[cturner]

The Windows alt+tab behaviour up to Windows 7 was reliable/predictable with two caveats, 1. Things that minimised to the notification area would not go to the back of the stack when you minimised them. 2. Microsoft Excel misbehaved - something to do with each workbook having its own window entry in the group, but also the application having this entry.

At some point since Windows 7 I played with it and found it to be no longer consistent. I could somewhat correct for this by using alt+esc to move a window to the back of the stack and then reverse to it with ctrl+shift+tab.