Microsoft Windows OS is practically ubiquitous. If you know even a bit about computer systems, then you’ll probably be familiar with many of its features. If you’re not familiar with it, then ITProTV offers courses in Microsoft, and other companies do as well. If you’re going to work in a modern, professional environment, those skills are going to come in handy. However, aside from the basics, there are all sorts of tricks and hacks using Microsoft Windows of which you might not be aware. Here are four of those.
Screen Rotation
Did you know you can cause your screen to rotate while using Microsoft Windows? It’s true. If you simultaneously press Ctrl plus Alt plus D, plus any of the arrow buttons, the screen will rotate. The down arrow will make it turn upside down, while the right and left buttons will flip it 90 degrees onto its side. You should then use the up arrow to bring it back to its standard orientation. If you use several displays simultaneously, this feature lets you orient just one of them whichever way you like. Either that, or you can use this trick to give yourself vertigo.
Shake
The shake feature is a favorite of some people, though many still don’t know about it. Let’s say that your display is full of windows. You can clear all of that clutter by grabbing the top of the window that you want to keep with the cursor, and then shaking it to minimize all the other windows. If you decide that you want to bring all of them back, you repeat the process, and all of them will reappear like magic.
Show Desktop Button
When you use Microsoft Windows, there is a hidden button about which most people don’t know. It is on the bottom right-hand corner of the desktop. You might not see it at first, because it’s down below the date and the time. If you look carefully, you should observe a small sliver from this “invisible” button. You can click on it, and it causes all of your other windows to minimize. You can also hover over the button to produce the same effect rather than clicking on it. To do so, go to settings, then go to personalization, taskbar, and then go to “use peek” to preview the desktop.
The Secret Start Menu
If you like the old start menu experience, you can get it back on newer versions of Windows. By right-clicking on the Windows icon that’s in the bottom-left corner, you can pull up a textual jump menu with several popular destinations, like search, run, apps and features, etc. They’re all there through the standard menu interface, but this way you can access them quicker.
These are far from the only secrets that you can discover if you know where to look. You can also learn more about Windows just by playing around with it. It is a multifaceted operating system, and there are all kinds of fun back doors if you know to spend some time there. Even people who think of themselves as experts are always finding new features.