ALT-TAB no longer cycles

I had an HP printer tech access my PC a few days ago and he was making all kinds of changes to my settings. No idea if he caused this, but now my ALT-TAB does not show me a list on the screen of all my open windows, allowing me to cycle to the one I need, now it only switches between them one at a time. So now if I have 20 windows open, I have to hit ALT-TAB 20 times to go through them. The internet says this is fixed at system/multitasking, but nothing there makes this change. Also, it is not my keyboard, as half the internet suggests, I get the same result using either ALT button. WIN-TAB has a similar functionality and that still works properly, but I never use it. How do I get the functionality back?

To clarify - you say "ALT-TAB does not show me a list on the screen of all my open windows, allowing me to cycle to the one I need, now it only switches between them one at a time. So now if I have 20 windows open, I have to hit ALT-TAB 20 times to go through them.". For me,
1) I press-and-hold Alt,
2) then (while still holding alt) I briefly press/release 'tab', while still holding Alt.
3) Now, an overlay/pop-up appears, showing all my active windows (still holding Alt).
4) While STILL holding 'alt', I can press/release 'tab' again and again, each press moving to the next entry in the pop-up.
5) When I tab/tab/tab... to the desired active window, I finally let go of the 'alt' key and now, the chosen window becomes the active app.

Can you describe your scenario in that level of detail? What I'm not clear on in your case is what you mean by 'it only switches between them one at a time.' The way I use 'alt-tab' most of the time is to "toggle between the most recent 2 apps" - I hit alt-tab briefly for this. But I'm not sure, in your case now, how do you ever get to, say, the 3rd active window.

What you just described no longer works. Now it's ALT-TAB TAB TAB TAB TAB just cycles through the windows instead of the popup. "toggle between the most recent 2 apps" doesn't work either, it's only in one direction, from one program to the next. No back and forth. I'd record it if windows had the capability.

I'm guessing you probably didn't understand that either. So, I have 5 windows open. I hit ALT-TAB one time and let go of everything. That takes me from window 1 to window 2. If I do it again, it takes me to window 3, etc. Now if I do like you and hold ALT and hit TAB once, it takes me from window 1 to window 2. If I hold ALT and hit TAB again, it takes me to window 3, etc. You see how there is no difference between the two scenarios?
There should be a difference. When I hold ALT and tap TAB, a screen should pop up showing me my 5 windows, allowing me to cycle through them and choose the one I want. It doesn't. It just takes me to the next window in a linear fashion. I want mine to do what yours does.

I forgot I can record with my phone. Here is a video of what happens when I alt tab tab tab.

Wow - that seems messed up! I presume you've rebooted, etc (I never reboot these days so I have to explicitly think about it!).

So alt(hold)-tab-tab-tab steps through the actual windows/apps, not the 'list' - you no longer get the popup list. Boo hiss.

I'm still a bit puzzled (though it's probably not important) by what happens when you do a simple 'alt-tab'. Inn my case, if I have apps 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 running, and I'm currently viewing app-1, then 'alt-tab' (let go) takes me to app-2. 5 seconds later, if I 'alt-tab' (let go), it takes me back to app-1. In your case, is it taking you to app-3? That's bizarre!

I have seen 'alt-tab' break in the past, but it has broken in a manner different from you. In my 'failure mode', instead of getting the 'big pop-up' overlay, showing a big image for each active app, I would get a small pop-up with just an app-icon showing - not the actual screen image. But I can't remember how I fixed it.

OK - it's coming back to me now. When the HP technician remote-connected to your computer, his 'remote connection' tool probably reduced the graphical 'quality' of your display so it would reduce the bandwidth required, and somehow it didn't 'undo' that when he exited. Somewhere, there's a place to change things like 'smooth scrolling', 'rounded corners', etc. Actually, try this:
settings -> System -> about -> advanced system settings; On the new panel that opens (advanced tab) choose 'settings' under 'performance'. There's a ton of settings there:


Compare your settings to those above and see if anything pops out.

EDIT TO ADD - also look at settings / system / multi-tasking ... Look at the 'show tabs from apps when ... ' entry.

Every time I hit Alt tab while holding or letting go, it takes me to the next page, never backwards. So once I hit Alt tab, I have to keep hitting it for as many pages as I have open to get back where I started.
I have the same settings as you have.
I have even restored my computer to the day before he accessed it.

Edit the Registry setting to a Value of 1

I already have the entry it wants me to create. Also, I don't understand it, it says If you want to permanently enable the classic Alt+Tab dialog create this entry, then it says To restore the modern Alt+Tab menu, use the above steps, and delete the same entry you just created (or already had). Why create it if you need to delete it?
Anyway, I had it and it isn't working and I deleted it and it isn't working. So I put it back.
EDIT: Tried the Tweaker and DISABLED it and now it seems to work, possibly it doesn't look like it did before, but it lets me cycle. Don't understand why disabling what I want worked, but thanks.