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Alt-Tab Rotation Order

Wolfie2K3 13th Feb 2009

I don't know if they fixed this in Vista but Alt-Tab in Windows always bothered me because multiple windows for each application got a spot in the switch bar without there being any identification. The rotation scheme seemed counter-intuitive to me, also.

Alt-Tab in Vista (and Win 7) shows a thumbnail sized image of the app in question with the icon belonging to the app in the bottom right corner. XP showed only the icon with the title of the window in the bottom part of the alt-tab bar. I can see the potential for confusion, though... If you open two copies of Word or Excel and have started two brand new documents (document1.doc or book1.xls), both windows will be called the same thing. IE or Firefox is a bit less confusing - it will list the primary domain for the site you're visiting.

Alt-Tab order isn't too confusing. The most recently used app is on the left-most side. The least used or minimized app is on the right-most side. The 2nd icon is the one you used just before the currently focused window.

If you minimize the current window, it will go toward the back end of the stack. Makes sense... No..?