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Basic Exposé Functionality in Windows XP

I switch back and forth between OSX and Windows XP fairly often and usually I don’t have a problem getting them confused. However tonight I was on XP and decided I wanted to see my desktop. If you are OSX user your middle finger naturally slides up to the F11 key to take advantage of Exposé. I did this and felt pretty dumb when nothing happened! So I thought I should take a look online for a program that will give me Exposé functionality in XP. There are a few programs out there to handle the job but I came up with a quick fix to my problem that involves no third party software.

  1. Make a shortcut to the “Show Desktop” button that you will find in your quick launch bar.
    You can do this by dragging the icon from your quick launch bar onto your desktop while holding the ALT key.
  2. Right click on the new shortcut and go to properties.
  3. Click into the Shortcut Key box and press your F11 key (or another rarely used key).
  4. Apply the changes and you should be set!

I don’t usually use F9 and F10 in OSX so this pretty much does exactly what I need!

This entry was posted on Monday, September 18th, 2006 at 10:41 pm and is filed under Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “Basic Exposé Functionality in Windows XP”

  1. All hail Ryan !!! OOOO AAAAHHHHHH OOOOO AAAAHHHH

  2. “If you are OSX user your middle finger”
    so true.

  3. Press Winkey + M to minimize all. Press Winkey + D to show desktop (force some things to minimize if they resist). Winkey + Shift + M will bring stuff back.

  4. I know that this is an old article, but for the sake of those directed here by a search:

    1.) I don’t believe that you do not need to create a copy of the “Show Desktop” shortcut, you can just right click the one in the Quick Launch bar and edit its properties.

    2.) You can already use Windows+D to toggle between the desktop and your present layout of windows. Windows+M is a one-way command to minimize all windows, and Windows+Shift+M is a one-way command to restore windows that were just minimized. However, pressing Windows+M twice will clear whatever memory was being used to store your previous layout of windows.

    3.) Exposé, as demonstrated by Apple in 2003, involves quite a bit more than just a “Show Desktop” function.

    I might be getting picky here, but I think it’s a bit cheeky to call “Show Desktop” “Basic Exposé Functionality” (and I’m a Windows user, not a Mac user). I understand not wanting to clutter a system with 3rd party applications, but sometimes it’s either that, beg a company to create an application, write the application yourself, or live without the functionality that you’re looking for.

    If you want something closer to true Exposé functionality in XP for free, try either of these:iExShock Aero 3D

    Phew, I think I covered everything that I wanted to say.

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