New contender for the least useful Windows keyboard shortcut in existence: Windows key + Ctrl + Alt + Shift + L.
It’s a shortcut to everyone’s favourite thing to do on a computer: visit LinkedIn.
“But why?” you might justifiably ask.
It turns out it’s a mix of two things. Firstly that Microsoft previously tried to make a special new key on keyboards - the Office Key - happen. As far as I know it ended up happening substantially less than even “fetch” did. I’ve never seen one IRL anyway.
As a sidenote: the smiley face key to the right in the above photo from Microsoft was another new key that as far as I know failed to take off - the emoji key. That one I could see a use for in 2024 business settings, particularly if you’re an enthusiastic marketeer. If you don’t have that key on whatever you’re currently sitting in front of, then Windows key + . (i.e. the full-stop key) does the same thing, open the Windows emoji picker.
Anyway, back to the Office Key. Any keyboard shortcuts that would have used the Office key can now be used by the rest of us via Windows + Ctrl + Alt + Shift + whatever. And LinkedIn was one, it being famously the case that the average office worker trawls that site once per hour desperately looking for a new job to escape from their current deskbound prison to.
And secondly that Microsoft bought LinkedIn back in 2016 for $26 billion with the aim to “integrate it with Microsoft’s enterprise software, such as Office 365”. Well, they did successfully integrate it with a key that almost no-one has access to I guess.
The first point means that actually there’s arguably even less useful keyboard shortcuts available if I’m honest. Office Key/ Windows + Ctrl + Alt + Shift + Y for instance opens “yammer.com” which seems to be a kind of Facebook for companies I’ve never heard of called “Viva Engage”. I must admit to visiting LinkedIn more often than Yammer (total for the latter before today: zero times), although I’m not sure it’s been any more productive.
I could see Windows + Ctrl + Alt + Shift + X for “Load Excel” being a bit more useful for me, although by the time I manage to get my hand into the correct shape to reliably hit that combo I probably could have opened it 5 other ways.