Help with vista home premium. WTF is the START key?

[itsmeolord]

I want to use the 3d flip feature on my laptop, the website says to use START+TAB keys to do this.

Help!

On Windows, the 'Start' key is normally the one between "Ctrl" (bottom left) and "Alt"

Has a "windows" logo on mine. It's like using your mouse to get the 'Start' menu to appear on screen.

OK I've tried pressing the windoews button and the tab key at the same time but all it does is bring up the start menu. I'm lost now.

Many thanks for your assistance, sadly I fear I may be beyond all help.

What's the "3d flip" meant to do?

Some PCs will show a 'graphics' menu if you right-click on an unused (no icons) part of the desktop. Is this "3d flip" on there, or has someone suggested it as a wind-up?

You can rotate the screen 90, 180, 270 degrees (though you have to compensate for the mouse still moving at 90/180/270 degrees away from the screen!)

Oooh - just tried it on mine, hold down tab and the start button together and all the pages you have open and showing on the task bar all go 3Dish on the screen. I haven't explained it very well and can't really see why you would want to do it but it does work.

Oh, I can imagine it, but agree, not something I'd necessarily want to do. Thanks for explaining... I don't have {or want} Vista, so explanation has provided me with enlightenment.

I vaguely remember them making something of graphic features when Vista was released, like transparent windows so you could see other things on the desktop but 'behind' the one 'in focus' {active}

(It made some Mac users laugh, as it was several years behind the Mac.)

I've messed around a bit more and see I was doing it wrong - you have to hold start and tab then let go of tab and the open windows stay in a 3D way so you can click the one you want ( I was holding both down and the windows were scrolling non stop).
Actually I can see that if you have a large no of windows open it could be a way to navigate between them quickly once you've got the hang of it.
I will now convert my way of working to be sure to get the most from Vista.

I use the 3d flip occasionally, but there's not a lot of point to it unless you have a lot of windows - you might just as well click on the taskbar.

I have a vague recollection that you might have to enable the flip function somehow - will investigate...

It's Aero you have to enable to get the flip to work - right-click on the desktop, and From the drop-down menu choose "Windows Aero"
-Apply - OK

I love you all.

I want to use the 3d flip thingy because I need many windows open at the same time, I do a very techy job (believe it or not!) and have to write long complicated reports on a regualar basis so the flip thing will really help with that.

Many thanks ladies and gents.

I'm using XP, so don't have "3d flip" but have 23 windows open this minute on this PC, and just switch with ALT + TAB, rather than using the task bar.

9 of those are browser windows (and I have 42 tabs in total {7+ 4+ 5+ 5+ 5+ 4+ 5+ 1+ 6}).

I plan to change my setup soon, so I'll be making a hole in a grand on LCD screens, and have 9 the wall so more application windows are visible).

On my laptop I've added a second screen so the 'desktop' is double the normal width