Win key + V in Windows 10/11 is a must if you copy and paste often.

It shows your clipboard history which is great.

Only downside is passwords and you copy from a password manager, for example. Be careful if sharing your screen with others or surrounded by others or just cautious of the fact that the password is there in plain text to anything in the OS.

Not many people seem to know about it but it’s extremely helpful especially when doing repetitive tasks.

Constantly, I don’t use desktop icons so I am always pressing Win then typing the first 6 letters of the program that I want and hitting enter. I know wintab and winenter search programs exist, but for what I use it for the default one is fine and it is one less program constantly running in the background

Turns out, yes, everyone does use this key. A lot.

Definitely! Win-Tab (properly called Meta-Tab) is used to switch activities in KDE Plasma. With this simple key combination, I gain another 15 virtual desktops.

I don’t ever use the start menu for anything. I can’t be bothered to look through that mess.

Instead I press the windows key and type the first few letters of whatever I need, unless it’s already stickied to the bar. It’s fewer key presses than clicking through the start menu. I suppose that still counts as opening the start menu, even if I don’t use the actual menu structure.

I also use the windows + arrow keys to toss windows around the multiple screens. It has a lot of other purposes, like creating extra desktops etc, which I admittedly never use.

It’s a useful button for sure, but it does get a little overwhelming when combined with shift ctrl or alt . I can’t possibly remember all the uses, but I have the most commonly used on muscle memory.

but I got to wondering if anyone, ever actually uses it to access the start menu.

Yes definitely. Try pressing the Windows key and type the first few letters of the app name you’re looking for, it’s way way faster than mousing around clicking and scrolling through the Start Menu.

Also Windows key + E to open the file explorer gets used a lot. And windows key + L to lock the screen, I do that one a lot when walking away from the desktop at work.

Hell yes. I’m not taking the time go move my hand to the mouse, find the cursor with my eyes, move the mouse and then move hands back to type. That’s asinine.

I used to use Super to open the application selector menu thing (similar to the start menu on my system). But I recently tweaked my keyboard shortcuts to add a bunch of ones using Super for application switching and stuff, so rebound it to Super+w.

Not here. I don’t use Windows and so I rebind the Win key (or, Super) for some quick functions.

Win + L to lock the screen
Win + K to blank it
Win + C for my calculator app
Win + T (and Ctrl+Shift+T) for a Terminal
Win + Left/Right arrow to cycle to the previous/next desktop

Bonus fun, I rebind the Right Alt key to a Compose key for typing Latin-1 diacritics in non UTF-8 applications. (Plus, I can’t remember the U-codes)

I use it for shortcuts in my linux

Yes I do.

🪟 + ⬅️/➡️/⬇️/⬆️ snaps windows into tiles on your screen or maximize/minimizes them.

🪟 + shift + S is the shortcut for the ‘new’ snipping tool

Sure, 🪟 alone opens and closes the start menu, but when opens opened, your curser is already the search bar so if you want to quickly open an app, it’s just: 🪟, first few letters of the app, Enter

I don’t use it as much, but: Ctrl +🪟 + ⬅️/➡️ cycles you through virtual desktops

All the time, both on Windows and KDE Plasma. It’s especially convenient for starting an app you don’t have pinned to your taskbar, just press the Windows key and then type the name of the app.

to shut down because its just windows, up, down, enter

all keyboard

also for the snipping tool

I use it with the arrow keys fairly often to snap apps to sections of the screen.

Some terrible keyboards put it where alt should be and those should be burned.

Hey buddy, do you want to try some of this GNU/Linux?