Windows XP Home Edition: The Missing Manual

Switching Programs

In these days where 128 or 256-megabyte RAM installations are common, it’s the rare PC user who doesn’t regularly run several programs simultaneously.

The key to juggling open programs is the taskbar (Figure 6-1). As explained in Chapter 3, the taskbar also offers controls for arranging all the windows on your screen, closing them via the shortcut menu, and so on.

Figure 6-1. Bottom: The darkest taskbar button tells you which program is active. Top: Press Alt+Tab to highlight successive icons in the application list. When you release the key, the highlighted program jumps to the front.

To bring a different program to the front, you can use any of these four tricks:

• Use the taskbar. Clicking a button on the taskbar makes the corresponding program pop to the front, along with any of its floating toolbars, palettes, and so on.

  If you see a parenthetical number on a taskbar button, however, then button grouping is under way (page 92). In that case, clicking the taskbar button doesn’t bring the program’s windows forward. You must actually click a selection in the taskbar button’s menu of open windows.

• Click the window. You can also switch to another program by clicking any part of its window that’s visible in the background.

• The relaunch technique. Repeat the technique you used to initially launch the program (choose its name from the Start→All Programs menu, for example). ...