Sometimes, speeding up your computer can be as easy as avoiding using the mouse.
Believe it or not, keeping your hands on the keyboard, rather than reaching for peripheral like the mouse can really improve your computer’s performance. Here are a few keyboard shortcuts:
First of all, the” Window” is going to play an important role in this blog post; it’s the button with the little Windows logo located at the lower left of your keyboard, and will be abbreviated as “Win”. The Windows key brings up the Start menu, and can be used in combination with other keys:
- Win-D toggles between showing the desktop and restoring all windows.
- Win-E invokes the Windows Explorer window.
- Win-L locks your system until you enter your password–or lets you switch active users
- Win-M minimizes all windows.
- Win-R brings up the Run dialog.
- Win-U invokes the Utility Manager, which controls accessibility program options.
- Win-Pause/Break brings up the System Properties dialog.
Instead of using the Windows key, combining Ctrl+Esc will call up the Windows Start menu.
There are a couple of other favourite keyboard shortcuts are:
- Alt-Tab, which allows you to cycle through all of the open windows on your desktop
- Ctrl-Tab allows you to scroll through all of the open tabs in whatever browser is active
- Ctrl-Alt-Delete allows you to call up the Task Manager, in order to kill unresponsive programs
Finally, the most important keyboard shortcut has to be Ctrl-S, which saves your work in Word, Excel or PowerPoint.
If you’re looking for other ways to speed up computer performance, why not take a look at PC TuneUp Maestro?