How to make out a Windows 3.1 veteran
You can always tell a Windows 3.1 user by the way he closes a window, even in Windows Vista. A Windows 3.1 user almost always closes a window by double-clicking on the left of the window. That’s because, back in the times of Windows 3.1, there was no close button on the right of the window.
Take a look at the left of a window in Windows 3.1:
The box with the big dash is called the control box and clicking on it will yield a menu showing options to minimize, maximize and close. Double-clicking on the control box closes the window! And that’s where it all began.
A user can activate the menu by pressing Alt+Spacebar. Why? Because the big dash on the control box is actually a representation of the spacebar. The MDI child window also has a control box, but with a smaller dash. So, how do we activate this menu? Yup, you guessed right – Alt+Hyphen!
It is rather interesting to note that the ‘double-click-on-the-left-to-close’ functionality is still available in Windows Vista, and probably forever in every release of Windows. The Alt+Spacebar and the Alt+Hyphen features are still available too, even though the control boxes don’t bear the dashes anymore. As for me, yes, I do close windows from the left at times. Ahem.
Shijaz Abdulla is a Partner Technology Advisor at Microsoft, helping their top tier partners build on their Microsoft practice. He is also a trusted advisor to medium enterprise customers in Qatar. He is a blogger, tech enthusiast, and a Microsoft evangelist.
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