Another Way to Close Windows in Windows

Here’s a quick tip for tonight for Windows users.

Back in Windows 3.1 there wasn’t a dedicated button to close a window so instead you had to double click the menu button in the top left corner. It wasn’t until Windows 95 that a dedicated close button made its appearance in the top right corner adjacent to the minimise and maximise/restore buttons.

However, the “double click to close” functionality was never deprecated from Windows and still exists in Windows 7 (even though the icon that you used to see in the top left corner of any window was removed in Windows Vista). This legacy menu is still there but simply hidden.

All you need to do to view the menu is perform a single click in the top left hand corner of a given window in its title bar and you should see some options, the last of which should be “Close” (which should be  in bold which indicates that it is the default option if you double click the menu). If you double click the top left corner the window should also close.

This might seem like a useless tip but it can help explain why a window might have closed if you were double clicking aimlessly in that region. Otherwise, it might be a more efficient way to close a window if you have a mouse on a lower DPI setting and the top left corner is closer than the top right corner of the window.