> Teams certification has its share of marketing tactics, too. Certification requires that products advertise Teams and encourage its use by featuring an integrated light-up Teams button. As someone who uses various meeting platforms, I can confirm that this feature doesn't feel like a customer-first initiative.
That tactic is not a new one; the reason most computer keyboards still have a "Windows logo" key is because, many years ago, Microsoft mandated the presence of that key, with that trademarked logo, in its certification standards.
> That tactic is not a new one; the reason most computer keyboards still have a "Windows logo" key is because, many years ago, Microsoft mandated the presence of that key, with that trademarked logo, in its certification standards.
Apropos of nothing - save for this comment - is there a reason why Microsoft hasn't switched the primary modifier for keyboard shortcuts to the Windows key? Apple created the Command key to get around having to use Control, long before NeXT and its UNIX roots were even a consideration.
Is the only reason a switch hasn't happened down to 40+ years of inertia?
> Is the only reason a switch hasn't happened down to 40+ years of inertia?
What you call "inertia" others would call "compatibility". We have 30+ years of muscle memory and working software to keep in mind. The same shortcuts which worked in Windows 3.x should mostly still work on Windows 1x. Apple created the Command key early in their ecosystem's lifetime, so they didn't have as much backwards compatibility to worry about.
And even back when the "Windows logo" key was introduced, there were already reasons to not do the change you propose: first, we already had a large amount of Windows 3.x software and users to consider, and second and most importantly, Windows 9x could be used with keyboards without the "Windows logo" key (and they were very common back then). Even today, that's still possible: you can still use a keyboard without both the "Windows logo" key and the "Menu" key, and everything still works perfectly fine.
(I do agree that it would better if clipboard shortcuts used something other than Control everywhere, but that ship has long sailed.)
The Windows key has a lot of system level shortcuts already. As callalex mentioned, the Super key is usually for system level shortcuts while the Ctrl key is mostly for application inputs.
There's a lot of system level shortcuts. Many of which I use all the time.
Win opens the start menu and lets you start typing to search.
Win+Tab is the new task switcher UI. Useful for moving apps between desktops.
Win+L locks the computer, which I use almost every time I get up from my computer.
Win+M/Win+Shift+M minimizes/unminimizes all windows.
Win+Home minimizes all but the currently selected window, pressing it again resets it all.
Win+, shows the desktop until you release the Win key.
Win+E opens a new file explorer window
Win+{0,9} opens/switches to the application pinned to the taskbar at that position.
Win+Arrow Key maximizes or snaps windows to the top or sides
Win+Shift+Arrow moves windows between monitors
Win+R opens the Run dialog
Win+K opens the Connect tool which helps quickly connect to wireless displays, speakers, and headsets.
Win+Shift+S opens the snapshot tool.
Win+V opens clipboard history
Win+P changes presentation modes, useful for projectors
That's...certainly more than I recall, having left Windows behind for good in 2009 after using both a Dell Latitude and a 15" MacBook Pro in my last couple years of college.
I'm surprised that Win+P isn't "Print" by now. Sure, when you invoke it, you're telling the application to print the contents of window or the document you're looking at, but to some people any application should be able to print.
The default macOS application project in Xcode still gives you a print menu item by default and I've even heard stories from people who have gotten rejected from the Mac App Store because they hadn't explicitly removed that item from the menu.
Just about every application that supports printing in Windows and Linux listens for print as Ctrl+P and has since Windows first came out and super keys didn't exist. Firefox, Edge, Chrome, Notepad++, Visual Studio Code, Outlook, Thunderbird, Word, WordPad, Excel, Powerpoint, OneNote, Paint, Photos, etc. all open their Print dialog when you do Ctrl+P. Why would I need Win+P to do Print when Ctrl+P is practically already the universal shortcut for printing?
Meanwhile, when I'm wanting to change my presentation mode for a projector, I'll press Win+P to change from extending my displays to mirroring or have only my local screen or only my remote screen or connect to a wireless display.
Long story short, Microsoft chose the wrong horse in this race. The fallout from this decision should have been apparent when WSL came into being - I would be shocked if the WSL didn't use Ctrl-C to send a keyboard interrupt.
In your use case, I would put that down to "Enterprise entanglements" where the thing driving the development of Windows features is the needs of business customers and not regular users at home.
People need to print far more often than they need to deal with presentation modes in PowerPoint.
> People need to print far more often than they need to deal with presentation modes in PowerPoint.
They can, Windows apps have been able to print since Windows came out. I don't know why you feel that because Super+P (Win+P) doesn't do print then Windows users can't print things. And they can do so with the same keyboard shortcuts they used since before their keyboards even had a Super key.
And its not for changing presentation modes in PowerPoint, its for quickly changing your monitor arrangement system-wide.
> Microsoft chose the wrong horse in this race.
Microsoft (and practically every app developer for DOS/Windows) chose the Control key over the Super key because practically all users at the time didn't have a Super key on their keyboard. Which is more user hostile, force keyboard shortcuts which use a key the vast majority of users don't have, requiring them to buy new keyboards just to use keyboard shortcuts, or repurpose an existing key that a lot of users don't care much about, and that many applications were already intercepting for keyboard shortcuts?
> The fallout from this decision should have been apparent when WSL came into being - I would be shocked if the Windows didn't use Ctrl-C to send a keyboard interrupt.
Linux apps behave practically the same way as in Windows. Guess what the print shortcut is in gedit? Guess what gedit's copy and paste shortcuts are? Guess Firefox's print or find shortcuts in Linux. Take a look at most of the keyboard shortcuts in tmux. Look up how to copy and paste in gnome-terminal. Guess what key is the most common one in Emacs shortcuts. Hint: they don't use the super key!
Control key is for sending control codes. Command key is for issuing commands. We're still dealing with the legacy of Windows 3.x using Ctrl where Apple realized that a special modifier key was needed from the beginning.
God, the non-Apple ecosystem is primitive and user-hostile.
> God, the non-Apple ecosystem is primitive and user-hostile.
Exactly which Windows users do you think... Send control codes on a regular basis?
'User-hostile' is exactly how I would describe being more concerned about conceptual and behavioural purity for a domain that ~none of the users have cared about for more than 2 decades.
(It's also pretty weird to champion Apple, here, when it's taken them how many years to figure out that maybe having a mouse with more than one button is desirable... And I also wonder how people with, say, only one functioning hand were expected to control-click in MacOS. Didn't see a lot of them in Apple commercials, though, perhaps they weren't the target audience...)
That tactic is not a new one; the reason most computer keyboards still have a "Windows logo" key is because, many years ago, Microsoft mandated the presence of that key, with that trademarked logo, in its certification standards.