Various Keyboard Shortcuts Intended For Windows XP Windows 2000 Windows Me Windows 98 Windows 95 Switch between running applications: Press Tab repeatedly while holding Alt. Switch easily between a full-screen and windowed command prompt: Press Alt - Enter. Open the Start Menu: Press Ctrl - ESC. Tab (move from one control to another) in reverse: Hold Shift while pressing Tab. Send the active window to the back: Press Alt - ESC. Move to the next tab in a tabbed dialog box: Hold Ctrl while pressing Tab. Send the focus to the menu: Press Alt by itself, and use the cursor keys to navigate. Keyboard equivalents of Undo, Cut, Copy, and Paste: Hold Ctrl while pressing Z, X, C, and V, respectively. In many applications, the following will also work: Alt-Backspace, Shift-Del, Ctrl-Ins, and Shift-Ins, respectively. Expand all the directories in a a branch in Explorer: Select the desired branch in Explorer, and press * (the asterisk key). If Desktop is selected, all directories in all drives will be expanded. Switch to the TaskBar Press Ctrl-ESC at any time to bring up the Start Menu. Once the Start Menu appears, press ESC to close the menu while keeping the Taskbar active. Then, press Tab to switch to the row(s) of running applications on the Taskbar. Switch to the Desktop: Follow the above directions to Switch to the Taskbar. Press Tab again to switch to the Desktop. Right-click (display an object's context menu): Make sure the desired object has the focus, and press Shift-F10. Written by: Annoyances.org Last updated: Tuesday, August 7, 2001 Care to discuss this article with other Windows users? Select your operating system here, and click Continue to post your question. - Choose your OS -Windows 7Windows VistaWindows Server 2003Windows XPWindows 2000Windows MeWindows 98Windows 95 Previous discussions about this article: (open a message to see applicable responses, if any) [Windows 98] KB shortcut to create new folder? (Doug Fournet: Friday, September 21, 2001) [Windows 98] Question about 'Various Keyboard Shortcuts' (Jan: Monday, October 8, 2001) [Windows 2000] Question about 'Various Keyboard Shortcuts' (Ian Boys: Thursday, February 28, 2002) [Windows 2000] Question about 'Various Keyboard Shortcuts' (Anthony Bejarano: Saturday, March 30, 2002) [Windows Me] how to remove '' standby'' from shutdown window (ramachandra raju s: Monday, June 24, 2002) [Windows 2000] Alt + Spacebar to bring up window menu (Sami: Wednesday, July 3, 2002) [Windows 2000] More Keyboard Shortcuts (Ratboy: Thursday, August 1, 2002) [Windows 2000] Question about 'Various Keyboard Shortcuts' (eli cypher: Saturday, August 24, 2002) [Windows 2000] Question about 'Various Keyboard Shortcuts' (eli cypher: Saturday, August 24, 2002) [Windows Me] Question about 'Various Keyboard Shortcuts' (DAT: Thursday, October 24, 2002) [Windows XP] 98+up Internet Explorer shortcut (Eric: Wednesday, November 27, 2002) [Windows 2000] Keyboard Shortcut for Task Manager (Göran: Tuesday, December 10, 2002) [Windows 98] Question about 'Various Keyboard Shortcuts' (Mohamed: Saturday, December 14, 2002) [Windows Me] Try ALT+F4 ... (Cees: Saturday, January 4, 2003) [Windows 98] Alt-Hyphen for MDI windows (Myself: Tuesday, January 21, 2003) [Windows XP] Comment on 'Various Keyboard Shortcuts' (Kilkenny: Sunday, April 6, 2003) [Windows 98] Question about 'Various Keyboard Shortcuts' (Steven Williams: Saturday, July 19, 2003) [Windows XP] What are the shortcuts for Turn Off/Standby? (Daniel: Sunday, July 20, 2003) [Windows XP] Question about 'Various Keyboard Shortcuts' (RussC: Tuesday, February 24, 2004) [Windows XP] How to remove custom shortcuts (Jonas: Thursday, March 17, 2005) Return to "Using Windows"