is there a way to attach a couple of hotkeys to show my desktop right away? Similar to the alt-f4 to close? I need it because most of the time, I’m not supposed to be on this, so when my boss comes around, it would be nice to be able to hit alt-f5 or something to show the desktop. Anyway, so is there a way to attach a key function to the desktop?
Better to just alt-tab to something you’re supposed to be working on. It probably doesn’t help much if every time your boss walks by, you’re just sitting there staring at an empty screen. Open up a Word doc or something and then alt-tab to your browser.
I’ll do you one better… go to http://www.panicware.com. This nifty little program iconizes down and hides all desktop applications with a simple tap of the ctrl and spacebar and leaves only one open program that you specify. And, you can hide the icon in you start up tray. It also has a lot of other great features to cover your “trail” at work. I use it all the time and it works like a charm. I have set Outlook as my default program that it goes to when I hit the Ctrl/Spacebar. It’s a nice feature if you want to walk away from your desk for a few minutes but don’t want to close everything down. When you want to bring all your programs back up you just hit Ctrl/Backspace. Man… I feel so sneaky.
If you have windows keys on your keyboard. Window + M will do this.
That works, but it does not actually make the applications disappear from the task bar like Panic does. I think ** Chekmate ** was looking for something to hide what he was doing. With Panic, they actually disappear and can’t be seen unless you hit the Ctrl/Backspace. When I walk away from my desk I may have 5 applications up and running but if I hit my Panic buttons, the only icon that shows on the task bar is Outlook, the program I specified to default to. So if my boss were to sit down at my desk, he would never know what was running in the background.
Hitting WindowKey+E will start up Windows Explorer. 