subject: Make Windows Behave Like a Apple MAC [print this page] Multitasking is an important feature of modern computing, and one of the most confusing. With umpteen windows stacked on top of one another, it's easy to lose track of what you're doing. Windows 7 has some new features to help, and since Vista we've had Flip 3D, which fans out all your open windows so you can riffle through them.
Apple users, however, reckon they've got the best solution with Expos, a feature of Mac OS X that shows everything arranged flat, making it easy to spot what you want at a glance. To get similar functionality in Windows, you'll need a third-party add-on such as DEXposE2. This is free to download, and although designed for Vista it works in Windows 7, too. It doesn't cope with dualmonitor set-ups, though, so anyone using two screens should steer clear.
visit Google in your web browser do a seach and click Download Now and save the file to your desktop. Double-click the download to install the program. When it's done, it will launch automatically and a new icon will appear in the system tray at the bottom right of the screen. You don't actually need to use the icon, though, because by default DExposE2 is activated using function keys. Open a selection of applications and hit the F9 key on your keyboard. Doing so turns a cluttered desktop. Into a nice set of tile shaped screen shots of each open window.
Each open window is scaled down so they all fit side by side. To select the one you're interested in, simply click it. Alternatively, click elsewhere or press F9 again or Esc to return to normal.
If this is too busy for your liking, press F10 to show only the windows belonging to the current application. For example, if we have three internet Explorer windows open, so when one of these is selected, hitting F10 gives the result of only tiling the internet Explorer windows. Moving the mouse over a window pops up a caption listing the application and window title. You can't interact with the window previews, but they stay live, with videos continuing to play.
Click Start, All Programs, DEXposE2, Settings to view its preferences, or simply double-click the icon in the System Tray. In the Behaviour pane you can specify your own hotkeys if you use F9 and F10 in other programs. Some of the other options are best left alone - there are a few bugs in this freeware - but in the Feel tab you can adjust the appearance of the Expos effect. For example, Expose speed controls the speed of the animated transition effect, and Previews displacements sets how much space is between each window.
Another useful option is available under the Global heading- tick Auto-start at system booting to load DEXposE each time you restart Windows. Otherwise you'll need to launch it manually from the desktop short cut.
