We’ll break up navigation tips with a more general purpose tip: How to use the keyboard to open a shortcut menu (also known as context menu) — the menu you get when you right-click somewhere.
The most general way to do this is press Shift+F10. (Remember, F10 is a function key, probably across the top of your keyboard.) Try it! Point your mouse somewhere and right-click. (You can press the Esc key to close the menu.) Then try pressing Shift+F10. (And again, Esc to close it.)
The other choice is to use a dedicated key. Chances are your keyboard has a “menu key,” which usually looks like this: ![[Image of shortcut menu key, taken from cern.ch]](http://www.zeigen.com/shortcuts/content/shortcut-menu-key.gif){kind=small}
On most keyboards that have this key, it’s down by the Spacebar, to the right (near the Alt and Ctrl keys). On some keyboards, such as Dell laptops, it’s at the top center, near the power key.
If you have that key and it’s in a convenient location, spend today trying to practice using it to open shortcut menus for Windows and most applications you use. If you don’t have that key, practice Shift+F10 instead.
Great , uber-cool tip !
ohh it does not work for me
this is not my favorite shortcut 😛 .. mouse right click & special keyboard key is the simpliest way to me
Thanx a ton man!!
I recently bought a dell laptop (XPS m1730) and sadly enough it has no Menu Key and I’ve been looking every where for a way to make a shortcut for it, not knowing it was already there. Actually I love KB short cuts and I hardly ever use the mouse.
Thanx again man!
I was told to use the “menu key” to find my degauss function. It isn’t there (anymore) and I really need to degauss this thing! I used it once but it has since vanished. I don’t know how else to find it so maybe I can make a shortcut for it. Any suggestions?
divajinx, that’s tricky — what program? Usually degaussing a monitor means pressing a physical button on the monitor itself.
Cool shortcuts, very useful. Thanks a bunch!!! I found a few move shortcuts here: http://www.usingcomputers.co.uk/tutorials/useful-windows-shortcuts.php its worth taking a look at combined with this article. Thanks, keep up the good posts!
Patrick
don’t shift+f10 while playing games, or the game might dissapear!
My new laptop does not have the menu key. I was so used to using it on my old PC. Shift F10 is not as easy to use.
Can one reassign this key to a more convenient key on the keyboard?
MOST CERTAINLY DARREN and anybody else reading this and stuck for ideas as he was in 2014
There are at least two methods to make any other unused key (Capslock perhaps??) or the enter key on a numeric keypad if you have one my Dell Inspiron does.
behave like the missing Menu key
1 find the awesome AutoHotKey scripting program it has a section devoted to Key remapping
2 find a great free utility called Keytweak