Windows Confidential: What is preserved from Windows 3.0
“If I prohibit icons on the desktop from system policies, then the Task Manager starts to run by double-clicking on it. What miracles? ”
This is about the same discovery, which was made by one of my colleagues, who removed decorative panels in his old house and discovered a forgotten closet behind them. In the closet, he found several rarities from the Second World War, including an alcohol voucher with several broken cells. It is difficult to imagine what the coupon owner felt, who had forgotten him in the closet.
The closet hidden behind the Windows desktop is Program Manager, which has remained since Windows 3.0. The program manager allowed launching applications, but did not allow switching between them: there was no counterpart of the taskbar in it that displayed all running applications. To see the list of open windows, the user started Task Manager - by using the hot key Ctrl + Esc, or by double clicking on an empty space on the desktop.
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In addition to the ability to go to any of the open windows, Task Manager also allowed you to close applications, or to arrange windows — for example, in cascade. Task Manager was the only place in Windows that showed open windows at the same time: for example, Alt + Tab did not show icons for all windows, as in modern versions of Windows, but switched between them in order.
The taskbar that appeared in Windows 95 allowed you to see all open windows and switch between them at any time; Task Manager was no longer needed for this. In addition, minimized windows now lay down in the taskbar, and not on the desktop, as in Windows 3.0. From a place for minimized windows icons, the desktop has become a place for frequently used shortcuts.
The desktop in Windows 95 is a Explorer window, stretched to full screen, and located below the windows of all other programs. In this window, Explorer displays the contents of the Desktop folder. But under this “desktop” there is another one, a real desktop, which, as in Windows 3.0, belongs directly to the Windows subsystem. This is the window that the
The Windows 95 interface was so drastically different from the familiar Windows 3.1 Program Manager users that the developers left an “emergency exit”: those who could not get used to the new interface could continue to work with the Program Manager, with groups of icons instead of shortcuts, and launching Task Manager double click on the desktop. But the new interface turned out to be astonishingly successful, and no one needed an emergency exit. He remained just "in reserve."
Since the days of Windows 95, the desktop device has hardly changed: this is still the Explorer window, stretched to full screen and completely covers the system desktop. But if you enable the “Hide and disable all icons on the desktop” policy, then the Explorer window, the only purpose of which is to display icons, is no longer necessary; it disappears, and from under it becomes a real desktop. Double-clicking on this desktop, like twenty years ago, launches Task Manager - this puzzled the user who started the article. He removed the "decorative panels" of Explorer, and found under them the "old basement wall" - the system desktop, and in it the "forgotten closet" - not used for a long time, but still an effective way to launch the Task Manager.
If you want to turn off all the icons on the desktop, but do not want to show the user the old desktop, which unexpectedly responds to a double click, use other means. With policies such as Remove Basket Icon from Desktop, hide all standard icons, and then assign these permissions to the desktop folder so that users cannot create new shortcuts in it. Then the empty Explorer window will remain above the desktop, and close access to its “closet”.
Replacing the Task Manager, which you need to call every time, to the taskbar, which is always in sight, is the most noticeable improvement in the interface for switching between open applications. But, as already mentioned, the Alt + Tab interface has changed significantly in its history. In the first version of Windows, by pressing this key combination, the control simply switched to the next program. Minimized programs remained minimized even after switching to them; you had to unwrap them yourself after you let go of Alt. And there was no pop-up window that showed which program you were switching to.
In Windows 2.0, the Alt + Tab interface is one step closer to the one we use today. Switching between windows is now carried out in accordance with the Z-order, from the upper windows to the lower; and each press of Tab temporarily “lifted” the next window to the very top, so that you can see which program you are switching to. When you let go of the Alt, the “raised” window remains at the top; for example, if you had windows A, B, C and D, then after switching to window C, the order of windows becomes C, A, B, D.
A pop-up window appeared in Windows 3.0. It showed the icon and title of the next window; Now, to select the desired window and switch to it, the system did not have to “lift” and completely draw all the windows on the way to it. The selected window, as before, rose to the very top of the Z-order; but only after you let go of Alt. This new interface is called the “fast Alt + Tab”. A Windows 3.x user could choose between a “classic” and a “fast” interface; but one and all preferred the new interface. When the support of the old interface was secretly removed from Windows 95, hardly anyone noticed it, and certainly no one complained to us.
The following updates affected the Alt + Tab interface in Windows 95 and Windows Vista: first added rows of icons for all open windows, then the icons were replaced with live window thumbnails. Another little-known innovation is that you can click the icon or the sketch in the pop-up window to go directly to the desired window. All in order for the user to spend less time searching for the window and switching to it.
But as the Alt + Tab interface became overwhelmed with new trinkets, another hot key went into oblivion.
Starting from Windows 2.0, you could also use the Alt + Esc combination to switch between windows. Since then, its functionality has not changed at all.
Like Alt + Tab, the Alt + Esc combination passes through all open applications. The current window is transferred to the bottom of the Z-order, and control passes to the window that follows it. If the next window is minimized, it remains minimized. At first glance, this seems inconvenient, but in fact it allows you to quickly skip minimized applications without deploying them.
For example, if windows A, B, C and D are open, pressing Alt + Esc will send window A to the bottom, and the window order will become B, C, D, A. The next press will send window B to the bottom (we get C, D , A, b). If window B was minimized, then it will remain minimized; it turns out we switched from A to C without turning B.
Both combinations for switching between windows allow Shift to be added to change the order of switching to the reverse. Alt + Shift + Esc moves the bottommost window of the Z-order to the very top (but does not expand it). A pair of Alt + Esc / Alt + Shift + Esc combinations allows you to quickly switch between two open windows.
While all the attention was paid to the improvement of Alt + Tab, his younger brother Alt + Esc remained on the sidelines and only sobbed quietly that no one noticed him. But there is a positive side to this neglect: many developers try to create applications that “extend” the Alt + Tab interface; but nobody touches the functionality of Alt + Esc.
As a detector receiver in the event of a power failure, Alt + Esc can be vital when failures of "extensions" lead to the inoperability of Alt + Tab and the taskbar. If it seems that all the ways to switch between programs have stopped working, do not despair: remember the "alternate" Alt + Esc combination. She always works - because it doesn't occur to anyone to “improve” her work.
This is about the same discovery, which was made by one of my colleagues, who removed decorative panels in his old house and discovered a forgotten closet behind them. In the closet, he found several rarities from the Second World War, including an alcohol voucher with several broken cells. It is difficult to imagine what the coupon owner felt, who had forgotten him in the closet.
The closet hidden behind the Windows desktop is Program Manager, which has remained since Windows 3.0. The program manager allowed launching applications, but did not allow switching between them: there was no counterpart of the taskbar in it that displayed all running applications. To see the list of open windows, the user started Task Manager - by using the hot key Ctrl + Esc, or by double clicking on an empty space on the desktop.
')
In addition to the ability to go to any of the open windows, Task Manager also allowed you to close applications, or to arrange windows — for example, in cascade. Task Manager was the only place in Windows that showed open windows at the same time: for example, Alt + Tab did not show icons for all windows, as in modern versions of Windows, but switched between them in order.
The taskbar that appeared in Windows 95 allowed you to see all open windows and switch between them at any time; Task Manager was no longer needed for this. In addition, minimized windows now lay down in the taskbar, and not on the desktop, as in Windows 3.0. From a place for minimized windows icons, the desktop has become a place for frequently used shortcuts.
The desktop in Windows 95 is a Explorer window, stretched to full screen, and located below the windows of all other programs. In this window, Explorer displays the contents of the Desktop folder. But under this “desktop” there is another one, a real desktop, which, as in Windows 3.0, belongs directly to the Windows subsystem. This is the window that the
GetDesktopWindow function GetDesktopWindow . The user of Windows 95 has never seen this real desktop: he always hid under the Explorer window - just like a closet in the basement of my colleague, he hid for half a century under wooden panels.Changes are made gradually
The Windows 95 interface was so drastically different from the familiar Windows 3.1 Program Manager users that the developers left an “emergency exit”: those who could not get used to the new interface could continue to work with the Program Manager, with groups of icons instead of shortcuts, and launching Task Manager double click on the desktop. But the new interface turned out to be astonishingly successful, and no one needed an emergency exit. He remained just "in reserve."
Since the days of Windows 95, the desktop device has hardly changed: this is still the Explorer window, stretched to full screen and completely covers the system desktop. But if you enable the “Hide and disable all icons on the desktop” policy, then the Explorer window, the only purpose of which is to display icons, is no longer necessary; it disappears, and from under it becomes a real desktop. Double-clicking on this desktop, like twenty years ago, launches Task Manager - this puzzled the user who started the article. He removed the "decorative panels" of Explorer, and found under them the "old basement wall" - the system desktop, and in it the "forgotten closet" - not used for a long time, but still an effective way to launch the Task Manager.
If you want to turn off all the icons on the desktop, but do not want to show the user the old desktop, which unexpectedly responds to a double click, use other means. With policies such as Remove Basket Icon from Desktop, hide all standard icons, and then assign these permissions to the desktop folder so that users cannot create new shortcuts in it. Then the empty Explorer window will remain above the desktop, and close access to its “closet”.
Forgotten hot key
Replacing the Task Manager, which you need to call every time, to the taskbar, which is always in sight, is the most noticeable improvement in the interface for switching between open applications. But, as already mentioned, the Alt + Tab interface has changed significantly in its history. In the first version of Windows, by pressing this key combination, the control simply switched to the next program. Minimized programs remained minimized even after switching to them; you had to unwrap them yourself after you let go of Alt. And there was no pop-up window that showed which program you were switching to.
In Windows 2.0, the Alt + Tab interface is one step closer to the one we use today. Switching between windows is now carried out in accordance with the Z-order, from the upper windows to the lower; and each press of Tab temporarily “lifted” the next window to the very top, so that you can see which program you are switching to. When you let go of the Alt, the “raised” window remains at the top; for example, if you had windows A, B, C and D, then after switching to window C, the order of windows becomes C, A, B, D.
A pop-up window appeared in Windows 3.0. It showed the icon and title of the next window; Now, to select the desired window and switch to it, the system did not have to “lift” and completely draw all the windows on the way to it. The selected window, as before, rose to the very top of the Z-order; but only after you let go of Alt. This new interface is called the “fast Alt + Tab”. A Windows 3.x user could choose between a “classic” and a “fast” interface; but one and all preferred the new interface. When the support of the old interface was secretly removed from Windows 95, hardly anyone noticed it, and certainly no one complained to us.
The following updates affected the Alt + Tab interface in Windows 95 and Windows Vista: first added rows of icons for all open windows, then the icons were replaced with live window thumbnails. Another little-known innovation is that you can click the icon or the sketch in the pop-up window to go directly to the desired window. All in order for the user to spend less time searching for the window and switching to it.
But as the Alt + Tab interface became overwhelmed with new trinkets, another hot key went into oblivion.
Starting from Windows 2.0, you could also use the Alt + Esc combination to switch between windows. Since then, its functionality has not changed at all.
Like Alt + Tab, the Alt + Esc combination passes through all open applications. The current window is transferred to the bottom of the Z-order, and control passes to the window that follows it. If the next window is minimized, it remains minimized. At first glance, this seems inconvenient, but in fact it allows you to quickly skip minimized applications without deploying them.
For example, if windows A, B, C and D are open, pressing Alt + Esc will send window A to the bottom, and the window order will become B, C, D, A. The next press will send window B to the bottom (we get C, D , A, b). If window B was minimized, then it will remain minimized; it turns out we switched from A to C without turning B.
Both combinations for switching between windows allow Shift to be added to change the order of switching to the reverse. Alt + Shift + Esc moves the bottommost window of the Z-order to the very top (but does not expand it). A pair of Alt + Esc / Alt + Shift + Esc combinations allows you to quickly switch between two open windows.
While all the attention was paid to the improvement of Alt + Tab, his younger brother Alt + Esc remained on the sidelines and only sobbed quietly that no one noticed him. But there is a positive side to this neglect: many developers try to create applications that “extend” the Alt + Tab interface; but nobody touches the functionality of Alt + Esc.
As a detector receiver in the event of a power failure, Alt + Esc can be vital when failures of "extensions" lead to the inoperability of Alt + Tab and the taskbar. If it seems that all the ways to switch between programs have stopped working, do not despair: remember the "alternate" Alt + Esc combination. She always works - because it doesn't occur to anyone to “improve” her work.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/111439/
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