Microsoft's new Windows 10 Alt+Tab plan looks like a mess

[tarekma7]

In what is being called a productivity enhancement, Microsoft is testing a change to the Windows 10 Alt+Tab feature so that it also shows open Microsoft Edge browser tabs.

As someone who continually uses the Alt+Tab to switch between applications, in many cases without even realizing I am doing it, this being enabled for me would not be an enjoyable experience.

I routinely have 25+ Windows open, and I can often have 20+ tabs open in each of my browser windows.


Without open browser tabs, my Alt+Tab screen is already quickly overrun with my open applications.

If I was a Microsoft Edge user, with this new feature, my Alt+Tab screen will become a complete mess and make it almost impossible to quickly find the open windows I am looking for.

A first look at Microsoft's new Alt+Tab change

This week, Microsoft released Windows 10 Insider build 20161 and stated that they are testing a new Alt+Tab feature that shows open Microsoft Edge Canary browser tabs.

"Are you a multitasker? We have exciting news for you! Beginning with today’s build, all tabs open in Microsoft Edge will start appearing in Alt + TAB, not just the active one in each browser window. We’re making this change so you can quickly get back to whatever you were doing—wherever you were doing it," the Microsoft release notes stated.

While my Windows 10 20161 systems were not selected for this test, I was enabled the 'LivePreviewForTabs' feature using the mach2 program.

Code:

mach2 enable 25478404

Note, only use Mach2 on a virtual machine that you have saved snapshots to restore if an issue arises.

Once enabled, the Multitasking settings page now includes an 'Alt + Tab' section that contains a new drop-down setting labeled 'Pressing Alt + Tab Shows'.

This new setting allows you to select the following options:

Open windows and all tabs in Edge
Open windows and 5 most recent tabs in Edge
Open windows and 3 most recent tabs in Edge
Open windows only.


As seen by the image of this screen below, the default setting is currently 'Open windows and all tabs in Edge'.



With that setting enabled, this is what my Alt+Tab screen looks like. As you can see, it becomes filled with the open tabs currently running in Microsoft Edge Canary.

Now you may be wondering what the big deal is about this setting if it can be turned off, and its only affecting Microsoft Edge.

If the setting is off by default, then I agree there is nothing wrong with it, and Windows users can enable it if they wish. Unfortunately, the default setting is currently to show all tabs.

Furthermore, while Microsoft Edge does not currently have a large market share compared to Google Chrome, we should expect that to change over time.

As Microsoft Edge uses the same engine as Chrome, it benefits from the same performance, compatibility, and support all of Chrome's extensions.

Couple that with Windows 10-focused features added to Edge by Microsoft and it being distributed with the operating system, why would anyone bother installing Chrome other than out of habit?

Ultimately, expect to see a lot of open browser tabs coming to Alt+Tab in the future.

SOURCE