Who needs a mouse?

Jump start
It’s also possible to jump around the Start menu by pressing the first letter of a particular menu item. Try it: open the Start menu, choose All Programs and then this time press A for Accessories, open the submenu with the right arrow key, then press P for Paint and press Return to open Microsoft Paint.

With two programs open ­ Calculator and Paint ­ switch between them by holding down the Alt key (to the left of the space bar) and pressing the Tab key once. This opens the Windows Task Switcher, a little application that displays the icons of any programs that are currently open. Keep the Alt key pressed down and then press Tab a few times to switch between Calculator and Paint. Vista has a slightly fancier Task Switcher, at least if you’re using Home Premium or above. Press the Windows key and Tab to summon the 3D version. Pressing Alt and Tab opens a more basic 2D version.

Select Calculator, let go of the Alt key and the Calculator program will jump to the front of the screen. Next, look carefully at the menu items and then press the Alt key once ­ notice that the initial letter of each one is given an underline and that the first menu item is highlighted.

You can now use the right and left arrow keys to select different menus or type the first letter of the menu you want. For example, in Paint, press Alt and then H to open the help menu. The up and down arrows then enable you to move through various options, with Return used to activate a specific menu option.

To close the menus and remove the underlines, just press the Alt key again; to close the program press Alt and the F4 function key at the same time. These simple Alt-key navigation techniques will work in Windows and hundreds of programs.

Get organised
It’s also possible to use Windows Explorer to organise files and folders using the keyboard. Open the Start menu and move the cursor to My Documents. Press Enter to open the folder window and then use the cursor keys to move between files and folders; to open a folder just highlight it and press Return; then do the same to open a file with the program that created it.

Press the Alt key to highlight the File menu in Explorer and move along to the View menu, down to Go To and then choose any of the commands there to move up a folder level or pick another folder in the same window. For even smoother navigation, press Alt and V, then move down to Explorer Bar and choose Folders from the submenu to open the folder tree view in the left-hand panel. This allows access to every part of the PC ­ use the arrow keys to move up and down the list, use the + and - keys on the numeric pad to open and close sub-folders in the list and use the Tab key to move right into the main folder window. To move back to the folder tree view in the left panel, hold down the Shift key and press Tab. To get at the Back and Forward buttons on the button bar, hold down the Alt key and press the left and right arrow keys.