The Best New Windows 7 Keyboard Shortcuts

No matter what OS you use, keyboard shortcuts are a one-way ticket to enhanced productivity (plus you look awesome to friends and colleagues); Windows 7 has more cool new shortcuts than you can shake a stick at.

Windows 7 boasts a lot of great new shortcuts, but I'm focusing on several of my favorites. Check out the video above for a closer look. For those of you who prefer text to video, here are all of the shortcuts I highlighted:


Win+Home: Clear all but the active window
Win+Space: All windows become transparent so you can see through to the desktop
Win+Up arrow: Maximize the active window
Win+Down arrow: Minimize the window/Restore the window if it's maximized
Win+Left/Right arrows: Dock the window to each side of the monitor (If you've got dual monitors, adding Shift to the mix (e.g., Win+Shift+Right arrow) will move the window to the adjacent monitor.)
Win+T: Focus and scroll through items on the taskbar.
Win+P: Adjust presentation settings for your display
Win+(+/-): Zoom in/out
Shift+Click a taskbar item: Open a new instance of that application

Got a favorite shortcut of your own now that you've installed the Windows 7 Beta? Let's hear about it in the comments. (Apologies for the poor video quality... tried something new, but clearly it didn't work out.)

Windows 7 Shortcuts Enables the Best Win7 Shortcuts in XP or Vista

Windows only: If you like the look of Windows 7's great new keyboard shortcuts but aren't planning to upgrade for a while, Windows 7 Shortcuts enables some of the best Win7 shortcuts for XP and Vista.

Windows 7 Shortcuts was submitted by Lifehacker reader Rupert and was written in one of our favorite scripting languages, AutoHotkey. Right now, Windows 7 Shortcuts supports the following keyboard shortcuts:

Included:
Win+Left/Right arrows: Dock the window to each side of the monitor
Win+Up arrow: Maximize the active window
Win+Down arrow: Minimize the window/Restore the window if it's maximized

Partially Included
Win+Space: Note from the developer: AHK won't allow multiple windows to be made transparent easily. Therefore, I've changed it to make the active window transparent until it is released.

If you're an AHK user, you can grab the source and paste it into the script you use daily. If not, download the EXE by clicking the Download link above.

Windows 7 Shortcuts is a free download, Windows only.