Being able to work from home is one of the many benefits of ‘Unified Communications’ and Microsoft 365. However due to the current situation in the UK and worldwide, a lot of people have been suddenly thrown into ‘working from home’ for the first time.  

1UC would like to help those new to working from home and using windows and office 365. We will be sharing a series of blog posts with helpful hints and tips to help those of you that may be new to working from home to make things as easy and efficient as possible. 

We are going to share several posts detailing our most useful keyboard shortcuts and features. Today we are going to have a look at switching between windows on Windows 10 when working from home! 

Switching between windows

Switch between windows 

To cycle through the open windows on your PC, press and hold ‘Alt’ and (not too fast!) keep pressing ‘Tab’ until the window you’d like to move to is highlighted. Release both keys and the window you have stopped on will pop up on your screen.  

Reverse Switch between windows 

Sometimes if you are pressing ‘Tab’ too quickly, its easy to scroll past the window you want to get to. 

To reverse the scroll, press and hold ‘Alt’ and ‘Shift’, then press ‘Tab’ and the windows will highlight in the reverse order.  

Release all the keys and the window you have stopped on will pop up on your screen. 

Switch and close windows without holding the keys down  

The Alt+Tab switcher feature normally closes when you let go of the the ‘Alt’ key. But, you can view all the windows without holding the Alt key down the whole time. 

Press Alt+Ctrl+Tab, and then release all three keys. You will see mini previews of all the applications on your screen.  

Use your mouse or the arrow keys on your keyboard to select a window and press enter. The screen will now pop up on your screen.  

Switch and close windows using Task View 

The most sophisticated way to switch between windows is using ‘Task View’.  

It does take up more space on your screen but it shows bigger previews of all open windows making it easier and clearer to identify the window you need.  

It will also show you applications and files you have opened previously.  

To open Task View, press Windows () +Tab and then release all the keys.  

You will see mini previews of all the applications on your screen. Use your mouse or the arrow keys on your keyboard to select a window and press enter.  

The screen will now pop up on your screen. 

Our brief video guide that walks you through these functions:

Cheat Sheet

Here’s a handy cheat sheet of everything we covered above. Practice these, and you’ll be a window ninja in no time: 

  • Alt+Tab: Open task switcher. 
  • Alt+Shift+Tab: Reverses the task switcher. 
  • Alt+Ctrl+Tab: Open task switcher without holding keys down. 
  • Window+Tab: Open task switcher without holding keys down and open files/applications in your timeline.