Super Awesome Blog

I have a love/hate relationship with modifying Windows.  I do it enough you’d think I had the ideal system to my needs, yet I’m constantly looking for new little add ons, enhancements, etc., that make my relativly boring tasks on the computer just that much better.

I run Vista, and one of the things that’s always bugged me is the Win-Tab and uninspired Alt-Tab functionality.  Vista’s default Alt-Tab is a very boring view of each windows contents with a glass border around it.  I demand way more flash when I alt tab, which Win-Tab kind of provides, but something was still missing.

How-To-Geek posted a great find that helped fill my eye candy and functionality gap: Switcher for Windows Vista.  Switcher is highly customizable, both with hot key behavior and with window displays, size, speed, and more. I find the style shown here on the right to be the most useful, but if you prefer you can custmize it to your hearts content. I replaced Alt-Tab entirely, and set CapsLock+Tab to show the previous window, but again you can set any hot keys you like.

The only problem I’ve found is if you use an application (like winamp in classic view) that has many component windows that are all docked together Switcher treats each as its own window, creating a messy and unapealing apperance.

Depending on your computers muscle power Switcher will either run smooth or choppy… with all the bells and whistles Switcher runs great on my computer, which runs Aero just fine.  I suspect older computers that run Vista (people do this?) could use Switcher with some of the fancy effects turn off and look just fine.

Thanks again to the How-to-Geek for the find!

5 Stars Out of 5 (SUPER AWESOME)