Figure 2-4:

Sample open menu
After you’ve opened a menu, you can point to any item on the menu to highlight it, or to display any
submenus that might be available. If a menu option has a submenu to offer, you’ll see a right-pointing
triangle at the right edge of the option. Pointing to the option will instantly display the submenu. If ever
you open a menu by accident, or change your mind after the fact, you can back out gracefully by
pressing the trusty Esc key, or by clicking some neutral area outside the menu.
To select an option on the menu, click it. After you’ve opened a menu, you also can move the cursor
across the menu bar (without holding down any mouse buttons) to open those menus.

Close button

Clicking the Close button closes the window, taking it off the screen and out of the taskbar as well. To
restart the program in the future, you’ll need to go through whatever procedure you usually perform to
start that program.
Caution When you start creating your own documents, be aware that closing a
program closes the document as well. If you don’t save your work before
closing the program, all that work will be lost! You’ll learn about creating and
saving documents in Chapter 3.
Sizing pad
The sizing pad in the lower-right corner of the window enables you to size the window. Just point to the
sizing pad, and then drag it outward to enlarge the window, or inward to shrink the window. You can
actually size a window by dragging any edge or any corner of the window. The sizing pad just provides
for a slightly larger target on which to rest the mouse pointer.
Menu bar
Many windows that you open will have a menu bar across the top. The menu bar offers access to all the
features that the program within the window has to offer. When you click on a menu option, a menu
drops down (as in the example shown in Figure 2-4, where I’ve clicked the File menu option in the
WordPad program).

Maximize/Restore button

Clicking the Maximize button expands the window to full-screen size (a quick way to hide other windows
that may be distracting you). When the window is full-screen size, the Maximize button turns into the
Restore button. To return the window to its previous size, click the Restore button.
Closing versus Minimizing a Window
Think of minimizing a window as taking some document on a real desktop and sliding it into a desk
drawer. The document is not cluttering your desk anymore, but it is within easy reach. Just click the
document’s taskbar button, and you’re back in action. Closing a window, on the other hand, is more like
putting a real folder back in the file cabinet. You still can get back to the document when you want it, but
you’ll need to restart the program from scratch, at which point it opens up with no document. Then you
need to open the document you want to work with using options on the program’s File menu, as
discussed in Chapter 3.
From a technical standpoint, closing a window has two advantages: It frees the memory (RAM) the
program was using, and it gives you an opportunity to save your work. Minimizing a window does
neither of those; it just shrinks the window to a taskbar button to get it out of the way for the moment.
Tip You also can double-click an open window’s title bar to maximize or restore it.

Minimize button

When you click the Minimize button, the window disappears and shrinks to a button in the taskbar.
Doing so gets the window out of the way for the moment so that you can see the desktop behind that
window. To reopen a minimized window, click its button in the taskbar.
Every open window has a button in the taskbar associated with it. As an alternative to using the
Minimize button to hide/show a window, you can just click that button in the taskbar.
Windows XP Bible
page 26
To instantly minimize all open windows on your screen, thereby showing the desktop, click the Show
Desktop button in the Quick Launch toolbar. Doing so instantly clears all the clutter from your desktop,
but only by hiding — not closing — all the open windows. To redisplay all open windows, click that
button a second time.
Tip As an alternative to using the Show Desktop button, you can right-click some
neutral area of the taskbar, perhaps just to the left of the Notifications area. Then
choose Show the Desktop from the menu that appears. To restore the windows to
their previous size, right-click the same area again and choose Show Open
Windows.

Title bar

The title bar shows the System Menu icon, the title of the window or name of the program being run in
the window, and the buttons for resizing and closing the window. The title bar alone offers some handy
features:
To expand a window to full-screen size or to shrink it back to its original size, double-click
its title bar.
To move a window to some new location on the screen, drag the window by its title bar.
Tip Remember, to drag something means to put the mouse pointer on it and then to
hold down the mouse button while moving the mouse. You can move a window
only if it’s smaller than the entire screen.

Managing Open Windows

In the olden days of computers, when you ran a program, that program took over the entire screen. To
use a different program, you had to exit the one you were in and then start the other program. That
program, in turn, hogged the entire screen. With WindowsXP, you can pretty much run as many
programs as you want. Instead of hogging the entire screen, each program occupies only a window on
the screen. That’s where the name Windows comes from in Microsoft Windows. In Figure 2-2, for
example, I currently have two open windows on the screen: one titled My Computer, the other titled
Windows Media Player. You can see the title (name) of each window in its upper-left corner.

ip Remember

to drag something means to rest the mouse pointer on the item you
want to move, and then to hold down the mouse button as you move the mouse
pointer to the new location. To drop the item at the new location, just release the
mouse button.
To see all the options available for an icon, right-click the icon to open its shortcut menu.
To organize all the icons on the desktop, right-click an empty part of the desktop and choose
Arrange Icons By on the shortcut menu that appears. Then click whichever option you prefer
(Name, Type, and so forth). Choosing Name will arrange the icons into (roughly) alphabetic
order (although some icons, such as My Documents, My Computer, and Recycle Bin, tend to
stay near the upper-left corner of the screen).
To have Windows XP automatically arrange icons for you, right-click an empty part of the
desktop or the window and choose Arrange Icons By from the menu, and then choose Auto
Arrange from the submenu that appears. After you have done this, however, you cannot move
icons, because they will immediately jump back into their original place. To turn off the
automatic arrangement, repeat this step. When Auto Arrange has a check mark next to it, that
feature is currently turned on.
If you prefer to put icons into your own order, and want them neatly arranged, choose Arrange
Icons By › Align to Grid. After you do so, the icons will align on an invisible grid, creating a
neater appearance.
As mentioned, when you open an icon, a window appears. Learning how to work those windows is an
important part of using your PC. As you learn in the next section, you have quite a bit of control over the
size and shape of every window that appears on your screen.

You also will come across

icons that don’t fall into any of these categories. Some icons represent disk
drives, printers, help files, settings, and so on. Don’t worry, however, you can manipulate virtually all
icons by using the set of basic skills in the following list:
As you know, you can open any icon by double-clicking it. If you’ve opted to switch to the
single-click approach, you also can open the icon with a single-click. Whatever the icon
represents will open in a window atop the desktop, as discussed in a moment.
To move an icon, drag it to any new location on the screen. To move a bunch of icons, first
select the icons you want to move by dragging the mouse pointer. Then drag the whole
selection to a new place on the screen.

The appearance

of an icon often gives you some clue about what kind of stuff is inside the icon and
what is likely to appear when you open the icon. The following list summarizes the main types of icons
you’ll come across:
Folder icon: Represents a folder, a place on the computer where files are stored. Opening a
folder icon displays the contents of that folder. For example, in Figure 2-1 the My Documents,
My Music, My Pictures, XP Bible on Max, and 01Chap desktop icons are all folder icons. Two
of those folders, My Pictures and 01Chap are currently open in the desktop. Each of those
folders contains still more icons.
Program icon: Represents a program. When you open a program icon, you start the program it
represents. For example, opening the Internet Explorer icon launches the Microsoft Internet
Explorer program. There’s no real consistency to program icons. Each is just a “logo” of the
underlying program.
Document icon: Represents a document; typically this is something you can change and print.
The icon usually has a little dog-ear fold in the upper-right corner to resemble a paper
document. For example, inside the 01Chap window in the lower-right corner of Figure 2-1,
many of the icons represent Microsoft Word documents (hence the letter W in the icon). The
Grandmom icon in the upper My Pictures window is also a document icon. It represents a
picture stored on disk. I’m currently viewing the contents of that folder in Thumbnails view,
which, as you’ll learn later, displays a small thumbnail-sized image of the actual photo, as
opposed to some generic icon.

Managing Icons

Imagine a desk with all the usual accoutrements: telephone, calculator, calendar, pens and pencils, the
documents you’re using, and a big stack of bills. Now imagine you have the power to touch any one of
those objects and shrink it to the size of a pea, just to get it out of the way temporarily. That power
would certainly help unclutter your desktop. When you need to use one of those pea-sized objects, you
could tap it with your finger, and bingo: The object would open in its natural size.
Of course, no real-world desktop works this way. The Windows XP desktop, however, works exactly
that way. You can make things grow and shrink, appear and disappear, just by clicking them with your
mouse.
A pea-sized object on your computer screen is called an icon. As you saw back in Chapter 1, there are
probably some icons right on top of your desktop, as well as some smaller icons in the Quick Launch
toolbar and Notifications area of the taskbar. Icons also appear within many of the program windows
you open on your desktop.

Getting Around Like a Pro

A big part of learning to use a computer is knowing where, and how, to find stuff. This holds true
regardless of how you plan to use your computer, be it for writing, math, photography, art, music, the
Internet — you name it. The easy, yet important, skills you learn in this chapter will apply to everything
you do with your computer. , the Windows XP skills covered in
this chapter are really skills you need to use your computer effectively, regardless of what you plan to
do with it.

To right-click

an item means to point to it and then press and release the secondary (mouse)
button.
If you find yourself in unfamiliar territory, try clicking some neutral area of the desktop, or
pressing the trusty Escape key (sometimes labeled Esc or Cancel on your keyboard) to back
out of the situation.
To get help in Windows, press the F1 key or click the Start button and choose Help and
Support.
To close any window that’s taking up space on your screen, click its Close button (marked with
an X and always in the upper-right corner of the window.)
Before leaving your PC for any length of time, you should either log off or shut down the
computer using options available at the bottom of the Start menu.
If you’re asked about saving any work in progress while logging off or shutting down, choose
Yes unless you’re sure you haven’t completed any work worth saving.

Summary

In this chapter, you learned the most important of Windows XP basic skills. My goal in this chapter has
been to help those of you who are new to this program become comfortable with using the mouse and
get a sense for the way things work. Chapter 2 rounds out what you have learned here and hopefully
answers any questions that might have popped into your mind as you read this chapter. Here’s a quick
recap of the important points covered in this chapter:
Windows XP is an operating system — the mandatory program that makes everything work
behind the scenes, and also determines how you, the user, will interact with the computer to
get things done.
To start Windows XP, just turn on your computer. (First make sure there is no floppy disk in the
floppy drive.)
After Windows XP has successfully started, you are taken to the Windows desktop, your “home
base” from which you’ll start all projects, and where you’ll end up when you’ve finished.
To point to an item (or hover over an item) means to move the mouse pointer (using your
mouse) so that it’s touching the item.
To click an item means to point to it and then press and release the primary (left) mouse button.
Double-click means to do the same, but you press and release the primary mouse button
twice in rapid succession.

The Turn Off Computer dialog box

3. Choose one of the following options (as available):
Hibernate: Saves everything on the screen and puts the computer into a minimal
power-consumption state. When you restart the computer, the desktop will look
exactly as you left it (hopefully).
Standby (if available): Puts the computer into a minimal power-consumption
state, but does not save current settings. Restart will be quicker than if you had
turned off. But you’ll be returned to an empty desktop.
Turn Off: Turns the computer all the way off. Nothing is saved, no power is
consumed while the computer is off, and restarting will be from scratch. (The
computer will go through the POST again at restart.)
Restart: Briefly shuts off the computer, and then instantly restarts it. Also known
as rebooting. Required after certain kinds of hardware and software installations,
and also after a serious “crash” when something has caused your computer to
start acting weird.
Your computer might show additional instructions at this point. Most likely, however, the computer will
just shut down (or go to sleep.) Note that if you selected Turn Off, chances are your computer will
indeed shut itself off. So you don’t need to press the Power button on the system unit to finish the job.
However, some older computers don’t have this capability, in which case you will need to press the
main Power button to complete the shutdown procedure. As a safety device, to prevent accidental
shutdown, some computers require that you press the Power button and hold it there for four or five
seconds before the computer actually shuts down.

You can end your session at the computer a few different ways. If you share this computer with others,
and want to leave it on for them, you can just log off. Doing so will allow others to log on immediately,
but they won’t be able to see or change any of your stuff. To log off, follow these steps:
1. Click the Start button.
2. Click the Log Off button near the bottom of the menu.
3. Click the Log Off button that appears.
The Welcome screen shown back near the beginning of this chapter reappears. The computer is still
running, so another user can log on simply by clicking his or her user name.
To shut down the computer altogether, or put it to sleep so to speak, so that it consumes little or no
electricity, follow these steps:
1. Click the Start button.
2. Click the Turn Off Computer button near the bottom of the menu. The Turn Off Computer dialog
box displays (see Figure 1-17, although your options may vary)

Logging Off, Shutting Down

Your computer is not a TV. One of the most common mistakes newbies make when using a PC is
simply to turn off the PC when they’re done. This is not good because it doesn’t give you, or your
computer, a chance to save any changes you made or any work you accomplished. The first thing you
want to do when you plan to shut down your computer — or even just plan to walk away from it for a
while — is save any work in progress. In this chapter, you haven’t created anything, so there’s nothing
to save. But for future reference, bear in mind that anything left unsaved on your screen is likely to go
bye-bye forever if you don’t remember to save your work before shutting down your computer.
Tip As you’ll learn in Chapter 3, you can easily save your work at any time. In fact, it’s a
good idea to save your work every few minutes, just to make sure you don’t
accidentally lose it.

The Folder Options dialog box

5. To make sure your open windows resemble the ones shown in this book, click Show Common
Tasks in Folders to select that option (as in the figure).
6. Under Click Items As Follows, choose either the Single-Click To Open . . . or Double-Click To
Open option, depending on which you prefer. (I always use single click).
7. If you opted for single-clicking, you can choose to have clickable items underlined all the time
(consistent with your Web browser), or only when you point to them.
8. Click the OK button at the bottom of the dialog box. Your selections are saved and the dialog
box closes. You’re back at the Control Panel window.
Caution Clicking the Close (X) button at the top of a dialog box closes the box without
saving your changes. To apply the selections you’ve made in a dialog box, click its
OK button. More on dialog boxes coming up in Chapter 2.

9. To close the Control Panel window, click the Close (X) button in its upper-right corner. You’re
back at the desktop now.
To test your selection, click any desktop icon. If it opens, you’ve selected single-clicking. If it doesn’t
open, you must have selected double-clicking. In that case, try double-clicking any icon to open it. To
close whatever window the icon opens, do the usual thing. Click the Close (X) button in the upper-right
corner of the window.

To Single-Click or Double-Click
Before we close this chapter, I want to take you through your first complete practical use of the Start
menu, a dialog box, and some other features discussed in this chapter. Here you’ll decide whether you
want to click or double-click icons to open them. To give it a whirl, follow these steps:
1. Click the Start button in the lower-left corner of the screen.
2. Click the Control Panel option. The Control Panel opens, looking something like Figure 1-15.
Figure 1-15: The Control Panel, in Category view
Note If you see a bunch of icons in your Control Panel, rather than the categories shown in
the figure, click Switch to Category View in the left pane of the window.
3. Click Appearance and Themes.
4. Click Folder Options near the bottom of the window that opens. The Folder Options dialog box
displays

Figure 1-14:

A “What’s This?” button, identified by a question mark (?), is available in this sample dialog box.
The button with the question mark is called the What’s This? button. As the name implies, it answers the
question “What the heck is that thing?” that’s likely to pop into your mind from time to time. To use the
button, click it. The mouse pointer gains a question mark. Next, within the dialog box, click the item
you’re wondering about. An extra large ToolTip appears, giving you more information about the item.
Unfortunately, the What’s This? button isn’t universally available. And not all items that you click will
have Help text associated with them. When the button is available, however, it can certainly come in
handy!

Caution Never,

ever delete something just because you don’t know what it is! You
should delete only items you recognize and are sure you want to get rid of.
Otherwise, you might delete a file that’s important to the proper functioning of
Windows, which would make your computer perform erratically, or not at all!
Finally, if you’re in a program or dialog box, look to the upper-right corner of its window to see whether
there’s a button with a question mark on it. For example, the Date and Time Properties dialog box
shown in Figure 1-14 has one. (To open the dialog box, I double-clicked the current time in the lowerright
corner of the screen.)