Get the Handy “Show Desktop” Feature Now
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November 3rd, 2010 written by Christoph in Styling
Without a doubt, that’s one of my personal favorite features of Windows 7: You can minimize all your open Windows and switch back to the desktop by simply swiping the mouse in the lower-right corner and clicking blindly. This is great when your screen is full of windows and you simply want to switch to the desktop to start a program. It’s also quite handy when you have e-mails or browser windows open which you don’t want your boss, your spouse, or anyone else to see. Unfortunately, Windows XP and Vista users don’t have this option, but they can enjoy the same benefit (more on this in a moment). First, let’s talk about Windows 7.
If you’re an avid multitasker, you probably have dozens of windows open at the same time, cluttering up your desktop. To quickly go to your desktop to, for example, launch a program, just hit the rectangular area!
Or Imagine this: you’re checking Facebook, personal websites, chatting with friends, or bidding on eBay at work, and all of a sudden, your boss comes walking through the room. Quickly, hide all of these windows!
Without even aiming, you move the mouse to the most lower-right corner of the screen, click on the transparent rectangular area, and…
…your desktop looks nice and clean again! All your windows are minimized within a second.
On Vista or XP, this feature doesn’t work quite as fast. To minimize all visible windows, Vista or XP users have to target the “Show Desktop” icon. If you’re quick with the mouse, this takes at least 2–3 seconds, but it can take even longer if you’re not a speedy mouse-clicker.
If you’re an XP or Vista user and would like the comfort and speed Windows 7 users enjoy when minimizing windows, there’s a way to get your hands on this “Aero Peek” nifty little feature. All you have to do is download WinShake.
Get WinShake
WinShake is a small, totally free tool that replicates “Aero Peek” on Windows Vista and XP. Download it, install it, and restart your PC. Upon downloading, you will notice a new icon.
Right-click on the icon and click on “Enable PeekTopX” and select “QuickPeek/Fast.” This will make hiding windows much faster. After following these steps, you will have the following option:
- Move the mouse cursor over the lower right-hand corner. This will make all windows fully transparent—the content is hidden, and only the outline of the windows is still there as long as you keep the cursor on the “WinShake” spot right next to your clock.
- Then click with the middle mouse-button on the lower right-hand corner. This will minimize all open windows.
Easy, isn’t it?
Warning to all readers: During our research, we found a handful of programs that replicate “Aero Peek,” besides WinShake. One of these tools,”7Peek”, triggered a virus alert. During our testing, the ESET NOD32 virus scanner detected a threat from this tool, which has been confirmed by our colleagues at IntoWindows. While this is probably a false alarm, as 25 other virus scanners didn’t detect anything and marked the file as clean, we advise you to be careful and use WinShake instead.
November 7, 2010 at 10:37 pm
Although Aero Peek is arguably a modern marvel and I certainly don’t begrudge anyone its use, begging the question is the article’s premise that any Windows user needs to access his desktop.
Microsoft’s move to the GUI introduced the Program Manager in 3.1, where icons rather than the DOS command line, are used to launch programs. But with the advent of the Taskbar in Windows 95, users were offered a superior design model for starting applications. The Start button was a good start, but the designers’ vision of overturning the prior absolutely inelegant model wasn’t fully realized until the introduction of toolbars for and on the Taskbar. Born alongside this revolutionary advancement however, was the metaphor of the desktop, which unfortunately but hopefully unwittingly, served to undermine this wonderful productivity enhancement. For after all, what is the desktop other than a glorified Program Manager without window borders, and wasn’t the whole point of the Taskbar a means to wean users off of it? Yet fifteen years later, hundreds of millions of users still act as though nothing has changed in the interface since Win 3.1! Keep in mind that one of those little toolbars on the Taskbar, other than Quick Launch, is the Desktop toolbar, which contains every single icon on the desktop and allows access to favorite programs with nary a concern about open windows. A few years ago I witnessed a shift manager, in a data center no less, painstakingly minimize every single open window just to bring the desktop into view so she could launch a program. And just the other day while trying to get my brother to log into his web e-mail, I caught him minimizing windows on my Win 7 box for who knows what? Granted, neither of these users have bothered to spend even one minute trying to learn the OS, but why are they 3.1′ing, as it were, as if the absolutely useless desktop still holds sway? Sit back and take a moment now, and try to imagine how many billions of man-hours have been wasted over the last fifteen years engaged in such nonsense!
But rather than suffer a quiet but dignified death, as anemic as it is, the desktop lingers on. Now obviously, something has to occupy all of that real estate, but other than a welcome screen to house pictures or secure privacy from prying eyes, how could it still challenge the ascendency of the Taskbar? Several factors come to mind, not least of which is the designers seemingly continued insistence on promoting the inferior model, through default settings and obscure workarounds. Most insidious though, is the fact that icons still reside on the desktop! This glaringly ridiculous default (or as I like to refer to it here, da fault!) traps the user into believing that the desktop, rather than the Taskbar or even the command line for that matter, should be used as a program launcher. With the advent of the new and improved program invoker in Windows 95, had icons been permanently removed, especially after Taskbar toolbars were invented, the issue would be academic. And of course, if you want your desktop pictures to display unsullied, merely hide the icon clutter with a couple of clicks. But by far and away the biggest advantage of using this feature is to wean yourself off of ever using these icons again, which by the way are almost always hiding under an application’s window. Unfortunately, the default is to show rather than hide these time wasters. Furthermore, the confusing and obscure way in which Taskbar toolbars were rolled out, where the OS was enhanced through an upgrade of Internet Explorer for crying out loud, certainly contributed to the confusion, and had Microsoft been less intent on killing off rival Netscape and more concerned about its users’ interests by adding the biggest advance ever to its interface through an upgrade proper, much distress could have been avoided, not to mention a lawsuit here and there! But that’s another story entirely. By the way, if a user truly thinks he has to use a desktop icon, he can easily display it with a quick click of the precursor to Aero Peek/Show, namely the Show Desktop button on the Taskbar, not to mention the keyboard shortcut of Win key + M. Nevertheless, if a Windows user would just learn to use his Taskbars efficiently, and especially the Desktop toolbar therein, the only time he would ever be looking at the desktop would be upon login. Which brings up another useless feature: the Minimize button. What’s the point?
To be fair, Microsoft has finally overcome its original design flaw with the advent of the Superbar in Windows 7. Now and definitively, users can truly dispense with the notion of disregarding and forsaking the Taskbar for its inferior cousin. Just pin your apps to it, and better yet, use their jumplists to open not only the app, but whatever file it hosts rather than the other way around like in the old days. Perfect! And don’t forget, even Explorer, a permanent fixture on the Superbar, has its own jumplist as well, so gone are the days of drilling down to a folder using its navigation tree! Well, at least some of the time, or until I can figure out how the list is populated. Hell, even Control Panel has its own jumplist, so why open the default view when you can invoke the settings window or properties sheet directly? By the way, pinning is available here as well. Upgrade, anyone?
November 8, 2010 at 5:02 pm
Apachegila, fantastic write-up. I agree, the desktop has been de-emphasized in the past couple of years: By default, Windows 7 shows only 1 icon on the desktop. And that’s Recycle Bin. You see, it’s neither Microsofts nor Windows’ fault that users keep switching back to the desktop. It’s the hardware manufacturers (OEMs) and the software you install that put shortcuts on your desktop, thus forcing or at least luring users to use the desktop rather than the taskbar.
On the other hand, I’d like to bring another point into the conversation: Imagine a typical netbook or a 2-3 year old monitor with resolutions starting at 1280×800 and ending at 1440×900. The taskbar itself would be totally filled up and cluttered by 15-20 applications. Not everyone has infinite space in the taskbar to put all favorite programs and games in there – I myself have 31 icons on the desktop that I use regularly. Also, I have 10 of my MOST favorite apps in the taskbar. If I were to put everything in the taskbar, I’m not sure it would a) fit perfectly and especially b) wouldn’t clutter everything up, thus adding more confusion to the task switching thing.
I think, for better or worse, the desktop has not yet been discontinued and probably won’t be for quite a while. People are used to launch their applications that way and I know many who think it’s THE most comfortable way to launch applications – I guess this article is especially for folks who can’t or aren’t willing to upgrade to Windows 7 and who want something more effective than XPs or Vistas “Show Desktop” icon.
But your point is taken: “Sit back and take a moment now, and try to imagine how many billions of man-hours have been wasted over the last fifteen years engaged in such nonsense!”. I agree, if you count the seconds it takes for all Windows users (worldwide) to minimize their windows and launch applications, it would amount to an incredible HUGE number, obviously. Let’s see what Microsoft comes up with in Windows 8. Recently, Balmer said Windows 8 would be their “Biggest bet” – would that mean a radical change in the UI? No one knows for sure.
I also suggest you check out the Engineering 7 blog which gives you a lot of insights into how the UI of 7 came to be. For example, the taskbar: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/e7/archive/2008/09/23/user-interface-starting-launching-and-switching.aspx.
Looking forward to reading your thoughts,
Best, Alexandra