Win + L to lock

Win + D to minimise all windows

Win + arrow key to snap window to half a screen

nope, never. not even on windows boxes

All the time, both on Windows and KDE Plasma. It’s especially convenient for starting an app you don’t have pinned to your taskbar, just press the Windows key and then type the name of the app.

Pretty sure however you’re using the windows key, that’s how it was intended to be used.

The Super key? Yes all the time to pull up the GNOME action menu and to use shortcuts. Super+E for file browser window, +B for browser, +T for terminal window I use often.

Only if my window has gone missing and I need to winkey + arrow keys it somewhere to get it back.

Other than that, no.

I mean early days, most of us pulled it off or disabled it so we wouldn’t hit it by accident while playing FPS games.

Yeah I use it to open the start menu. I’m on windows 10 so I have my daily used programs pinned to the taskbar, my frequently used programs organized in sections of tiles on the start menu, and for everything else I either type to search for it in the start menu or just Win+R and use the run dialog if it’s a system component.

Likely moving to Linux when Windows 10 ends support. I’ve got enough experience with 11 to know I couldn’t stand using it regularly

Edit: and I didn’t really talk about using it as a hotkey because of your OP, but for the record I use it like that all the time too. Win arrow for window sizing, win shift arrow for moving things between monitors, win R, E, L, D, win semicolon for the emoji keyboard, win number row to quickly launch taskbar pins, win tab for the lulz sometimes, win shift S for snipping tool when I don’t need to use shareX instead for a local copy of the snip, etc.

I just use the shortcut key combinations. I haven’t used the start menu in ages since I end up just using the search bar instead.

Usually only in an emergency when stuff freezes up and I can’t use the mouse to control windows anymore.

I use it for shortcuts in my linux

Do you mean super key? Yea, All the time for moving Windows, opening programs, etc.

I don’t ever use the start menu for anything. I can’t be bothered to look through that mess.

Instead I press the windows key and type the first few letters of whatever I need, unless it’s already stickied to the bar. It’s fewer key presses than clicking through the start menu. I suppose that still counts as opening the start menu, even if I don’t use the actual menu structure.

I also use the windows + arrow keys to toss windows around the multiple screens. It has a lot of other purposes, like creating extra desktops etc, which I admittedly never use.

It’s a useful button for sure, but it does get a little overwhelming when combined with shift ctrl or alt . I can’t possibly remember all the uses, but I have the most commonly used on muscle memory.

Sometimes it works better for tabbing out of a game than alt-tab does. Not sure why. Also it depends on the game.

In Ubuntu I use the command key as my main way to launch applications.

I used to use Super to open the application selector menu thing (similar to the start menu on my system). But I recently tweaked my keyboard shortcuts to add a bunch of ones using Super for application switching and stuff, so rebound it to Super+w.

I have 3 main use cases for the Windows key:

1. Bring up the start menu and immediately type “cmd” + Enter to bring up a command prompt
2. Windows + L to lock the computer when I step away
3. Windows + arrow keys to move windows around on the screen and “dock” them to the sides of the screen (although this hasn’t been consistently working for me more recently)

I don’t think I ever use it for anything else. So yes, I do use it to bring up the start menu, but generally only to specifically bring up a command prompt window - all of my other commonly used programs are pinned to the taskbar so I can fire them up with a single click.