Alt+Tab selects wrong Outlook window

Question

Re-opening https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_outlook-mso_win10-mso_o365b/alttab-skips-over-outlook-windows/56243abf-36ea-4f1e-b10f-8fc385c04758?messageId=879ba4a2-f7d1-4951-811c-a9dc5db96a64 as I finally managed to reproduce it under video. (It happens often enough to be a pain, rarely enough that leaving screen video recording running all the time gets very heavy. But, I got it).

In the old thread I'd been asked by https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/profile/c8e79379-d92c-40c6-b25d-6e0722078068?sort=LastReplyDate&dir=Desc&tab=Threads&forum=allcategories&meta=&status=&mod=&advFil=&postedAfter=undefined&postedBefore=undefined&threadType=All&page=1 Huni Shen MSFT to upload a copy of the recorded video to https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/privatemessage/inbox

Is that still correct?

Thank you,

Jay

Answer 1

This problem has occurred for me on several of my computers over a long period of time.

While I concur that starting Outlook in safe mode can help identify whether the origin of the problem is a malfunctioning plugin, I'm very hesitant to attempt to run in safe mode as my experience with Office and Windows safe modes is that they tend to be unusable.

I did give it one try, and promptly got:

Not trusting it to "repair" something that I'm unaware of being broken, I tested a second time and the same message re-appeared. Again I hit "close" instead of "repair".

I re-started Outlook normally (withOUT /SAFE) and received no error.

Seems that /SAFE is not so safe...

How else might we diagnose the problem of Alt+Tab selecting the wrong Outlook window, without me having to risk my data by performing an unspecific repair of an unspecific problem in a "SAFE" mode that seems to be defective?

thank you.

Answer 2

Hi Jay,

Many thanks for your reply. I understand your concerns, however, I tested this in the same version of Outlook client but I didn't have the same issue as yours. I have recorded the video of my test, please kindly go to the PM to check the test video.

Given this situation, this should be a problem with the Outlook client on your computer. To further troubleshoot this issue, please press Win + R at the same time, type Outlook /safe to open Outlook in safe mode and check if this will make any difference. Note: there is a space between Outlook and “/”.

Moreover, as you mentioned this problem is intermittent in your original post, to isolate whether there is any background program is causing this issue, please perform a clean boot in Windows and try again.

In addition, please also try to press Win + tab to show all windows and then use the direction keyboard "↑↓←→" to see if you can successfully switch to different windows. 

Please kindly do above steps to test this issue and share the result with us at your convenience, we will continue to try our best to help you.

Best regards,

Jennifer

Answer 3

My question is not about workarounds or other shortcuts.

I complaint that the common Alt+Tab shortcut often shows one Outlook subwindow in the thumbnail selector but actually opens a different Outlook subwindow when the user releases Alt+Tab. It's a bug. I seek diagnosis and fixing this bug, not workarounds.

Users should not be asked to learn to do something differently when the real problem is that Microsoft needs to fix something that it has broken.

Answer 4

Hi Jay,

Thank you for getting back to us, the thread you mentioned is an old one and it has been locked by the backend system, so we will continue to help you with your problem in this new thread. Thanks for your understanding for this.

As I understand from your original post, I understand that you want to switch between different views in Outlook and the shortcuts don't work as expected when switching between different windows.

Give this situation, it is recommended that you can try to use the following shortcuts to switch views in Outlook and check if it helps:

• Switch to the Mail view——Ctrl+1
• Switch to the Calendar view—— Ctrl+2
• Switch to the Contacts view:——Ctrl+3
• Switch to the Tasks view——Ctrl+4
• Switch to the Notes ——Ctrl+5

For more detailed shortcuts in Outlook, here is an article for your reference: Keyboard shortcuts for Outlook.

Please feel free to test above shortcuts and let us know if it works or not. If you need further assistance, we would like to collect the following information for analysis:

1. Please open Outlook and go to File > Office Account to capture and send us a screenshoot of your Outlook client version information.
2. You may also send us the video you recorded to us in the PM.

Best regards,

Jennifer