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Step 3: If all programs and windows have been closed, you can press the Enter key when you see the Shut Down dialog to commence shutting down Windows. Step 2: Next, start pressing Alt + F4 hotkey to start running apps and windows until you see the Shut Down Windows dialog. Step 1: Simply press the Alt + Tab key once if all programs and windows are in minimized state. Closing all programs and windows using Alt + F4 shortcutįollow the given below instructions to quickly close all running programs and windows. I haven’t tried this on Windows XP but should work fine on that as well. Note that this method works great on Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10 operating systems. While this hotkey can’t be used to close all programs at once, you can certainly close programs and windows in a few seconds for sure. One can use this hotkey to quickly close all running programs and windows. Not all users know the power of Alt + F4 hotkey. This is a handy hotkey when there are dozens of Explorer windows open.As you likely know, there are a couple of free utilities out there to help you close all running programs at once with a click or two but the truth is you can quickly close all running programs and windows without the help of third-party utilities.
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That will then close all the open Windows Explorer windows. Open multiple Windows Explorer windows and press the hotkey you added to the Shortcut key text box. Enter a hotkey in the Shortcut key text box, and click Apply and OK to close the window. Right-click on the desktop shortcut and select Properties to open the window below.
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Now assign a hotkey to that desktop shortcut. Open multiple Windows Explorer windows, and then click on that desktop shortcut to close them. Now there will be a shortcut on the desktop as below. That opens the window below where you should enter the following: C:\Enter\Folder\Location\nircmd.exe win close class “CabinetWClass.” Of course, you must delete enter, folder and location from that and replace it with the actual location of the extracted NirCmd folder location.Ĭlick Next, give the shortcut a suitable title and then select Finish. Now right-click on the Windows desktop, and select New > Shortcut from the context menu. Then select a destination for the extracted folder and click Extract. As it saves as a Zip file, you should extract it by right-clicking the file and selecting Extract All.
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To add it to your software library, click on the Download NirCmd option at the bottom of this page. The NirCmd software is available for most versions of Windows. Although Windows doesn’t include options to set up custom keyboard shortcuts, the NirCmd command-line utility software does the trick. For a shortcut to close all those Windows Explorer windows, you can set up a hotkey that will close them. When browsing files and folders, you might open multiple Windows Explorer windows.
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