Last week in Part 4 of Windows 10 Tips we checked out the Task Manager and specifically the Startup tab. You should note there are other places in there that you may find beneficial if you like to “check things out.” Remember if you see something there and wonder what it is or does you always have Google as your second brain…at least it is mine. Then we found about the Alt+F4 key combo and the F1 key functions.
Have you ever been on a large web page reading away, finishing it, and wanting to find a specific “thing” you were reading about earlier but could not remember where it was? Here is one of the best short cuts I know and I use all the time. “Ctrl + F”, no F# key, just “F”. “F” in this case stands for Find and it will find the words or whatever you are looking for on most any type of document. It can be in a Word file, PDF, webpage, etc. As long as you spell it the same way that is it on the page you can find it. Many types of documents will highlight all the occurrences of the work, phrase or letter/number sequence that appear on the page so you can check them all.
The last of the Windows short cut keys I will leave you with today is an application specific shortcut that works in most all applications in Windows. That is the “Ctrl + S” in this, the “S” stands for save…not Spellcheck (try F7 for that one with many but not all apps). If you are working in a documents related app like Word, and Google Doc files when you press Ctrl + S the file will be saved. If you have not already saved the file and given it a name it will go to the Save As window and let you take care of naming it, but after that it will very quickly save the file.
If you are interested in additional shortcuts for your computer, check out the list of shortcuts for Windows 10 (and other versions) at Microsoft.com at dblclx.com/W10Shortcuts, shown below.
Last for Windows tips is that you should update the operating system when it offers. If you have not noticed it update in the past month or so you should manually check to see if it needs an update. A manual update is quite simple to start. After your computer has been up and running for five or ten minutes click on the Windows Start Menu button and type “windows update.” You will see it pop up with a symbol of two round arrows chasing each other…click it. After the windows opens you will most likely be presented with one of two choices. First, will be a link that indicates “Check for updates” and if that is not there you will have a list of updates that it is waiting to install. If there is another button saying you should press it to continue the installation, go for it. However, most of the time they will have already started downloading and/or installing by itself and you can just go about using your computer as your normally would.
