Why YSK: I had this experience this morning. I was raging because the “alt + tab” shortcut had changed on my work computer when it worked fine yesterday. Now it opened the task view, but wouldn’t switch windows unless I clicked on a different program.
I figured either windows had rolled out some new “feature” or the IT department had changed something without telling anyone. I kept trying different google searches but couldn’t find anyone talking about my specific issue. Tried restarting, changing “multitasking” settings, editing the registry.
Finally some old post prompted me to try “windows + tab” and that worked. I discovered the windows and alt tab had been switched. So I tried a different keyboard and it worked fine. Finally I learned that my main keyboard has a “Windows” layout and a “Mac” layout, and somehow I had accidentally switched them.
So I wasted a bunch of time, got upset and was mentally blaming others when the issue was on my end. And one sign I could have used to realize that was that apparently in the whole world of internet search results I was the only one experiencing the issue.
As of today there is now at least one possible result for alt+tab opening task view and not switching as expected.
Also, learning to troubleshoot logically is a whole skill set by itself. It’s easy to think someone did something, and I believe that many people get stuck with that mentally over logically separating the issue and breaking it down to testable chunks.
Finally, great job solving the problem yourself! Many people would have admitted defeat, but you persevered and learned a few things.
A+ Cert in IT is fairly basic and isn’t all that useful besides a general overview of some aspects of the field. However, the most valuable portion of the cert is on troubleshooting methodology and that carries you through the rest of your career. It’s pretty common in a nutshell, try known fixes to previous issues first, then work from simple solutions (check power/cable connections, reboot, etc) to more complex solutions (reformat disk, clean wipe, etc).
The amount of times I’ve been on a million dollar salary engineering troubleshooting call and things like “checking that the credentials are working” get skipped in favor of looking for an issue in a newly written script is hilarious and happens far too frequently.
It’s not that simple solution are necessarily the most likely but that you can rule them out quickly.
It’s a skill like you say, just funny how that cert always comes to mind (it’s the entry level cert for IT for people not familiar).