Keyboard Shortcuts

How many times have you sat at your keyboard and said: “I wish I could open the search screen faster, or opening a command prompt without going to the start menu?“

There are many keyboard shortcuts that can simplify many of these tasks and in some cases, reduces the amount of keystrokes to get there. I will outline some of the most frequented shortcuts that I like to use.

This is the Windows Key icon, and is used in many keyboard shortcuts and is on every qwerty keyboard. In case you are wondering, the name qwerty represents the first 6 letters on the top line of letters on the keyboard.

If you click on just the Windows key, it is the same as clicking on the start menu and opens up the menu list.

Clicking on the Windows key and holding it while you click “r” opens the run command, from which you can open programs, the control panel or typing cmd (command) to start a chkdsk (checkdisk) on your computer to run a repair (chkdsk /f), the f standing for fix.

Holding the Windows key and pressing “f” opens the search box.

Holding the Windows key and pressing “p” opens the dual screen or projector option.

We have the old stand by shortcuts that most people first learn how to use. There is the ctrl+x for cut, ctrl+c for copy and ctrl+v for paste.

The tab key allows you to jump from field to field instead of taking your hands off the keyboard to click the mouse cursor into the window.

There are many many more shortcuts that can allow you to do essentially everything without the need to use a mouse ever, wouldn’t that be nice?

Microsoft has a knowledgebase article, Keyboard Shortcuts, which shows you many helpful and handy shortcuts you can apply to your day to day work.

In this day and age with workloads increasing, and personal down time decreasing, it is nice to be able to save some time doing your work by working smarter, not harder.

I hope you can make use of some of these tips, and that it helps you get through your work a little faster.

Neil Turner
IT Consultant
Keyboard Shortcuts