Hi all,

Many of us will use Alt+Tab key combination to switch betwwn all those opened windows! But it may be confusing if there are same types of program windows opened already!( I mean more than one instances )

Microsoft became aware of this draw-back after releasing the XP operating system and subsequently released a "Power Toy" named: Task Switcher (Alt-Tab Replacement) to resolve this issue. The Power Toy resolves this issue by replacing the program icons with actual screenshots of your open windows. This way you can easily locate the window you wish to switch to, that is immensely useful for eg: when navigating between several notepad windows at one time.

Here is the screenshot of the key combination Alt+Tab after installing the power toy!



Here are the instructions to install:

• Copy http://download.microsoft.com/download/whi...wertoySetup.exe to browser
• Choose "Run" from pop-up dialog box
• Choose "Run" a second time, this will kick-off the installation of the Power Toy
• Once you get the "Installation Complete" dialog, the toy is successfully installed. No need to reboot your PC.

You can get Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP from here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloa...ppowertoys.mspx

Luv,
Niran

I have been using this same powertoy on my PC for a few months now and it is super helpful when you have many folders, software and files open. This is just another reason why you don't need to upgrade your computer to Vista . I recommended this to anyone that has a Windows XP PC and as this is a powertoy by Microsoft, you can be certain it is virus-free

I have used that one before, but I think TaskSwitchXP is a little cleaner and looks better. It maybe has a few more options for the user too. http://www.ntwind.com/software/taskswitchxp.html

Hi all,

I recently installed the Vista Task-Switching Power Toy and I want to get rid of it!!

When I alt-tab, I can see the preview of the window fine. Sweet.

Oh wait; a fat lot of good that does if it won't show me any icons!!

This is what my alt-tab looks like:



No icons.

Is this the normal Task Switcher for Vista?
If yes, then they made a big mistake and I want to revert back to the XP version.
If no, how can I fix it? What do I need to install/uninstall?

This post has been edited by XxDangerxX: Feb 24 2008, 06:08 AM

Cool, thanks for the link. I think I had seen something like this for Vista, but I was not aware that anything was available for XP.

The odd thing about it is that it's picked up a few applications that I had running in the system tray that were not previously in the alt+tab applications list.

I remember when the ALT-Tab powertoy came out for XP in the first place...nobody liked it because it turned the simple, quick alt-tab into something you had to wait for.

Microsoft needs to either make it simple and instant again or just get rid of it.

So then, no-one's got a solution to my problem then?

Wait...Alt+Tab is a useful key combination? *tries* ...why has no one informed me of this before? Heck, even without this powertoy thing (which I'll almost certainly end up downloading shortly) I can tell it's going to be damned useful. A big thanks for pointing this one out to me.

If you can't uninstall it with the 'Add and Remove Progams' in the control panel, you might have to use another program like TweakXP, or another 3rd party utility like CCleaner to uninstall it an remove traces of it from your PC and registry. Hope it works for you.

levimage

I used to use this when I "vista-ized" my computer. It is in a way similar to the GNOME user interface thing. However, I uninstalled it a few months ago because it was extremely slow if you have a program that hangs or if you have task manager open.

But still, it is an improvement to the alt-tab thing in Windows XP.