When the mouse is away, the cats will play?

No, because it's the mice that play when the cat is away, not the other way around.  Besides, I'm not talking about small mammals called mice.  Rather, I'm talking about the pointing device that revolutionized human-computer interaction.

So what should you do when the mouse stops working and seems to have gone "away" from your system?  Easy, just use the keyboard.

Controlling the computer solely through the keyboard is not impossible. Before the appearance and subsequent reign of the mighty mouse, super keyboard was in fact our hero.  Those who have experienced using DOS and have created documents in WordStar during the computer medieval age can attest to the reliability of the keyboard.

Of course, you have to know some basic keyboard shortcuts to be able to really take control of your system.  I’ve listed some of them below.  If you know of other useful shortcuts that are not in the list, feel free to leave a comment.


Text Editing
Move cursor Arrow Keys
Select specific text Shift + Arrow Keys
Select all text Ctrl + A
Copy selected text to clipboard Ctrl + C
Paste text from clipboard Ctrl + V
Cut text and move to clipboard Ctrl + X
Redo previous action Ctrl + Y
Undo previous action Ctrl + Z
 
File or Folder Management in Windows Explorer
Move within list Arrow Keys
Move within list w/o affecting selection Ctrl + Arrow keys
Select all files/folders Ctrl + A
Select single file/folder Arrow Keys (or Mouse Click)
Select multiple adjacent files/folders Shift + (Space or Mouse click)
Select multiple non-adjacent files/folders Ctrl + (Space or Mouse Click)
Display property of selected file/folder Alt + Enter
 
Window management
Close active window Alt + F4
Copy active window to clipboard Alt + Print Screen
Copy full screen to clipboard Shift + Print Screen
Display window switcher Alt + Tab
Switch active window Alt + Esc
Open window size menu Alt + Space
Move focus within window Tab
 
Others
Open start menu Windows Key
Display/Hide desktop Windows Key + D
Open Windows Explorer Windows Key + E
Open Run command Windows Key + R
Move focus to  Task Tray Windows Key + B
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