." Clearly, indexed Help is superior to name-specific entries. Best of all, the user can open up the application, control panel, or print out the instructions, etc., from directly within the Windows 95 Help system, further easing the learning curve.

Customizing the Graphical User Interface

Windows 9x allows user interface customization. You can add, move or remove items from the Start Menu (right-click the Start button to access the window that contains the Start menu items).

To add items to the sub-menu that pops up when you invoke the "Send to" function (also available when right-clicking files or folders), Click on the Run.... item in the Start menu and type "sendto" to open the send to window.

Note that you can open other folders--even hidden ones--by typing their name into the run command.

Try adding a text editor such as Notepad or WordPad to the Send to submenu. If you have a third-party program or utility you want to conveniently send files to, (e.g., Zip and/or Unzip commands are commonly needed by modem users), you can put them in the Send to folder, too.

Windows 95 has other possibilities for user interface customization, too.

Let's say you have acquired a shareware program on your drive that Unzips files and now you want to add the Unzip command to the menu that pops up when you right-click on a Zip archive file. Here's how to add your own commands to this menu.

Open a window
Click on Options... in the View menu
Choose the File Types tab.
To customize the right-mouse button menu items, you can choose Edit... (edits an existing command or its icon), choose a New Type..., or Remove an existing one. Let's edit an existing one for a program that's already on your system. (Install the program if necessary). Choose Edit....
A dialog labeled "Edit File Type" opens up. Near the bottom of the window, you'll see the area marked "Actions," typically containing a command like "open." To add the command "Unzip..." to the list of actions that appear on the menu of choices for handling Zip files, click New...
In the area marked "Action:", type the name of the word you want to appear on the menu (e.g., "Unzip...")
Next to the area labeled "Application used to perform action:", there's a Browse... button. Click it, locate the program you want to perform the action, and click Open.
If desired, click the "always show extension" checkbox and close the edit file type dialog by clicking OK. You should now have a new command appear when you right-click on Zip archives!

There are many additional possibilities and settings. See the Windows 95 help file for further details on this subject.

Problem Solving

Crashes

Windows 95 has true preemptive multitasking only for 32-bit apps. 16-bit apps are multitasked cooperatively, which means that a single rogue 16-bit task (such as a Windows 3.1 application) can still bring down the whole system. Fortunately, this happens much less frequently than was the case with Windows 3.x. When a task crashes under Windows 95, it brings up a box advising you that the task has performed an illegal operation and must quit. This almost never crashes the OS.

Rarely, you may run into a situation where a task has stopped responding or may have has frozen the system. Pressing Control-Alt-Delete brings up a "task not responding" message in a Task Manager window, or more rarely, on a blue `crash page' screen. This screen will be familiar to Windows 3.1 users who are familiar with this key combination (affectionately known as the Vulcan Neck Pinch). It is also possible to end a task from the Task List window. Pressing Control-Alt-Delete brings up this Task List, making it easy to kill unwanted tasks.

Windows 9x makes technical information optional, available by clicking on a button labeled "Details." For most users, this information is of little value and can safely be ignored.

Emergency Recovery Utility - A little gem called ERU.EXE is hidden on the Win95 CD. It is a utility to copy all the needed files in case you have a crash and need to recover your setup.

Startup Problem Management:

As mentioned earlier, Windows 9x has a list of startup options that appears when you press F8 at startup. It includes an option for creating a text log of the boot process, and another that lets you step through the startup files one by one. We were able to start the Windows 95 GUI in "Failsafe mode" even after deliberately botching up system files that would have caused catastrophic problems under Windows 3.x.

Other Win9x options include starting Failsafe mode with network support, starting only a command line, starting a command line while skipping all startup files, and starting the version of MS-DOS (if present) previously installed on the computer.

System administrators can ease the task of managing users on a network by enabling System Policies. With this technique, you can control the items a user can customize or see on his or her desktop. See the section called System Policies http://www.halcyon.com/cerelli/ for information on how to set up user profiles and policies.

Mastering the system

Hot Tips

You can change the application that launches automatically when you double-click a file by going into my computer -> Explore -> view -> options. Then, select the file types tab . Finally, set the file extension's association to the program you want to launch your files with.

If, however, the program you want to open your files is part of Windows 9x (for example, getting Paint to be the one to open a BMP file after you've installed another paint application that seems to have appropriated the file format, here's how to do it. Open the Control Panel and run Add/Remove Programs. Uncheck the program (in our example, Paint) and click the Apply button. Then go back, check Paint, and click the Apply button again. All fixed!

Tip: click once on a file, press the Shift key and choose "Open With..." to reassign an application association quickly.
Accelerator keys

If you have several windows that you have opened up, you can hold down the shift key and close the last one. It will close all parent windows as well Press Ctrl while setting your folder view saves the current folder view as the default view. In other words, if you hold down the CTRL key while you open up a new window from my computer it will not open up a second window (if the default is that it normally does).

Ctl-dbl-click on a subfolder in "always open a new folder" mode in folder view will instead open that folder in-place (and similarly, if you're in "reuse the current window" mode, it will open a new window). very useful.

in the Start menu's run dialog, type

TIPS.TXT

and press <Enter>

This file has many great tricks and tips. Here's one of our favorites from the Tips.txt file, found in your Windows folder:

[Special Folders]

You can put the contents of Control Panel or other special folders on your Start menu (or in any folder). Create a folder by clicking New on the File menu, and then clicking Folder. Then, paste in the appropriate name as shown below:

For Use This Name

----------------------------------------------

Control Panel Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}

Dial Up Network Dial Up Net.{992CFFA0-F557-101A-88EC-00DD010CCC48}

Printers Printers.{2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D}

For more examples of this technique, see Brian Livingston's Jan. 1997 Window Manager article in InfoWorld.

[Changing Folder Icons]

Use the following steps to change folder icons:

From a folder's View menu, click Options, and then click the File Types tab.
Click Folder from the list, and then click Edit.
Click Change Icon, and then select a new icon.
Restart

Want to force a filename to the top of a list?

Use a non-alpha character. An underscore is quite unobtrusive; e.g., _this folder _that icon. It will sort before numbers and letters.

Run Character Map and you can find some other good characters to use. In MS Sans Serif, there is a light bullet at Alt-0183. Arial has that plus a heavier bullet at Alt-0149 Try using names with a bullet, a space, then the real name.

try a filename like this
To fix the order of items on the start menu so that they get automatically alphabetized, just number the items, e.g.,

Top Item
Next Item

... etc.

To maintain the left to right order for items on the Taskbar, open the StartUp folder (this contains the icons which go on the Taskbar) and create a folder called Startup2. Copy files, making both have identical contents. Then, open both groups and then delete all of the icons in StartUp. Then move them back in, moving first, the icon you want on the left most side of the Taskbar. The second icon you move goes to the right of that, and so on.

This way, you can have your favorite program's icon always in the same place, right next to the Start button.BTW, the above tip also works for the Favorite Places function of WinCIM. Special/Preferences/General is set to keep that list alphabetic.

Microsoft's "Registry" is superficially analogous to the Mac's invisible Desktop database, but the Mac's desktop file is a more sophisticated solution, able to keep track of files no matter where you move them, or how you rename the folder they are in. Renaming a folder in Windows 95 can wreak havoc with links to files, or the functionality of applications in that folder, although Windows 95 warns you that these things may occur and makes an effort to search for files that have become lost.

Despite the advantages of the Mac's file-tracking system, we actually prefer the Windows 95 system, though. To explain why, we need to examine how each system tracks information about its files.

Like DOS/Windows 3.x, Windows 95's file types are determined by a three-character extension appended to the 8-character (max.) DOS filename. The system is set up so that files ending with the letters ".DOC" are recognized as, say, Microsoft Word files. For their part, applications typically put the 3-character extension on filenames automatically. In Windows 95, these extensions, and certain types of system files (DLLs, etc.) are, by default, hidden from view, but they're still there.

Windows 95 extends the DOS/Windows functionality in two important areas: first, it (finally!) eliminates the eight-dot-three-character limit on the length of file names. Windows 95 filenames can be a whopping 256 characters long. (Macs support file and folder names up to 31 characters long, which is usually more than enough, it must be said.)

The way Microsoft implemented long filenames is so clever, we're amazed no one came up with it before. For starters, it does not require reformatting your PCs hard drive. Windows 95 extends the existing file allocation table ("FAT") structures of both hard drives and floppy disks to provide long filenames on all media types. Even better, the disks can be read on systems running other versions of DOS or Windows, and the names show up in standard 8-dot-3 format.

Basically, it works like this: Windows 95 stores the long filenames as if they were directory names and sets the system attributes to hide the names so that non-Windows 95 systems won't see them as directories. (It's worth mentioning that this means that the root directory of your hard drive could run out of space for directory entries if you put a lot of files there. Other directories do not have this problem.)

Tip: Use Power Quest's Partition Magic 3.02 or later to increase the amount of root directory entries available.

The system also distills the long filenames down into unique short names as necessary. "Long File Name" might become "LNGFLNM2", for example, to differentiate it from another long name that crunched down to the same letters.

Here's a neat trick. If you drag and drop a file with a long filename into an old 16-bit Windows app that only supports short filenames, it naturally comes into the program with the short filename as described above. But check out what happens when you save the file out again. Because Windows 95 is keeping track of two names for each file, it automatically keeps the long filename when you hit "Save."

Making Shortcuts

If you start dragging items one at a time, and change the name to delete Shortcut To right away, Win95 will "learn" after five or six times, and quit putting shortcut to in the name.

Although it obviously hasn't succeeded 100%, Microsoft says its design goal for Windows 95 was nothing less than total compatibility. Because of this, Windows 95 still includes our old friends AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS and isn't completely free of some of the hassles caused by the demonic duo WIN.INI and SYSTEM.INI, although it doesn't need any entries at all in CONFIG.SYS or AUTOEXEC.BAT file to run, and well-behave Win95 apps don't add entries to WIN.INI or SYSTEM.INI. If Windows apps don't need `em, you won't need to edit them as much, and we think that's good news.

For Further Reading

WinTips: More shortcut keys and other commands, including the poorly documented Setup "switches" that can help solve Windows installation hassles.

IT Library

The Techno Zone

User Account

Windows Keyboard Shortcuts

Startup Keys

Important Taskbar/Start Menu commands and shortcuts

Try This:

Window Management

Help

Problem Solving

Mastering the system

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