XP and Vista: Tile, Cascade, or Minimize Windows

Posted by David Kirk in Windows

This recipe descibes the easiest way to tile and cascade windows. The CTRL key can be used to select several windows at once.

Cascading and tiling windows has been around forever. Most people know that right-clicking on the taskbar will open a menu that allows the windows to manipulated. Usually, however, this will change the view of all windows. If you are like me and have 10 windows open at all time, this is not very helpful.

We can use the CTRL key to select just the windows we want.

1. Hold the CTRL key and click each taskbar button corresponding to the windows that you want to manipulate.
– The selected taskbar buttons will be depressed
2. Right-click on one of the selected taskbar buttons which will open a pop-up window
3. Select whenever action you wish.

In XP the options will be the following: title, cascade, or close.

In Vista the options will be the following: cascade, show windows stacked, show windows side by side, minimize group, or close group.

The selected windows and only the selected windows will be affected.

About David Kirk

David Kirk is one of the original founders of tech-recipes and is currently serving as editor-in-chief. Not only has he been crafting tutorials for over ten years, but in his other life he also enjoys taking care of critically ill patients as an ICU physician.
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5 Responses to “XP and Vista: Tile, Cascade, or Minimize Windows”

September 14, 2009 at 6:04 am, Anonymous said:

Unbelievable. I’ve been using windows for 17 years, and XP since it came out and now Vista for the last year and NOW, AT LAST I know how to do this. I am so sad to find out now.

Better late than never (I think) …

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December 04, 2009 at 4:08 am, Lucas said:

Not a bad tip, but users be warned: if you tile this way (selecting applications using the CTRL key), you aren’t given an Undo Tile option like you are when right-clicking from the task bar. If you have windows sized just so, they won’t be, after the upheaval of tiling, when an undo function would be handy.

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February 28, 2010 at 10:28 pm, Anonymous said:

Cool. Thanks.

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August 30, 2010 at 10:58 pm, Tinamcgeorge said:

I have home edition of windows vista an when I right click to show my windows in cascade , side by side, or stacked there’s no option. What do I do I’ve got macafee seceruity an maybe I didn’t set up something right. Can u help me??

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August 05, 2011 at 5:22 am, Maheen Shaiq said:

I hate XP and I’m used to Windows 7 being so simple. Thank you sooo much for simplifying this for me!

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