Tips- Windows (strictly speaking, OT)

Some people like to navigate windows with each window replacing the one it
was opened from, others like to "drill down", so there is only one window
left to close.

For years I longed for the ability, as on a Mac, to over-ride one behaviour
in favour of the other, on a case-by- case basis.

I was fairly delighted, then, when our IT guru casually pointed out that, at
least in Win2k and XP, holding down the Control key temporarily reverses the
behaviour, both when going down into the tree, and when coming back up.

He also showed me a couple of groovy things about the icon at the VERY top
left of each Windows window.
1) To search the current folder, or get properties on it, it is not
necessary to first go back up the tree one level (for which action,
incidentally, a not-terribly-widely-known shortcut is to hit "Backspace"
key).
Instead, simply RMB on the aforementioned icon and choose the action to
perform on the entire folder.
2) If you can't get at the Close icon at top right, simply double-click on
the top left icon. Minimise is available on the RMB menu.

 

Sorry to be cryptic-

If you, say, double click on a folder in Windows, it opens that folder, and
either
1) leaves the containing folder open in a new window, or
2) opens the folder in the current window

depending on which behaviour your OS is set to under "Tools/Folder
Options/Browse Folders/...."

If you hold down Control while double clicking, you will get the opposite
behaviour.

Same applies when clicking on the "Up" icon; Control-Click on the "Up" icon
to get the opposite behaviour to what is set.