What do the Function keys F1 through F12 do in DOS or Windows?

Answer 1

Under MS-DOS, individual programs could decide what each function key meant to them, and the command line had its own actions (e.g., F3 copied to the current command prompt words from the previous command).

Following the IBM Common User Access guidelines, the F1 key gradually became universally associated with Help in most early Windows programs. To this day, Microsoft Office programs running in Windows list F1 as the key for Help in the Help menu.

internet Explorer in Windows does not list this keystroke in the help menu, but still responds with a help window. F3 is commonly used to activate a search function in applications, often cycling through results on successive presses of the key. ⇧ Shift+F3 is often used to search backwards.

Some applications such as Visual Studio support Control+F3 as a means of searching for the currently highlighted text elsewhere in a document. F5 is also commonly used as a refresh key in many web browsers and other applications, while F11 activates the full screen/kiosk mode on most browsers. Under the Windows environment, the Alt+F4 key is commonly used to quit or close portions of an application. F10 generally activates the menu bar, while ⇧ Shift+F10 activates a context menu.

F2 is used in Windows Explorer, Visual Studio and other programs to rename files or other items.

F4 is used in some applications to make the window "fullscreen". In Microsoft IE, it is used to view the URL list of previously viewed websites.

Other function key assignments common to all Microsoft Office applications are: F7 to check spelling, Alt+F8 to call the macros dialog, Alt+F11 to call the Visual Basic Editor and ⇧ Shift+Alt+F11 to call the Script Editor. In Microsoft Word, ⇧ Shift+F1 reveals formatting. In Microsoft PowerPoint, F5 starts the slide show, and F6 moves to the next pane.