iEx: Exposé Clone for Windows
iEx copies the functionality of Apple’s Exposé: Press a special key and all open windows are displayed as little thumbnails. Click one of them and it returns to its normal size and becomes the active window.
Here’s how to get and run the program (Side note: Could it be any more inaccessible and tedious to install?):
- Visit the Aqua-Soft forum, sign up for a free account.
- Go to the “[release] Iex V0.2″ thread in the “Siwu’s Apps” forum.
- Download iEx from the location provided in the thread’s first post.
- Unpack the file. It comes in the somewhat unusual RAR format. 7-Zip is a free program that can open RAR files.
- Edit the file iEx.ini: The last line should read IniEdited=1.
- Launch iEx.exe.
- Make sure you have a few windows open.
- Press the F9 key or move the mouse to the bottom right corner of the screen.
- All open windows should appear as thumbnails.
- Click one of the thumbnailed windows. It should return to its normal size.
Another program that does the same thing is WinPLOSION (formerly known as WinExpose). They don’t have a trial version for download, so I don’t know how good it is. Some discussion of WinPLOSION/WinExpose can be found here.
Unix users can try expocity (screenshots here and here) for the Metacity window manager.
Update: For Windows, there’s also Windows Exposer. $7.