How to get alt-tab on GNOME to cycle through applications like Windows?

This worked for me in gnome 2.30.

1. System->keyboard shortcuts -> disable shortcuts for "move between windows using a popup" and "move between windows immediately" (select with mouse and press backspace)

2. Open terminal and type gconf-editor

3. navigate to apps-> metacity ->global keybindings

   3a. for the entry : "switch_windows" type "<Alt>Tab" without quotes

   3b. For the entry : "switch_windows_backwards" type "<Shift><Alt>Tab" without quotes

4. navigate to apps -> metacity -> general

   4a. Disable compositing_manager (this gets rid of the super annoying delay before the popup displays when you press alt+tab)

hope this helps

Cheers/Raj K

ALT-Tab is the default for cycling running applications in Gnome, like Windows XP does.