Here’s the dumbest Windows keyboard shortcut of all

Microsoft
By Microsoft 2 Min Read
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Watching a power user go to town on keyboard shortcuts is quite the sight. Anyone who has been using an operating system long enough and has invested even a small amount of time in improving their productivity knows what I’m talking about. But you have to admit that not all possible functions need dedicated space on the keyboard. Take “Ctrl+Win+Alt+Shift+L,” for example: It’s a five-key combination that you’ll probably need two hands to enter correctly. Spoiler alert: The profit isn’t worth it.

This game of Twist for your fingers is a system-wide keyboard shortcut that… opens LinkedIn in your browser. That’s all. It’s a five-key hardcoded shortcut for a website. Which could be a cool feature, if you could choose what it was. But in fact, as PCGamer notes, it’s actually a bit of corporate cross-promotion. LinkedIn, a career-focused social network where people can share their work history and apply for new jobs, has been owned by Microsoft since 2016.

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LinkedIn

Hey, at least it doesn’t force you to open the website in Edge, like most internal links in Windows do this nowadays.

However, it’s a terribly strange thing to program into the operating system, as if there were users who A) want instant access to LinkedIn and B) wouldn’t just put a link on the taskbar. Personally, I’ve been waiting years for Microsoft to create a system-wide link to go from headphones to speakers and vice versa. something I have to use a third party app realize.

For a list of little-known but actually useful Windows keyboard shortcuts, be sure to check out this guide.

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