Keyboard shortcuts are of great help in boosting your efficiency at workplace and for personal experience as well. You can use various keys and key-combination for accomplishing the tasks which you normally perform with the help of mouse. Become a keyboard savvy and master the keyboard shortcuts to avoid shuffling between the mouse and the keyboard. Here are some of the most common keyboard shortcuts which everyone must know.

Note: The beauty is not in memorizing these keyboard shortcuts but in consciously making an effort to bring them to use in daily life.

Keyboard Shortcuts Specific To Windows 7

1. Win+T: Brings focus  to the first item in the taskbar and cycles through each item when pressed in succession.
2. Win+(1-9): Switches to the window at the specified position (placement on the taskbar) in the range of 1 to 9.
3. Win+Arrows: Cycles through the window arrangements — Win+Left moves the window to the left, Win+Right moves the window to the right, Win+Up for maximizing the window and Win+Down minimizes the window.
4. Win+Spacebar: Keyboard shortcut for aero peek  — hold the key combination to reveal the desktop.
5. Alt+P:Enables you to show/hide the preview pane in Windows Explorer.
6. Win++/Win+-: Allow you to zoom-in and zoom-out respectively. It also opens up a magnifier application which allows you to select the view (full screen zooming, lens magnification, docked zoom) and change the default zoom scale.

Keyboard Shortcuts For Generic Windows

1. Alt+Tab: Switches to other windows/running programs and brings the focus to the window you pause at.
2. Win+Tab: Cycles through all the open windows in card-layout format.
3. Win or Ctrl+Esc: View Start Menu.
4. Win+M/Win+D: Minimizes all the windows at one keystroke.
5. Shift+Win+M: Maximizes the recently minimized window.
6. Win+L: To lock the computer.
7. Win+R: To open the Run dialog.
8. Win+E: To open the Explorer.
9. Win+F: For searching and finding files and folders.
10. Win+F1: Launches Windows help.
11. Ctrl+Shift+Esc: Opens up Windows Task Manager.
12. Alt+Spacebar: Opens the system menu to provide the options for windows to restore, minimize, maximize, move, re-size and close. Select the option and manually control the sizing and movement of Windows with arrow keys.
13. Alt+F4: Closes or quits the window in focus. Press it in succession for closing all the windows and running programs.
14. Alt or F10: Toggles activation of menu-bar options.
15. Formatting Shortcuts: Cut, copy, paste in Windows with Ctrl+X, Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V respectively. Use Ctrl+Z for undo and Ctrl+B, Ctrl+I, Ctrl+U for bold, italic and underline text respectively.

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