Summary
Keyboard shortcuts are wonderful tools to know. Windows now has two different shortcuts that can close programs for you: Alt+F4 and Ctrl+W. Here’s an explanation of how these came to be and when they don’t do the same thing.
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Transcript
If you’re like me, you probably move the mouse to the upper right corner in order to close a program in Windows. However, if your hands are on the keyboard and not the mouse, there’s two shortcuts that you can use to close programs without needing to switch to the mouse. Here’s what they are and when they don’t do the same thing.
For Personal Tech Media, this is Two Minute Tech. I’m Jim Herman.
For as long as I’ve been using a Windows computer (and I started with Windows 3.1), using Alt-F4 would close a program. When using Alt-F4, you don’t need to worry about saving your work first. The program will ask if you want to keep the file before it shuts down.
However, more recently, Ctrl-W can also shut down most programs. Like the Alt-F4 shortcut, you will receive a prompt to save any unsaved work before the program closes.
Now, you might wonder why there would be two different commands that do essentially the same thing. Well, there are two significant differences in the way these shortcuts work.
First, when you’re on the desktop, pressing Alt-F4 will bring up a dialog box to shut down the computer. Ctrl-W will not shut down the system. So if you’re trying to close all your programs and shut down, using Alt-F4 would be a quicker option.
Second, in a program that uses tabs like a web browser, Ctrl-W will typically only close the current tab, while Alt-F4 will close everything. When only one tab is open, pressing Ctrl-W could close the entire program, or it could take you back to a home screen. That behavior will typically depend on which program you’re using.