What is the very first keyboard action you perform when you sit in front of a Windows PC for the first time? I know, you immediately reach for the mouse, right? I invariably first hit Winkey+Pause, which I consider a psychological pause before getting down to work. Note that this key combination is sometimes (wrongly) called Winkey+Break, so you may think about "breaking into" the computer as the very first thing you want to do. Regardless of what association you prefer to use, press and hold the Winkey ("Windows logo key" or "Start key") and then hit the Pause/Break key on a standard full-size keyboard.
(Note that as PC keyboards "evolve" on laptops, the Pause key becomes increasingly hard to locate and use, and may even disappear altogether.)
Winkey+Pause, when executed correctly, will bring up a very clear popup (the System Properties applet, technically speaking). I'm often asked to look at a problem on a machine I don't own and thus need to know what is actually inside, and this is the fastest way there is, trust me. Asking the user is not necessary (or reliable) since this popup will tell your the essentials: which version of the Windows operating system is running, how much memory is installed, and which CPU is under the hood.
I can also learn who the real owner is, or should be. If the machine is behaving in strange ways, I normally go into the Hardware tab and check if any devices have alerts next to their name.
If you are viewing this page from a Windows PC, hit Winkey+Pause now and see if what you get is what you expected. (Note that on Vista and 7 the System Properties applet looks a bit different, but what matters is that the key combination Winkey+Pause has been preserved!) For example, you may find out that you have not applied the latest service pack on this machine, or that only half of the memory you paid for is detected. If everything is OK, just hit Escape to close the popup, or explore other tabs to learn more about this machine's configuration.
Of course, the popup you see is nothing other than the System Properties applet that you obtain (on Windows XP/English, in this case) by clicking Start, Settings, Control Panel, System, but there is no reason that you should ever go down this path again when you can achieve the same result in half a second. Even more so since, as the Windows user interface (UI) keeps getting "improved", the above navigation is guaranteed to stop working due to changes in names and/or locations. On the other hand, it is hard to imagine that Microsoft would phase out or reassign Winkey+Pause shortcut to something else. Once again, learning a keyboard shortcut is a long-term investment and a time saver. In addition, standard Windows keyboard shortcuts work as expected across all language variants and are life-savers when you sit in front of a PC whose user interface is in a language you don't know.
"It does not work on my laptop", you might say. All laptops I've seen have the Pause key somewhere, either by itself or sharing a key cap with the Break or some other function . The trick is making sure you are actually hitting Winkey+Pause and not some other combination! This article will help you resolve any problems you may be having.
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Why does my keyboard have two Windows logo keys, one on each side of the space bar?
ReplyDeleteCtrl and Alt also appear twice, but it's hard to find out how often they are used, even by keyboard freaks. Microsoft probably imagined that the right Winkey was a good idea, but even the one on the left is ignored by, what, 95% of the user population?
ReplyDeleteAll desktop keyboards have two Winkeys, but the three laptops I have at home just have one.