I can't recall when I found it about it, and OSX already has it - one of Windows' neatest tricks is being able to do some regular file operations in the standard open/save dialogs. It saved me countless clicks over the years at $WORK.<p>Was Windows the first to allow this, or was there some antecedent? There are 'modern' Linux GUI toolkits which still do not allow this, like GTK's GtkFileChooser which apparently lives in the dark ages (no thumbnail support there either).
Explorer: If you type cmd and press enter in the path bar it opens a cmd prompt at the current directory. Other way to open it is to hold shift when opening the folder context menu to expose this option.<p>Holding Shift while opening context menus usually show more advanced options, like the possibility to run as another user when right-clicking something executable.<p>Firefox: If you try to drag the mouse to select part of a link it you drag the link (so you can place it on the bookmarks toolbar/etc), to prevent this behavior you can hold Alt and now it'll let you select the text without dragging the link (this one is not windows specific, it works on Linux too).
Loads of shortcuts:
F2: rename<p>F3: find<p>Alt F4: close window, ctrl-w seems to do this a lot these days too<p>Alt minus: show child document window menu<p>Alt space: show window menu, useful if you remember the X for maximize/minimize, z for resize, m for move, r for restore immediately afterwards.<p>F4 go to address bar in Explorer<p>F5 refresh<p>Ctrl F6 switch windows in MDI interface<p>Ctrl escape: show start menu<p>Shift-F10: right click menu<p>Windows E: explorer<p>Alt-up in explorer: go to directory above; backspace/alt-left: go to previous history item<p>Windows W windows ink for annotation<p>Windows R for run<p>Windows U for narrator<p>Windows F used to do find but now shows the feedback tool, which I think is a loss<p>Any command after the word control will open control panel to the right place, eg control display<p>Windows D show desktop toggle<p>Windows M minimise all windows, windows shift M restore windows<p>Ctrl-shift-escape: show task manager<p>Ctrl tab/ctrl-shift-tab move to next/previous UI item so you can use the UI with a keyboard; this is why web apps that pretend to be native are so useless and annoying because this doesn't work<p>Also system items normally end with .msc to open the management console, eg. Compmgmt.msc. There's a load of these that help you get to the nitty gritty of the system.<p>Turn on "show accelerators" in accessibility and menu entries and buttons will have their accelerator underlined, eg the O in OK or F in File. You can then use alt-(letter) to go to it, eg alt-f to open the file menu, s for save.<p>Honestly I don't know how I would have got through using Windows for decades without these shortcuts. I always find the Mac relies on mouse usage a lot more and the ctrl-F2 and ctrl-F3 shortcut to get to the menu bar and dock on Mac doesn't compare.
A couple of good surprises coming from MacOs:<p>- The window snapping shortcuts win + left or win + right are great.
- Alt-tab rolls through all open windows, not open programs (avoids the tab + ` in mac)
- Win + e to open explorer that one comes in handy often
I found them:
Access a Start Menu for power users. ...
Sniff out disk space-hoarding apps. ...
Quickly minimize all windows except the active one. ...
Stop background apps from running. ...
Become a Start Menu power user. ...
Print to PDF. ...
Know these new useful keyboard shortcuts. ...
New trackpad gestures.
I also find that people forget about the tricks on macos:<p>You can drag the icon from any title of a window into a finder window or dialog to go to that directory.<p>You can right-click on the title bar of any window and see the path to that window's document.<p>But enjoy Windows!
Recently discovered the Snipping Tool (start menu) - crop a screenshot rectangle, annotate with pen / highlighter, and save as JPG/PNG. Handy.