What's the difference between the "Win-D" and "Win-M" shortcuts?

I was wondering in what situation will we see a difference between Win+D and Win+M ?

This thread claims that the former does a "show desktop" while the latter does a "minimize all" (but of course there's no difference between those two),

Whereas this thread talks about stuff like wm_minimize message..

Now I was wondering what's the real difference between them?

Why have two shortcuts that do the same thing?

2 Answers

"Minimize All" - WinM, that is - sends a minimize command to all windows. However, some windows don't support the minimize command, and will thus still be visible.

In those cases, WinD, "Show Desktop", will get you to the desktop. Note that the windows that don't support minimizing are still there, unminimized - they just become invisible.

Yes. i want to add one more difference between WIN+D and WIN+M. Assume you are currently in some window and If you will use the key WIN+D it will take you to the desktop and then if you will use the same key again you will be taken back to the previous window where you started. But it is not the case with the WIN+M. Once you use the key WIN+M it will minimize all open windows which leaves you the desktop but if you press the same key again you will not be taken to those windows. it is my observation.