Windows 10 program management for power user!

February 28, 2016 7:14 AM

Hello metafilter, Lately I'm becoming more and more of a power user of my computer (Windows 10) and tweaked a lot of things to my liking. And it's been great. Now I am looking for improve my tabs/programs/desktop workflow. Any help?

So while I use alt-tab and windows-tab in windows 10, I would like to know if there are any power users out there who have some better applications. For example one thing to improve win-tab is something like exposé on OSX. Or maybe an improvement on alt-tab could be that while it still allows you to switch between tabs, there could maybe be a line and under that a list of applications/shortcuts to commonly used apps that I can change.

I've tried looking at alternativeto.net for those kinds of things and tried a bunch of them but so far I'm disappointed. A lot of the programs are outdated or you have to pay for them. I guess the reason is that this kind of power using is not something most people do so there is very little demand which explains this lack in the market. But anyhow I want these functionalities and if some of you are power users out there, please recommend! :)

Extra information:
Basically while I do not know precisely how my workflow can be improved I would like to know the best and most efficient way of switching tabs and having a grand vision of all my opened apps. The reason I do not like win-tab is because it doesn't make the visuals instantly clear to eyes because the apps are arranged by order of active windows which keeps changing. Expose on the other hand makes things intuitive to the eye.

posted by iliketothinknu to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)

This may not help much but it improved the way I use Windows: You can use Win+#(1-9) to start or switch to the programs in your taskbar (e.g.: Win+1 opens the first program from the left). I moved the taskbar to the top for better visual access.

You can also add the Shift-key to "walk" backwards while Alt-tabbing. You can even hold the Alt-key while Alt-tabbing to see the complete list of opened programs and then use tab and/or shift tab (mouse selection works, too!) to get to the desired program.
posted by KMB at 9:29 AM on February 28, 2016

Best answer: I have always had the task bar on top. It just makes sense. All of the other windows have bars on top. You know I've been on your computer if the bar is on the top.
posted by Splunge at 9:54 AM on February 28, 2016

Doesn't the new Task View under Windows 10 (icon just to the right of the Annoying Lady box on the taskbar) accomplish what Expose does? And it offers the multiple desktop option familiar to Mac users as well.
posted by megatherium at 10:10 AM on February 28, 2016

Best answer: I didn't see you mention the Windows Key+X Key shortcut. I find that very helpful for popping up a long list of useful system tools (Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Device Manager, File Explorer, Administrative Command Prompt, etc.) Just making sure you know about it.
posted by forthright at 2:41 PM on February 28, 2016

Best answer: Basically, all the windows key shortcuts.

Win X is amazing, particularly when you learn the keyboard shortcuts - e.g. win X U S will sleep the computer immediately (or maybe shutdown, icr)
Win D shows the desktop, real handy when you have lots of windows open
Win (arrow key) is a fucking ridiculously pro shortcut that slaps whatever you're looking at into the quadrant you pointed at, then asks what you want in the other half. Try it, it's amazing.
Win E will bring up the Explorer, also nice.
just hitting windows and typing what you want and hitting enter will work ~80% of the time - it's a stealth search.
posted by Sebmojo at 5:16 PM on February 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

Response by poster: So thanks for the answers, I've known about some of you guys suggestions before but 2 new ones I learnt right now is the moving the taskbar to the top, we'll see how it works out and also the Win-X!! The wIn-X->U-S/wIn-X->U-U is very nice!!

I installed VirtuaWin yesterday and installed 2 addons to make work just like I want: VWDesktopIcons (different icons for each desktop) and VirtuaWallpapersPlus (different wallpapers for each desktop). And now the alt-tab and win-tab issue is less of a problem since I spread out my programs on the relevant desktops and there is less to alt-tab!
posted by iliketothinknu at 5:23 AM on February 29, 2016

I used to use Switcher, which is a customizable Expose clone on Windows. I don't personally see the need for it any more, and am not 100% sure it works on Windows 10, but I really liked it on previous versions of Windows. Here's an article on Coding Horror about using Switcher.
posted by cnc at 9:47 AM on February 29, 2016

Response by poster: Thanks for the Switcher suggestion but I saw it's last update date was 2007 and thought by now there must be a lot of bugs, incompatibility. But its feature did intrigue me if there is some other program like it.
posted by iliketothinknu at 7:30 AM on March 1, 2016