operacni system

Expanding Your Open With Menu

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As you learned in Chapter 3, you can usually click (or double-click) any document icon to open that
document in whatever program is associated with that type of document. For example, opening an icon
named My Letter.doc would cause that document, My Letter, to open in the Microsoft Word program (if
you have it), or the smaller WordPad program that comes with Windows XP.
In some cases, however, you may want the flexibility to send a particular type of document to any one of
several programs. Suppose you create your own Web pages for publishing on the Internet’s World Wide
Web. Web page documents generally have the file name extension .htm or .html. When you open such
a file, it appears within your Web browser, usually Microsoft Internet Explorer. If you create your own
Web pages, you might want to see how the page will look in other Web browsers, such as Netscape
Navigator. Or, you might want to open the Web page in a text editor such as Notepad, which enables
you to work directly with the HTML that defines the appearance of the page.
To see which installed programs you can currently use to open a specific document, right-click the icon
for the document you want to open, and point to or click Open With. Your options display on a submenu.
In the example in Figure 4-5, for instance, I right-clicked a file named index.htm and chose Open With.
The submenu lists the programs that can currently be used to open that program: Internet Explorer,
Notepad, and WordPad.

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Expanding Your Open With Menu
As you learned in Chapter 3, you can usually click (or double-click) any document icon to open that
document in whatever program is associated with that type of document. For example, opening an icon
named My Letter.doc would cause that document, My Letter, to open in the Microsoft Word program (if
you have it), or the smaller WordPad program that comes with Windows XP.
In some cases, however, you may want the flexibility to send a particular type of document to any one of
several programs. Suppose you create your own Web pages for publishing on the Internet’s World Wide
Web. Web page documents generally have the file name extension .htm or .html. When you open such
a file, it appears within your Web browser, usually Microsoft Internet Explorer. If you create your own
Web pages, you might want to see how the page will look in other Web browsers, such as Netscape
Navigator. Or, you might want to open the Web page in a text editor such as Notepad, which enables
you to work directly with the HTML that defines the appearance of the page.
To see which installed programs you can currently use to open a specific document, right-click the icon
for the document you want to open, and point to or click Open With. Your options display on a submenu.
In the example in Figure 4-5, for instance, I right-clicked a file named index.htm and chose Open With.
The submenu lists the programs that can currently be used to open that program: Internet Explorer,
Notepad, and WordPad.
Figure 4-5: The Open With submenu for a document file with an .htm file name extension
Tip File name extensions are usually hidden. To bring them out of hiding, choose Tools
› Folder Options from Explorer’s menu bar. On the View tab, clear the Hide
Extensions for Known File Types check box.
If the program you want to use doesn’t appear on the submenu, you can select the Choose Program
option to view more programs. Doing so opens the Open With dialog box, shown in Figure 4-6, where
you can do the following

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My Documents shortcuts to shared documents
If you have some folders and documents in your My Documents folder, and others within the Shared
Documents folder, you’ll probably get tired of switching between the two folders to open and save
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documents. The simple solution is to add a shortcut to your My Documents folder for every folder and
icon you place in Shared Documents. For starters, open and size both folders so that you can see their
contents. You can use your choice of method, but the following steps do work just fine:
1. Open My Documents, and then click Shared Documents under Other Places in the
Explorer bar.
2. Reduce the size of the Shared Documents folder to about half the screen.
3. Open My Documents from the Start menu, desktop, or anyplace else other than from within
the Shared Documents folder.
4. Size and position the My Documents folder to about half the screen so that you can see the
contents of both My Documents and Shared Documents.
Tip To create a new folder within My Documents, open My Documents normally. Then
choose File New Folder from Explorer’s menu bar. Type a name for the folder
and press Enter. For details and other ways to create folders, see “About Folders”
in Chapter 13.
If you want to move (not copy) a folder or document from My Documents to Shared Documents, just
drag its icon from the My Documents folder into the Shared Documents folder and drop it there. After
you move an item into Shared Documents, use the secondary (right) mouse button to drag its icon back
into My Documents. When you release the mouse button, choose Create Shortcuts Here. Figure 4-3
shows an example in which I moved the folders named Common Downloads, Databases, Ed2Go XP
Course, and MBooks into Shared Documents. Then I created shortcuts to each of those within My
Documents. You can tell which icons in My Documents are shortcuts by the little shortcut arrows on
those icons.
Figure 4-3: Shortcuts to Shared Documents folders within My Documents
After you have finished the job, you’ll find it much easier to work with documents from both folders,
because you won’t need to be navigating to Shared Documents all the time. When you open My
Documents, you just have to click the folder (or file’s) shortcut icon within My Documents to open it.
Furthermore, you will find it easier to work with Shared Documents in programs’ Open and Save As
dialog boxes. Most programs automatically set these dialog boxes to open My Documents by default.
And those dialog boxes also display the shortcuts to your shared documents, as shown in Figure 4-4.
You won’t need to navigate to Shared Documents using the drop-down list in those dialog boxes
anymore. Just click the appropriate shortcut icon within the Open or Save As dialog box to get to the
shared items. Very handy!
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Figure 4-4: Shortcuts to Shared Documents are visible in many programs’ Open and Save As dialog boxes.

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Adding Shortcuts to the Quick Launch Toolbar
Although the desktop is a handy place for shortcuts, it does have one drawback. The desktop is often
covered by whatever you’re working on at the moment. To reveal the desktop, you need to click the
Show Desktop button down in the Quick Launch toolbar. If you don’t want to be bothered with that, you
can place the shortcut right on the Quick Launch toolbar. As you may recall, that’s the toolbar that
usually displays just to the right of the Start button, as shown in Figure 4-2. That way, it will always be
visible on your screen — at least whenever the Quick Launch toolbar is visible.
Figure 4-2: The Quick Launch toolbar includes the Show Desktop icon, plus any other shortcuts you care to
add to it.
The Quick Launch toolbar needs to be visible, and the taskbar unlocked, before you can add shortcuts.
So, to get started, follow these steps:
1. Right-click the taskbar and, if Lock the Taskbar is selected, choose that option to unlock the
taskbar.
2. If the Quick Launch toolbar isn’t visible in your taskbar, right-click the taskbar and choose
Toolbars Quick Launch.
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To copy a shortcut from your desktop onto the Quick Launch toolbar, just drag the shortcut icon from
the desktop and drop it anywhere on the Quick Launch toolbar. If you want to move, rather than copy,
the desktop shortcut icon onto the Quick Launch toolbar, right-drag the icon to the toolbar and choose
Move Here after you release the right mouse button.
To create a Quick Launch icon from an icon within Windows Explorer, drag the icon from Explorer and
drop it onto the Quick Launch toolbar. I have gotten mixed results when dragging program icons from
the All Programs menu into the Quick Launch toolbar. Occasionally, it moves the icon to the toolbar,
thereby removing it from the menu. The simple solution, however, is to create a desktop shortcut to the
program, as described earlier. Then just move or copy that new shortcut icon from the desktop onto the
Quick Launch toolbar.
Using the Quick Launch toolbar
While we’re on the subject of the Quick Launch toolbar, you might find handy a few facts about it:
If the toolbar contains more icons than currently visible, click the >> arrow at the right edge
of the toolbar to scroll other items into view.
To widen or narrow the Quick Launch toolbar, drag the dots at its right edge to the left or
right.
Note If you don’t see little dots at the edge of the Quick Launch toolbar, the taskbar is
locked. Right-click the taskbar and choose Lock the Taskbar to clear the check
mark and unlock the taskbar.
To reposition an icon in the Quick Launch toolbar, just drag the item to the left or right. A
black bar displays, showing you where the icon will land when you release the mouse
button.
To display an icon’s name, just point to the icon in the Quick Launch toolbar.
To show large or small icons in the Quick Launch toolbar, right-click the toolbar itself (not an
icon within the toolbar), and then choose View and an icon size.
To display icon names in the Quick Launch toolbar, right-click the toolbar and choose Show
Text.
To view the name of the Quick Launch toolbar within the toolbar, right-click the toolbar and
choose Show Title.
To separate the Quick Launch toolbar from the taskbar, drag the dots at the left edge of the
toolbar out to the desktop, and drop them there.
To move the Quick Launch toolbar back onto the taskbar, drag the Quick Launch window’s
title bar back onto the taskbar, and drop it there.
To reposition the Quick Launch toolbar on the taskbar, drag the buttons at the left edge of
the toolbar left or right. If you can’t get the toolbar back over to the Start button, drag the
dots nearest the Start button over to the right of the Quick Launch toolbar.
To change the height of the entire taskbar, drag its upper edge up or down slightly.
With regard to that last item, it is possible to make the taskbar so narrow that it becomes virtually
invisible. When that happens, just move the mouse pointer all the way to the bottom of the screen. Then
drag upward to widen the taskbar. You can control the behavior of the taskbar in other ways as well, as
discussed under “Personalizing the Taskbar” in Chapter 13.
Deleting Quick Launch icons
If you want to remove any unused shortcut icons from your Quick Launch toolbar, simply right-click the
icon you want to remove and choose Delete. Choose Delete Shortcut from the confirmation dialog box
that appears.

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Tip If you haven’t already done so, you can create desktop icons for My Computer and
My Documents by right-clicking the desktop and choosing Properties. In the
Display Properties dialog box that opens, click the Desktop tab, and then click the
Customize Desktop button. Under Desktop Icons, choose My Documents and/or
My Computer.
If you get tired of going through the Start menu to launch a favorite program, you can easily put a
shortcut to that program right on your desktop. In some cases, however, you might not know the exact
name and location of the file needed to start the program. If so, instead of using Windows Explorer,
follow these steps:
1. Click the Start button, choose All Programs, and work your way to the option that enables you
to start the program to which you want to create a shortcut. However, don’t click that option.
Instead . . .
2. Right-click the menu option and choose Send To Desktop (create shortcut).
The Start menu might cover the new icon. If so, close it by clicking any neutral portion of the desktop, or
by pressing the Esc key.
Removing Desktop Shortcuts
To keep your desktop from getting too cluttered, you might occasionally want to remove shortcuts that
you’re not using much any more. This is simple to do. Just right-click the shortcut icon and choose
Delete. A dialog box displays asking for confirmation. To complete the job, simply click the Yes button.
If you ever do this by accident, and you catch the error right away, you can undo the deletion by rightclicking
the desktop and choosing Undo Delete. If it’s too late for that, you can recover the shortcut icon
from the Recycle Bin, as discussed under “Using the Recycle Bin” in Chapter 12.

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Adding Desktop Shortcuts
The desktop, of course, is always a handy place to put a shortcut. To add a shortcut to a file, folder, or
other location to your Windows desktop, use Windows Explorer to get to the original folder or file icon to
which you want to create a shortcut. To create a shortcut to My Pictures or My Music, for example, open
My Documents to view the original icons. To create a shortcut to Shared Documents or a particular
drive on your computer, open My Computer.
When you can see the icon to which you want to create a shortcut, make sure the Explorer window is
small enough so that you can at least see some portion of the desktop. Then, using the secondary
(right) mouse button, drag the icon out to the desktop and drop it there. From the menu that appears,
choose Create Shortcuts Here. A new icon titled “Shortcut to” followed by the original icon name
appears. The new name is already selected, so you can enter a new name if you like. For example, I
usually delete the “Shortcut to” part of the name, because I can already tell the item is a shortcut by the
little curved arrow.

Tip You can rename a shortcut icon at any time by right-clicking the icon and choosing
Rename.
Remember, you can always tidy the desktop icons by right-clicking the desktop and choosing Arrange
Icons By Name.
As is typical of Windows, you can create desktop shortcuts in other ways as well. And as usual,
choosing one method or another is simply a matter of personal preference or convenience. For
instance, you can right-click the desktop and choose New Shortcut. A Create Shortcut Wizard
appears, with a Browse button that you can use to locate the item to which you want to create the
shortcut. Within Explorer, you can right-click on any icon and choose Send To Desktop (create
shortcut).

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Tip
You can run a program’s installation program in Compatibility mode as well. Just right-click the
installation program’s icon, choose Properties, and click the Compatibility tab. See Chapter 16 for
information about how to locate those icons.
If the program still refuses to run, you may be able to get some information or updated drivers from the
Internet. Assuming you’ve already set up your Internet connection, follow these steps:
1. Click the Start button and choose Help and Support.
2. Click Find compatible hardware and software for Windows XP.
You can use options in the left pane, such as Software Lists, About Compatible Hardware and Software,
and Program Compatibility Wizard to look for appropriate information. If all else fails, you may need to
contact the program’s publisher and ask what’s needed to make the program run on Microsoft Windows
XP.
Summary
What you’ve learned in this chapter should help you to run any program on your system. You’ll also be
able to open any document, whether it’s something you created yourself or one you downloaded or
received as an e-mail attachment. Remember these main points:
To start any program that’s installed on your computer, click the Start button. If you don’t see
the program’s icon on the Start menu, check the All Programs menu.
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You can get help in just about any program by selecting Help from its menu bar.
When you use a program to create or edit a document, it’s important to remember to save your
work before closing the program or shutting down your computer.
To print a document, choose File Print from the program’s menu bar.
To You can open documents via the My Recent Documents item on the Start menu, Windows
Explorer, or the File option on the program’s menu bar.
Chapter 4: Shortcuts and Other Cool Tricks
With all the knowledge you have gained so far, you will be able to get around in Windows, as well as in
many different programs you will use. With practice, you will be able to find and use anything you need,
when you need it. You might eventually discover that you’re going through a fairly long series of clicks to
perform routine tasks. This chapter shows you ways to reduce the process to a single a click by creating
shortcuts.
What Is a Shortcut?
A shortcut is an icon that provides easy access to any program, document, folder, or nearly any other
resource on your computer. A shortcut icon looks like the original icon, but it has a small arrow in the
lower-left corner. If the shortcut is in a folder, and you’re currently viewing that folder in the Tiles view,
the word shortcut appears beneath the file name, as shown in Figure 4-1.
Figure 4-1: The Shared Documents icon on the left, and a shortcut to Shared Documents on the right
Clicking (or double-clicking) the shortcut has the same result as clicking the original icon — it opens the
program, folder, or document that the icon represents. However, you can place the shortcut anywhere
you want. The Windows desktop and the Quick Launch toolbar are prime candidates because they are
so readily accessible at all times.
One important technical difference exists between the original icons and any shortcuts you create. The
original icon represents the actual underlying file or folder. So when you delete that icon, you delete
what it represents. You don’t ever want to do this by accident, because you’ll lose whatever the icon
represents. If you were to delete the original Shared Documents icon — which is visible within My
Computer — you delete the entire Shared Documents folder and every file and folder within it. Not
good!
The shortcut icon, on the other hand, just contains the location of the actual underlying file or folder. So
when you delete the shortcut icon, you’re simply deleting the icon itself. The file or folder that the icon
represents is not deleted or altered in any way.
Incidentally, you might notice that the size of the shortcut icon back in Figure 4-1 is 1K. In reality, it’s
probably much smaller than that — Windows just tends to round sizes off to the nearest kilobyte. The
Shared Documents folder itself might be huge, containing many megabytes of information. But because
a shortcut contains information only about the location of the Shared Documents folder, it is always tiny,
no matter how much information is actually in the Shared Documents folder.

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Dealing with Troublesome Programs
Not all programs run perfectly in Windows XP. Some programs just won’t run at all. Others may run
poorly or require you to change some settings to get the program to look right on the screen. Windows
XP offers a new Compatibility mode that can greatly simplify the task of getting these errant programs to
run correctly. To use the Compatibility mode, follow these steps:
1. Click the Start button and navigate normally to the menu option that you normally use to
start the program. But don’t click on the option for starting the program. Instead . . .
2. Right-click the option for starting the program and choose Properties from the menu that
appears.
3. Click the Compatibility tab in the Properties dialog box that opens to get to the options
If you know that the program ran properly in some earlier version of Windows, select the Run this
program using compatibility mode option, and then choose the appropriate earlier version of Windows
that the program ran under, such as Windows 95. Optionally, you also can choose any combination of
the following options:
• Run in 256 colors: Allows older programs designed to run on 256-color displays to run
properly (and more quickly) in Windows XP.
• Run in 640x480 screen resolution: If an older full-screen program’s window fills only a
portion of your screen, select this option to allow the program to run in true full-screen size.
• Disable visual themes: If fancy screen features of Windows XP make your older program
look weird on the screen, select this option to disable those features while the program is
running.
After making your selections, click the OK button and try running the program again. You may have to
experiment with different combinations of settings to get the program to run to your liking.

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Figure 3-11: The Notepad applet making a vain attempt to display a photograph
It’s important to understand that when you see a mess like this, you do not want to save the document!
If you do, you may never be able to open it in any program in the future! You need to close the program.
If asked whether you want to save the document, be sure you choose No!
That’s not the program I wanted
The associations that Windows makes between documents and programs might not always be what
you want them to be. For example, you might want to edit a picture in some graphics program such as
Paint Shop Pro. When you click the document’s icon, however, the picture opens in an entirely different
program. There are a couple of solutions to this problem:
Open the program you want to use, and then choose File Open from that program’s
menu bar and open the document normally from the Open dialog box that appears.
Or, in Explorer, right-click the icon for the document you want to open, and choose Open
With from the menu that appears. Select the program you want to use to open the file.
The section “Expanding Your Open With Menu” in Chapter 4 provides more information on using the
Open With menu. For now, we need to focus on one other type of program — the ones that aren’t very
compatible with Windows XP.

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Files” in Chapter 2.
When Documents Get Weird
When you open a document icon, Windows decides which program to use to display that document by
looking at the document’s file name extension. Although usually invisible to you, the extension is a
period followed by one or more letters at the end of the file name. For example, WordPad (and Microsoft
Word) documents all have a .DOC extension, which is to say that Windows associates different types of
documents with different programs based on the document’s filename extension. Sometimes the
association won’t exist, or won’t be what you want, as discussed next.
Windows cannot open a file
If you attempt to open a document that Windows hasn’t yet associated with a program, you’ll come to
the dialog box shown in Figure 3-9. As the dialog box indicates, you can attempt to go online (if you
have Internet access) and look up the needed information. Alternatively, you can click the Select from
List button and select a program from the Open With dialog box shown in Figure 3-10.
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Figure 3-9: This dialog box appears when Windows can’t associate a document with a program.
Figure 3-10: The Open With dialog box enables you to select a program with which to open a document.
If you know enough about the document you’re attempting to open, you can enter a description of the
type of document it is in the dialog box. You can then choose which of the listed programs you want to
use to open the program. If you like, you can set up a permanent association between documents that
have this file name extension and the selected program by choosing the Always use check box. If you’re
not sure, however, you would be wise not to select that check box!
If you take a wild guess, and the program you chose can’t open the document, you’ll just see a
message to that effect, and no harm done. Then again, the program you chose might open the
document and take its best shot at displaying it. When that happens, you’re likely to end up with a mess.
For example, Figure 3-11 shows a photograph that I opened in the Notepad program. Because Notepad
doesn’t have a clue as to how to display a photo, it just displays the meaningless mess shown in the
figure.
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From a program
Yet another way to open a document is to use the File menu inside the program you want to use to edit
the document. Although the exact steps may vary a little from program to program, this procedure does
work in most programs:
1. If you haven’t already done so, start the program you want to use to edit the document you
want to open.
2. From this program’s menu bar, choose File.
3. Often the File menu will display a list of recently saved documents, as in the example shown
in Figure 3-7. If you see the document you want to open, click its name and skip the rest of
the steps.
Figure 3-7: Many programs list recently edited documents right on the File menu. Here they’re
numbered 1–4.
4. Choose Open to get to the Open dialog box. In most programs, the Open dialog box will
automatically display the contents of the My Documents folder, as in Figure 3-8.
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Figure 3-8: The Open dialog box enables you to locate and open a document from within a
program.
5. If your document isn’t in the current folder, navigate to the appropriate folder using the
Look in drop-down list, or by opening the appropriate folder from the list of folder and file
names, or by clicking on an option in the left pane.
6. When you do get to the appropriate folder, click (or double-click) the icon for the file you
want to open.
If the program you’re using enables you to open multiple documents, and you want to open several from
the current folder, you can hold down the Ctrl key as you point to or click the names of the files you want
to open. Then click the Open button to open them all.
If, for whatever reason, you’re unable to locate the icon for the document you want to open, remember
you can always use the Search Companion to track it down, as discussed under “Searching for Lost

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From Explorer
As you know from Chapter 2, Windows Explorer enables you to view the contents of any disk, and any
folder that’s in a disk. You can open any document by navigating to its folder in Explorer and then
clicking (or double-clicking) the document’s file name or icon. To open a document you saved in My
Documents, for example, you can click the Start button and choose to go straight to that folder. Then
click the icon for the document you want to open.
If the document isn’t in My Documents, you can navigate to the folder that does contain the document
from within Explorer. If the document is in Shared Documents, but you’re currently viewing My
Documents in Explorer, for example, just click Shared Documents under Other Places in the Explorer
bar. Explorer will then show the contents of the Shared Documents folder, and you can click (or doubleclick)
the document’s icon there.

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Opening Documents
Opening documents is one of those tasks that virtually all computer users do several times a day. So
naturally, Windows offers umpteen different ways to do it. Of course, there is no wrong way or right way.
It’s all just a matter of using whichever method is most convenient at the moment. Note that it’s rarely
necessary to open the program first. If you just open the document from Windows, the appropriate
program for working with that document will open automatically we well.
From the Start menu
The My Recent Documents option on the Start menu keeps track of documents you’ve worked with
lately. So one quick and easy way to open a document is to click the Start button and then point to or
click My Recent Documents, as in Figure 3-6. If you see the name of the document you want to open,
just click its name.
Figure 3-6: The My Recent Documents menu, off of the Start menu
If you don’t see a My Recent Documents option on your Start menu, but would like to have one, rightclick
the Start button and choose Properties. Click the Customize button next to Start Menu, and then
click the Advanced tab. Then choose the Show Most Recently Used Documents check box near the
bottom of the dialog box. Close both open dialog boxes, as usual, by clicking their OK buttons.
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Closing a document
You can close a document in many ways. If you want to close a document and the program you used to
create the document, close the program using any method described under “Closing a Program” earlier
in this chapter.
Some programs (although WordPad isn’t one of them) enable you to close a document without closing
the program. Such programs provide a File Close option on their menu bar to perform this task.
Programs that enable you to edit several documents simultaneously will generally display each open
document in its own window. That window, in turn, will have Minimize, Maximize/Restore, and Close (X)
buttons. Clicking the Close button on the document’s window closes just that document — not the entire
program.
Tip Closing the program that you’re working in will automatically close all open
documents within that program as well. You will have a chance to save any
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unsaved work.
If you see a dialog box that looks something like Figure 3-5, that means you’ve changed the document
since the last time you saved it. Click whichever button best describes what you want to do:
Yes: Saves your document in its current state, and then closes it.
No: Closes the document without saving your changes. Choose this option only if you made
a mess of things or have ended up with something really weird on your screen that you
don’t want to save.
Cancel: Closes the current dialog box without closing (or saving) your document. You’re
exactly where you were before you opted to close the document.

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The ever-important Save As dialog box
2. Typically, the Save In drop-down list in the dialog box will suggest your My Documents
folder as the place to save the document. If it doesn’t, you can choose My Documents from
that drop-down list, or from the buttons at the left side of the dialog box, or from the list of
folders shown below the Save In dialog box (if it’s available here).
Tip Remember, documents that you save in My Documents aren’t accessible to other people
who use this computer. If you want to share this document with others, choose Shared
Documents from the Save In drop-down list.
3. Next to File Name, type in a name for the document. Try to think of a name that will make it
easy to identify the document later. Try to limit the name to three or four words, maximum,
so you don’t end up with extremely long file names cluttering up your Windows Explorer
window in the future.
4. Click the Save button.
The Save As dialog box closes and you’re returned to your program and document. You might notice
the title bar of the program now shows the name of the document on which you’re working.
When you save a document, you save all work you’ve done up until the moment you save. If you
change or add to the document, you must specifically save the document again to save those changes
or additions. To save a document that already has a file name, choose File Save from the program’s
menu bar once again. Alternatively, you can click the little Save button in the toolbar (if any), or press
Ctrl+S. You won’t be prompted to enter a file name again because you already gave the document a file
name the first time you saved it. However, rest assured that the copy of the document that’s safely
stored on your disk exactly matches the copy you’re now viewing on your screen.
Tip Many programs offer an “autosave” feature that will automatically save your work
from time to time. This is a great safety device. To see whether a program offers
this feature, search its help for the term autosave.
If you ever want to save the current version of a document under a new name, so that you don’t alter
the original copy, choose File Save As from the program’s menu bar. There you can enter a new
name for this copy. Your original copy will remain unchanged, with the file name you originally gave to it.

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wrap (break between two words) to the next line as appropriate. Press Enter only to
end very short lines, or entire paragraphs.
So now you have a tiny document you created with WordPad. Your document has not been saved yet,
however, and it has no file name. Let’s discuss general techniques for saving any kind of document,
using this little WordPad document as an example.
Editing and formatting a document
Nothing in a document is ever carved in granite. You can make changes at any time. Although tools and
techniques vary from one program to the next, any program that enables you to type text will probably
let you do the following:
To add new text, click at about where you want the inserted text to appear, to move the
blinking cursor to that spot. Then just type your text.
To delete the character to the left of the cursor, press the Backspace key. To delete the
character to the right of the cursor, press the Delete (Del) key.
To select a chunk of text to format or delete, drag the mouse pointer through that text.
To format the selected text, make a selection from the Format menu.
To move the selected text, choose Edit Cut from the menu bar, or press Ctrl+X. Then
click where you want to place the (now invisible) text, and choose Edit Paste or press
Ctrl+V.
To copy the selected text, choose Edit Copy from the menu bar, or press Ctrl+C. Then
click where you want to place the copied text and choose Edit Paste or press Ctrl+V.
Tip The Ctrl+C (Copy) and Ctrl+V (Paste) shortcut keys are virtually universal
throughout Windows and programs that run on Windows. You can often use them
in situations where there is no Edit menu from which to choose those options. You
can even use Ctrl+C to copy something from one program’s document, and then
use Ctrl+V to paste that item into another program’s document.
To delete the selected text, press the Delete (Del) key or choose Edit Clear from the
menu bar.
Of course, for more detailed instructions on using a program, you need to refer to that
program’s written documentation or help.
Printing a document
In most programs, you can print the document you’re working on by choosing File Print from that
program’s menu bar. When the Print dialog box opens, just click its OK button. In many programs you
can press Ctrl+P to print, as opposed to going through the menu. Alternatively, if the program’s toolbar
shows a printer icon or button, just click that.
Saving a document
One thing definitely applies to all documents, and to all programs. And it’s a very important thing, so I’m
going to express it loud and clear here:
Any work you do is not saved until you specifically save it!
This is important because many beginners spend considerable time creating a document and then,
unwittingly, they close the program or turn off the computer unaware that, in doing so, they just lost all
the work they finished. That sort of defeats the purpose of having a computer in the first place.
Saving a document is easy. The only trick is to remember to do it once in a while. Anyway, here’s how
you save a document:
1. Choose File Save from the program’s menu bar. The Save As dialog box appears, as in
Figure 3-4.
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Working with Documents
Unlike a program, which is something you generally purchase, a document is usually something you
create on your own. Or, it might be something that you downloaded from the Internet or received as an
e-mail attachment. You use programs to create, edit, view, open, print, and save documents.
You might be tempted to think of documents as being like “real-world” documents, such as typewritten
letters, memos, and such. Although those things certainly are documents, the term has a much broader
meaning in computers. Whereas a program is something you “run” on your computer, a document is
anything you create, edit, print, or view from within some program. Hence, photographs, music files,
videos, Web pages, and so forth are all documents in the computer sense of the term.
Creating a document
If you’ve never created, saved, or opened a document before and you want to try it, you can use the
following steps, right now, to create a simple document using the WordPad program that comes with
Windows XP. Here we go:
1. Click the Windows Start button and choose All Programs Accessories WordPad. The
WordPad program opens on your screen as in Figure 3-3 (although initially the document
area will be all white).
Figure 3-3: WordPad open in the desktop
2. Type some text. Whatever you type automatically appears within the large document area
of WordPad’s open window, as in Figure 3-3.
Tip Unlike a typewriter, you don’t want to press the carriage return (that is, the Enter
key) at the end of each line when typing in a program. Text will automatically word
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rting Programs Not on the Menu
Typically, once you install a program, you can find the icon needed to start that program in your All
Programs menu. Sometimes, however, you might need to run programs that haven’t been installed. In
fact, usually to install a program, you need to run its SETUP.EXE program!
Chapter 16 provides all the details about installing programs. For now, these quick pointers will cover all
the most likely scenarios:
If you downloaded the program from the Internet, just clicking the icon for the downloaded
program should either start the program or begin the program installation procedure.
If you recently purchased a program, and it’s on a CD-ROM, just insert that disk into your CDROM
drive and wait for instructions to appear on-screen.
If you need to install a program from a floppy disk or other disk (including a CD-ROM that won’t
autostart), use My Computer to display the contents of the disk. Then click (or double-click)
the SETUP.EXE file that will likely appear on that disk.
If all else fails, you may need to read the instructions. (Bummer, I know.) If you don’t have any printed
instructions, you’ll probably find them in a file named README.TXT on the same disk that the program
is stored on. Alternatively, in the case of a program you downloaded from the Internet, the instructions
should appear on the Web page from which you downloaded the file.

Closing a program

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When you finish using a program, you should close it. Use whichever of the following techniques is most
convenient at the moment:
• Click the Close (X) button in the upper-right corner of the program’s window.
• Or, choose File Exit from the program’s menu bar.
• Or, right-click the program’s taskbar button and choose Close.
• Or, press Alt+F4.
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After you’ve closed a program, its taskbar button will disappear. To reopen the program in the future,
you need to go through the Start button again. Alternatively, if the program has a shortcut icon on the
desktop or in Quick Launch toolbar, click (or double-click) that icon.

Using the program

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Every program is different, so no hard-and-fast rules apply to all programs. However, most programs do
share some common themes. For example, most programs provide access to their features via menu
commands, which you can get to by clicking the options in the menu bar near the top of the window.
Many programs offer toolbars, which just provide simple one-click access to the more commonly used
menu commands.
Even though all programs are different, and therefore offer different commands, many programs’ menu
bars offer the options in this list:
• File: Use this menu to open, save, and close documents, as well as to print the document
currently shown within the program’s document area.
• Edit: Use this menu to access basic editing commands, as well as Cut, Copy, and Paste, for
copying and moving items within a document, or from one document to another.
• View: Use this menu to hide and display toolbars and to choose different ways to view the
document you’re working on.
• Format: Use this menu to format (change something about the appearance of) something
within the document.
• Tools: This menu contains any special tools that the program offers. It also might offer an
Options or Preferences option, which enables you to better tailor certain features of the
program to your own needs.
• Window: If the program you’re using enables you to have several documents open at the
same time, the Window menu will provide options for arranging the document windows,
and for easily jumping from one window to the next.
• Help: As you know, this menu provides help for the program.
Most programs that enable you to edit documents work on a “select, then do” basis. First select the item
within the document that you want to change, move, edit, delete, or whatever. To select text, drag the
mouse pointer through it. To select a picture, click the picture. After you’ve made a selection, you’ll
typically find the commands for working with the selected item on the Edit or Format menu.

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Many programs’ help windows also offer an Index and Search option in the left pane. For example, you
can see tabs with those titles above the list of contents shown in Figure 3-2. Click the tab to look up
specific information within the program’s help.
Because the help usually appears in a window that’s separate from the program’s window, you can
move and size the windows to give you the best possible view of both. If the windows overlap, you can
click either window or its taskbar button to make it the active window. As discussed in Chapter 2, the
active window is always on the top of the stack and also is the only window capable of accepting
keyboard input.
You also can reduce the size of the help window by closing the Topics list. Click the Hide button in the
help window’s toolbar to hide the list. Click the Show button to reopen it. To close the help window, click
its Close (X) button, just as you’d close any other window.

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Figure 3-1: About to open the Windows Calculator applet
If your Windows desktop or taskbar sports an icon for the program you want to start, you can, of course,
just click (or double-click) that icon. No need to go through the menus in that case.
Cross-Reference
In Chapter 4, you’ll learn how to create your own shortcuts to favorite programs.
Chapter 13 shows you how to customize your Start menu for easy access to
favorite programs.
Getting help in programs
Most programs come with their own online help, similar to Windows online help. The help a program
offers, however, is geared toward that particular program rather than toward Windows XP. To get to a
program’s online help, while you’re in that program, try either of these methods:
• Choose Help Help Topics (or some similar option) from that program’s menu bar.
• Or, just press the Help key (F1) on your keyboard.
The Help window that appears will be about the program you’re currently using. Typically, the left pane
initially shows a table of contents titled “Contents” on its tab. In the Contents view, you can click any
item that has a book icon to “open the book” and see the “pages” within. Clicking an item that sports a
“page” icon opens that page in help. In Figure 3-2, for example, I opened the book named Calculator,
and then clicked Perform a Simple Calculation to view the help in the right pane.
Figure 3-2: Viewing the “Perform a Simple Calculation” page in Calculator’s help
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Chapter 3: Opening Programs and Documents
Just about everything you do on a computer involves using some program. As you probably know,
thousands of programs are available for Windows computers, ranging from games for toddlers to
advanced programming languages. Windows XP comes with many programs built right in. The larger
programs, such as Windows Media Player, Microsoft Internet Explorer, and so forth, are described in a
later chapter in this book. Some of the smaller, simpler programs, such as Calculator and WordPad, are
covered here in this chapter.
Using Programs
The term program generally refers to something you buy to use on your computer. There are programs
to do just about anything imaginable on your PC. All programs are, of course, software. Programs also
are known as application programs, or applications, or even just apps for short. Small simple programs,
such as the Calculator and WordPad programs that come with Windows XP, are often referred to as
applets.
Many programs enable you to create, edit (change), print, or play documents. For example, you might
use WordPad or Microsoft Word to create, edit, and print typewritten documents. You might use a
graphics program to create drawings, or to edit digital photographs, as well as to print them. A program
such as Windows Media Player enables you to play multimedia documents such as music and video.
Opening programs
To use a program, you need to start it on your system. There are lots of different words for “starting” a
program. For example, the terms launch a program, open a program, run a program, execute a
program, and fire up a program all mean the same as start a program. Each program you start will
generally appear in its own window on the Windows desktop.
The typical scenario for starting any program in Windows XP is as follows:
1. Click the Start button.
2. If you see an icon for the program you want to start in the left half of the menu, click its icon
and skip the remaining steps.
3. Click All Programs to see a more complete list of programs on your computer.
4. Click the icon for the program you want to start. Alternatively, if necessary, click the option
that provides the submenu for the program you want. Then click the icon.
As an example of the last step, the icon for the Calculator program is inside the Accessories submenu.
Therefore, to start Calculator, you must point to Accessories, and then click the Calculator option, as in
Figure 3-1.

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The item disappears from My Documents. If you switch to Shared Documents by clicking that option
under Other Places, you’ll see that the item is now in that folder.
Tip As you’ll learn in Chapter 4, you can add to your My Documents folder shortcuts to
anything you’ve moved into Shared Documents. That way, those items will still be
just one click away whenever you’re in your My Documents folder.
The same basic technique works the other way around. Be aware, however, that once you move
something from Shared Documents to My Documents, the item is no longer shared (which might irritate
your fellow computer users). If you’re sure you want to do this, however, open Shared Documents and
drag the item you want to move to the My Documents option under Other Places. If you then click My
Documents, you’ll see that the item now exists in your My Documents folder.
Summary
The concepts and basic skills you have learned in this chapter are important, and most of them you’ll
use in your day-to-day interaction with your computer. Of course, they won’t become second nature to
you until you’ve had some hands-on practice. Still, it’s important to know what can be done, and how to
do it. Here’s a quick recap of the topics discussed in this chapter:
• An icon is a small picture that opens into a full window.
• To close an open window, reducing it once again to an icon, click the Close (X) button in
the upper-right corner of that window.
• Dialog boxes present controls that enable you to choose among various options a particular
program or device offers.
• Windows Explorer is a good program to know, because it enables you to explore and access
the various disk drives, folders, and files in your computer.
• The Search Companion offered by Explorer helps you find lost folders and files.
• The My Computer location within Explorer gives you access to all your computer’s disk
drives.
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• The My Documents folder gives each user his own place on the hard disk in which to store
his own, unshared documents.
• The Shared Documents folder holds folders and files that all users of your computer can
access.

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Tip To create a shortcut to Shared Documents on your desktop, open My Computer as
described earlier. Then drag the Shared Documents icon out to the desktop and
drop it there. More on creating shortcuts in Chapter 4.
The main thing to keep in mind is that shared items don’t appear within your My Documents folder —
even though other people are willing to share. You must specifically go to the Shared Documents folder
to find those shared items.
If you want to share items from your My Documents folder, or any of its subfolders, you must move or
copy those items from their current location to the Shared Documents folder (or one of its
subdocuments). Keep in mind that once you move an item to Shared Documents, it is no longer
available via My Documents. If someone else deletes that shared item, it’s gone for good. If someone
else changes the item, you’re stuck with those changes.
On the other hand, if you copy items to Shared Documents, you retain your own copy in your My
Documents folder. So there’s no loss if someone else deletes it. Likewise, if someone changes the
Shared Documents item, those changes won’t be reflected in the copy that’s in your My Documents
folder. If you prefer the changed copy, and want that one in your My Documents folder, you must copy
the changed version from Shared Documents to My Documents.
Chapter 12 discusses moving and copying files and folders in detail. If you’re just looking to move
something from My Documents to Shared Documents, however, the procedure is simple enough:
1. Open My Documents.
2. Drag the item you want to move from the right pane of the Explorer window to the Shared
Documents option under Other Places in the Explorer bar, and drop it there.

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Or, if you see a My Documents icon on your desktop, just open that icon.
Figure 2-33: Various places from which you can open your My Documents folder
Tip To add a My Documents icon to your desktop, right-click the desktop and choose
Properties. Click the Desktop tab, and then click on the Customize Desktop button.
Under Desktop Icons, choose My Documents. Then click each open dialog box’s
OK button.
Windows Explorer opens and displays the contents of your My Documents folder. That folder might
contain still more folders, such as My Music and My Pictures. And it might contain some documents,
such as the Things to Do document in Figure 2-34.
Figure 2-34: Contents of a sample My Documents folder
Keep in mind that the My Documents folder is yours, and yours alone. Other people who use this same
computer and who log on with their own user names will have their own My Documents folders. Any
files that users of this computer can share will be in the Shared Documents folder.

Introducing Shared Documents
As the name implies, the Shared Documents folder contains files and folders that all users of this
computer can access. You can open Shared Documents by choosing that option under Other Places in
the Explorer bar. You also can find its icon in My Computer. As always, you’ll see the folders and files
contained within the Shared Documents folder. And you can open anything in that file or folder by
clicking or double-clicking it.

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The reason for the change has to do with the improved support for multiple users that XP provides.
Each user has her own My Documents folder, which prevents multiple users from overcrowding a single
My Documents folders. Each user also has his own desktop, and Start menu settings, Favorites, and so
forth, and these too are stored within the user’s folder.
These changes are pretty transparent when you’re working in Windows. Normally there’s really no need
for you to ever dig around in any subfolders within Documents and Settings. You can get to your own
My Documents folder from many places on the desktop and within Explorer. There’s really no need to
“drill down” to the folder via the Documents and Settings folder.
Note If you attempt to view the contents of such a drive while it’s empty, you’ll
just see a little message asking you to put a disk into the drive. When you
insert the disk, the message disappears and Explorer displays the
contents of the disk.
You rarely need to use My Computer to use a CD-ROM or DVD disk. Most of these have an autostart
capability. Just insert the disk into its drive and wait a few seconds for something to appear on-screen. If
nothing happens, you can open the icon for the drive in My Computer. Be aware, however, that doing so
might automatically start some program on the CD, in which case you won’t be taken to the traditional
view of the drive’s contents.
If you do get to a traditional view of the drive’s contents, and you’re looking to install a program that’s on
that CD, you can probably just click (or double-click) the icon for the file named SETUP.EXE on that
disk. Refer to Chapter 16 for detailed information in installing new programs.
Introducing My Documents
Even though most of the folders on your hard disk contain still more folders and files that you probably
don’t want to mess with, there is one folder on your hard disk that’s especially reserved for you and your
personal files. Its name is My Documents, and you can quickly get to it using any of the following
methods,
Click the Start button and choose My Documents.
Or, if you’re already in an Explorer window, choose My Documents from Other Places in the
Explorer bar at the left side of that window.

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Figure 2-32: Viewing the contents of the C: drive on one of my computers
Documents and Settings: Contains folders and files that are unique to you, the current
user of this computer. Your My Documents folder is contained within this folder. But there
are faster and easier ways to get to that folder as opposed to “drilling down” from this level.
Program Files: Any programs that you install on your computer will most likely put their
files in a subfolder within this Program Files folder. Unless you really know what you’re
doing, you’d be wise to stay out of this folder and let Windows manage it for you behind the
scenes. You can start any program that’s installed on your computer from the Start menu, or
the All Programs option available on that menu.
WINDOWS: The files that make up your Windows operating system are stored within this
folder. This is another folder you’ll want to stay out of, unless you’re an expert who has
some reason to be working directly with Windows files.
To return to the My Computer view of things, click the Back button on Explorer’s toolbar.
Your hard disk is nonremovable, in the sense that you can’t take it out of its drive. So you can always
open that icon to view the hard drive’s contents. Obviously, you can insert and remove disks from drives
that support removable disks, such as your floppy (A:) and CD-ROM or DVD (D:) drive. To view the
contents of such a disk, insert the disk into its drive. Then open the drive’s icon in My Computer.
Explorer will display the contents of that drive as file and folder icons as well.
What Happened to My Documents?
If you’re an experienced Windows user, you might wonder why the traditional My Documents folder isn’t
visible when you first view the contents of your C: drive. The My Documents folder now exists as a
subfolder within Documents and Settings. If you open that folder, you’ll see a folder for each user who
has an account on this computer, as well as a few other folders. If you open the folder that bears your
user name, you’ll see your My Documents folder within that folder.

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Good Places to Know
So far, this discussion about using Windows Explorer has pretty much focused on the hard disk, drive
C:. There are no doubt other disk drives. In this section, you’ll learn how to access those drives using
My Computer. You also will learn about some key folders on your hard disk, including My Documents
and Shared Documents.
Introducing My Computer
Contrary to what the heading implies, I’m not going to introduce you to my personal computer. My
Computer, in this context, refers to the view of the available disk drives offered by the Windows My
Computer option on a computer. I used that folder as an example quite often in the preceding section.
However, I didn’t mention that you can quickly view the contents of that folder in three different ways:
Click the Start button and choose My Computer.
Or, if you see a My Computer icon on your Windows desktop, open it (by clicking or doubleclicking
it).
Tip To add a My Computer icon to your desktop, right-click the desktop and choose
Properties. Click the Desktop tab, and then click the Customize Desktop button.
Under Desktop Icons, choose My Computer. Then click each open dialog box’s OK
button.
Or, if you’re already in Windows Explorer, click My Computer under Other Places in the
Explorer bar.
Figure 2-30 shows the locations of the various options for launching My Computer. It doesn’t matter
which one you use — just choose whichever is most convenient at the moment.
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Figure 2-30: Three ways to get to the My Computer view of your computer’s disk drives
Tip Yet a fourth way to quickly view the contents of My Computer is to click its name in
the Folders list of Explorer.
Explorer displays an icon for each drive in your computer. Exactly what you see when My Computer
opens depends on the drives that your system has. Just about every computer has a local hard drive
named C:, as well a floppy drive named A: and a CD-ROM or DVD drive named D:, as in the example
shown in Figure 2-31.
Figure 2-31: Sample contents of a My Computer view.
You may notice some folder icons in My Computer as well, particularly one named Shared Documents.
That item isn’t really a disk drive — it’s a virtual disk drive that is discussed a bit later in this chapter. For
now, let’s focus on the actual drives.
To view the contents of a drive, click (or double-click) its icon. The contents of the drive will most likely
display as folder and file icons. Folders are just groups of files that somehow go together. Folders are
always represented by manila file folder icons. The icon for a file will vary with the type of information
the file contains, as well as the specific view you’re using in Explorer at the moment, as discussed later
in this chapter.
If you open the icon for the C: drive, for example, you’ll probably see at least three folders named
Documents and Settings, Programs Files, and WINDOWS as in Figure 2-32. (If instead you see a
message saying that the files are hidden, choose Show the Contents of This Drive under System Tasks
to display the contents of the drive.) I don’t recommend that you mess with the contents of any of these
folders. The only “safe” place for a beginner to work with files on the hard disk is in the folder named My
Documents, discussed in a moment. Just for your basic knowledge, however, here’s what’s stored in
those folders:
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Search system folders: If selected, searches “system folders” outside of My
Documents, including the folders where Windows XP stores its own files.
o Search hidden files and folders: If selected, files and folders that are normally
hidden from view are included in the search. Any file or folder can be hidden or
unhidden by right-clicking its icon, choosing Properties, and then selecting or
clearing the Hidden option on the General tab.
Case sensitive: If selected, only files that match the exact upper/lowercase letters
in whatever word or phrase you’re searching for are included in the results of the
search.
Search tape backup: If you use a tape backup device to make backups of your
files, choosing this option enables you to search the tape backups.
In most cases, it won’t be necessary to provide anything other than part of the file name, or perhaps
something about the contents of the file. So don’t let all the searching options throw you for a loop. As
an example, suppose that after clicking the Start button and choosing Search, I choose Pictures, Music,
or Video from the Search Explorer bar. Then I choose Music and Sound, and enter Hendrix as all or
part of the file name, as in Figure 2-28.
Figure 2-28: About to search for Music and Sound files containing Hendrix
After I click the Search button and wait for a few seconds, the right pane shows a bunch of files. Even
though the name Hendrix doesn’t appear in each file’s specific file name, Search was clever enough to
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include files that have Hendrix in the artist’s name, as in Figure 2-29. (There I’m in Details view and
have chosen to include Artist in that view via Choose Details, as described earlier.)
Figure 2-29: The results of a search for music and sound files that have Hendrix in the file name include files
that have Hendrix in the artist’s name.
The Search bar remains open after the search is complete. Therefore, if you don’t find what you’re
looking for on the first search (or end up with too many items), you can choose an option under No,
Refine this Search, and then take another shot at it. When you’re happy with the results of the search,
choose Yes, Finished Searching to bring back the normal Explorer bar.
Keep in mind that even though the title of the Explorer window reads Search Results when the search is
complete, you are still in Windows Explorer. And hence, you use all the techniques described earlier in
this chapter to view and arrange the icons to your liking. Likewise, you can open any icon by clicking, or
double-clicking it.
Tip In some cases, you might want to see the contents of the entire folder in which a
found file is located. To do that, right-click any icon in the right pane and choose
Open Containing Folder.

The Status bar

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The optional Status bar in Explorer provides brief information about whatever you’re viewing in Explorer
at the moment. It also offers the standard sizing pad, which you can drag to resize the window. You can
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see an example along the bottom of the Explorer window shown in Figure 2-26. Choose View › Status
Bar from the Explorer menu bar to hide or display the Status bar.
Searching for Lost Files
It’s not unusual, especially among beginners, to lose files on a hard disk. You might download a file
from the Internet or create and save some document without paying much attention to where you put it
or what you named it. Or, you may be digging around for some document you created ages ago, and
have long since lost track of its name and/or location. The Explorer Search Companion will help you find
it.
Cross-
Reference
Newbies take note. Chapter 3 teaches you all about creating and saving
documents. Chapter 6 explains how to download files from the Internet.
To open the Search Companion:
If you’re already in Windows Explorer, just click the Search button in the Standard Buttons
toolbar.
Or, choose View › Explorer Bar › Search.
Or, press Ctrl+E.
Or, if you’re not in Windows Explorer, click the Start button and choose Search.
The first time the Search Companion opens, you’ll see a prompt asking whether you want to search
with, or without, an animated screen character. This is a one-time question, so you might not see it at
all. Frankly, it makes little difference which you choose, unless you happen to be fond of animated dogs.
You can change your mind at any time by choosing Change Preferences within the Search bar.
The first set of options to appear in the Search Companion bar, shown in Figure 2-27, are as follows:
Pictures, music, or video: This option limits the results of the search to those types of files.
Documents: This option limits the search to document files that go with specific programs,
such as Word documents, Excel documents, and so forth.
All files and folders: This option returns search results with all types of files.
Computers or people: This option enables you to search for computers in a local network,
people in your address book, or the Internet.
Information in Help and Support Center: This option plays the same role as the Search
option in Windows Help.
Figure 2-27: The Search Companion, with the animated character
The options that appear next depend on what you select. To see the full range of searching options, you
need to click Use Advanced Search Options. You can fill in any information you do know about the file.
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If you don’t know a specific piece of information about a file (such as its size), leave that option blank.
Staying with the example of searching for lost files or folders, you’ll likely be given the following options:
All or part of filename: If you know anything about the name of the file, you can enter that
here. For music, videos, and other media files, you can even add information that’s not
specifically in the file name, but elsewhere in the file’s properties. For example, searching for
“Hendrix” in music and sound files will find files with Hendrix in the file name, the artist name,
album name, and so forth.
A word or phrase in the file: If you don’t remember the name of the file, but remember
something about its contents, you can enter that here. If you’re searching for a letter written to
Jack Jones, for example, and are pretty sure the letter contains “Dear Jack” or “Dear Mr.
Jones,” you can enter Jack or Jones as the content to search for.
Look in: This option enables you to expand or narrow the search to certain drives or folders. If
you know the file is in My Documents or one of the folders contained within My Documents, for
instance, you can choose My Documents as the place to look in. This speeds up the search,
because only that folder (and its subfolders) are searched.
When was it modified: If all you remember about the file is that you created or modified it
yesterday, last week, or within some other time frame, you can choose this option and specify
a range of dates.
What size is it: In the unlikely event that you happen to remember only the approximate size of
the file, you can choose this option to search for files within a range of sizes.
More advanced options: As the name implies, choosing More Advanced Options enables you
to narrow things down even further, including the following:

The links bar

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The Links bar
The optional Links bar, shown below the Address bar in Figure 2-26, provides quick links to commonly
visited Web sites or locations on your own computer. The icons that initially appear within the Links bar
are just examples. You can easily add your own links, and remove any you don’t want.
Tip If you have Internet access, clicking the Customize Links icon in the Links bar will
take you to a Web page that provides more detailed instructions about how to
customize your links.
To add a link, first go to the folder or Web site to which you want to add a link. If the Address bar isn’t
already open, open it. Then drag the tiny icon that appears within the Address bar onto the Links bar
and drop it between any existing links in the Links bar.
It’s possible that your Links bar won’t be large enough to display all available links. When that occurs,
you can click the >> arrows at the right of the Links bar to view remaining links.
To rename a link, right click its icon in the Links bar and choose Rename. Enter a new name (or edit the
existing name) in the dialog box that appears. To remove a link, just click its icon in the bar and choose
Delete.

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Standard Buttons toolbar
The Standard Buttons toolbar, which is visible in all the sample Explorer windows in this chapter,
provides quick access to commonly used features of Explorer. You can show or hide that toolbar by
choosing View › Toolbars › Standard Buttons.
The Address bar
The optional Address bar, visible beneath the Standard Buttons toolbar in Figure 2-26, shows the name
of the location you’re viewing at the moment. It also provides a drop-down list of other commonly
accessed locations on your computer. You can jump to a new location by choosing it from the dropdown
list.
Figure 2-26: An Explorer window with all the trimmings
You also can type the name of a new location to visit into the Address bar. After you’ve finished typing,
just press Enter or click the Go button to go to that location. Note that if you have Internet access, you
can type the URL of any Web site into the Address bar. For example, typing www.coolnerds.com and
pressing Enter, or clicking the Go button, takes you to my Web site. Clicking the Back button takes you
back to wherever you left from on your own computer. Although this is handy for quick visits to Web
sites, you’ll probably want to use the Internet Explorer program, discussed in Chapter 6, for most of your
Web browsing.

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Locking, unlocking, moving, and resizing toolbars
You can add and remove various toolbars in Explorer, as you can in most Windows programs. You also
can move toolbars around. However, you must unlock the toolbars first, if they’re locked. To lock, as
well as to unlock the toolbars, choose View › Toolbars › Lock the Toolbars. When the toolbars are
locked, Lock the Toolbars option has a check mark next to it. The little dots at the left of the toolbars,
which you can drag to move the toolbars, disappear when the toolbars are locked. To combine, split,
and move toolbars, do the following:
To combine two toolbars into one, drag the lower toolbar into the upper toolbar.
To size combined toolbars, drag the dots to the left or right.
To switch the left/right positions of combined toolbars, drag the dots of the leftmost
toolbar all the way to the right.
To split combined toolbars into the two separate bars, drag the dots of the rightmost
toolbar down below the current toolbar.

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will teach you ways to create your own folders and
subfolders, as well as ways in which you can customize your folders
Other bars accessible after you choose View › Explorer Bar from the menu include the following:
Search: Displays the Search Companion described under “Searching for Lost Files” a little
later in this chapter.
Favorites: Displays your list of favorites — things you visit frequently. Chapter 13 discusses
ways to create and manage Favorites in more detail.
Media: Opens a “player” frame for playing multimedia files, such as music and video. If your
computer is connected to the Internet, it takes you to the Microsoft site
WindowsMedia.com, where you can select music and videos to play in Windows Media
Player (as discussed in Chapter 25).
History: Displays a list of Web sites and folders you’ve visited recently, organized and
grouped by day, Web site, and so forth. As in the Folders bar, you can expand and contract
items by clicking them, and jump to a location by clicking its name in the list.
Tip of the Day: Displays a Tip of the Day, and a Next Tip link, at the bottom of the Explorer
window. Tips are downloaded from the Microsoft Web site.

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Grouping icons
To group icons in the display, choose View › Arrange Icons By › Show in Groups. This option acts as
a toggle and, once selected, is automatically applied to whichever option you selected from the Arrange
Icons By menu. For example, Figure 2-24 shows the folders in my My Music folder arranged by name,
and displayed in groups. To turn off the grouping, choose View › Arrange Icons By › Show in Groups
again.
The Folders list and other bars
The Folders list available in Explorer provides a quick and easy way to jump to specific areas of your
computer and to folders on your hard disk. To open the Folders list, just click the Folders button on the
toolbar, or choose View › Explorer Bar › Toolbar from the menu. Figure 2-25 shows an example of
the Folders list on the left side of the Explorer window.
Figure 2-25: The Folders list open on one of my computers
You can expand and contract items in the list by clicking the plus sign (+, to expand) or the minus sign
(–, to contract) to the left of the item. The Folders list provides a quick alternative to “drilling down”
through folders to get to a specific subfolder. For example, the computer represented in Figure 2-25 has
a folder named Art Parts within a folder named Clip Art, which in turn is contained within the My Pictures
folder of My Documents. Without the Folders list open, I would have to work my way down to that folder.
Which is to say, that in My Documents I’d need to open My Pictures. Then in that folder I would need to
open Clip Art, and then finally Art Parts. In the Folders list, however, I can just click the Art Parts folder
to jump to it directly, no matter where I happen to be at the moment.

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Arranging Explorer icons
You can choose how icons in the right pane of the Explorer window are arranged by choosing View ›
Arrange Icons By from the menu bar. You have the following options:
Name: Displays icons with folders in alphabetic order, followed by files in alphabetic order.
Size: Files are listed in smallest to largest order.
Type: Files are presented in groups by type.
Modified: Displays icons based on the date they were last modified.
These four options are pretty universal. When viewing the contents of your My Pictures or My Music
folder, you’ll also be given options for arranging icons relative to those file types. In My Pictures, for
example, you’ll have the option to arrange icons by the date the picture was taken, and the dimensions
(size) or the pictures. In My Music, for example, you’ll be able to arrange icons based on artist, album,
length, and so forth.

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Figure 2-22: The Choose Details dialog box
2. Choose which information you want the Details view to display via the check boxes
provided, or by clicking an option and then clicking the Show or Hide button.
3. To set a default width for the currently selected column, enter a measurement in pixels in
the Width box. Alternatively, leave the setting at zero to allow Windows to size the
column automatically.
Tip A pixel is only one tiny, lighted dot on the screen, too small to even see with the naked
eye. Therefore, when setting a column width, use at least 20 pixels
4. You can reorder the options by using the Move Up and Move Down buttons to move the
current item.
5. To change the order of items in the Details view, click any item you want to move and
then use the Move Up and Move Down buttons to reposition the item.
6. Click the OK button when you finish.
Tip Because the Details view settings apply to the current folder only, you can choose
different details for different types of folders. For example, the details you select for
your My Pictures folder might differ from the details you select for your My Music
folder.
If you’re not already viewing icons in Details view, just choose Details from the View menu or Views
button. The display will now contain all the columns you specified in the Choose Details dialog box. If
necessary, you can scroll left and right using the horizontal scroll bar that appears beneath the list. To
change the width of a column, drag the bar that separates one column heading from the next left or
right. To rearrange columns, drag any column heading to the left or right.
You also can sort (that is, alphabetize) the list by the contents of any column. Just click the column
heading of the column you want to sort. To switch from ascending order to descending order, or viceversa,
click the column heading again.
Most of a file’s details are managed automatically by Windows. However, some details items are up to
you. To view, and optionally change, the details for a single file, right-click the file and choose
Properties. The Properties dialog box for that one file will open. The General tab will contain factual
information about the file, with only a few settings that you can actually change. To fill in personal details
about the file, click the Summary tab. Use the button near the bottom of the dialog box to choose
between a Simple or Advanced view of the information. Figure 2-23 shows both views.
Figure 2-23: The Summary tab of a file’s properties in Simple and Advanced views
You can fill in the blanks for any missing information you want. Then click OK after you have finished.
Note If Windows won’t let you change the file’s properties, clear the Read-only check
box on the General tab.

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Figure 2-20: The Filmstrip view of my My Pictures folders
Buttons in the upper pane enable you to move to the next or preceding picture, zoom in on any part of
the picture, and zoom back out, choose between “best fit” and “actual size” for sizing the picture, as well
as to rotate the picture clockwise and counterclockwise. To leave the Filmstrip view, just choose any
other option from the Views button or View menu.
Choosing details to view
As mentioned, the Details view shows details about each icon in the folder you’re viewing at the
moment, as in the example shown in Figure 2-21.
Figure 2-21: A folder’s contents displayed in Details view
You can custom design the Details view for the folder you’re viewing at the moment by following these
steps:
1. Choose View › Choose Details from the Explorer menu bar to open the Choose Details
dialog box shown in Figure 2-22.

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Picture slide shows
The View as Slide Show option enables you to view each of the pictures in the folder in a slide show
manner. Each picture — including those in subfolders within the My Pictures folder — appears full size
on the screen for a few seconds. If you move the mouse as the slide show is going by, a toolbar will
appear on the screen, enabling you to pause, restart, or close the slide show, as well as to scroll back to
the preceding picture, or forward to the next picture.
Filmstrip view
A new option, titled Filmstrip, is available when you choose View from the Explorer menu bar. Selecting
that view adds a picture preview screen to the pane, and presents icons for the pictures in a horizontal
strip along the bottom of the pane, like a filmstrip. A horizontal scroll bar appears along the bottom of
the filmstrip to help you scroll through the pictures. Clicking a thumbnail displays a larger view of the
picture in the upper pane, as in Figure 2-20.

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Fun with Thumbnails view
Thumbnails view is great for viewing any folder that contains pictures stored as files on your hard disk.
For example, Figure 2-19 shows the contents of my My Pictures folder in Thumbnails view. The icons
for files that contain pictures are actually small thumbnail-sized views of the images themselves. Folders
within my My Pictures folder show up as large folder icons, with an even tinier view of some of the
pictures within those folders.
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Figure 2-19: The contents of my My Pictures folder in Thumbnails view
Notice that the Tasks options in the Explorer bar (now showing as Picture Tasks) offers some unique
options. The Order Prints Online and Print Pictures options start up wizards that will help you do as they
say. Note that, unless you select specific files before you choose one of these options, you’ll end up
with prints of all the pictures in the folder. The section “Select, Then Do” in Chapter 12 explains the
many ways in which you can select file icons in Windows Explorer.
Tip Your My Music folder also offers a couple of unique tasks, including the option to
buy music off the Internet, and to play all the songs in the folder. If you choose the
Play All task, Windows Media Player opens to play the songs (as discussed in

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Umpteen ways to view files and folders
Explorer offers many different ways to view the icons in its right pane. Choosing one view over another
is just a matter of what’s convenient at the moment. To change the view, you can click the Views button
in the toolbar and make your selection from the menu that appears. Alternatively, choose View from the
Explorer menu bar and select a view from the menu that opens. Your have the following choices:
Thumbnails: Displays the contents of any pictures in the current folder as small thumbnailsized
images. Folders and files that don’t contain pictures just appear as large icons.
Tiles: Shows information about each file and folder (as available) beneath the item’s name,
as in the example shown in Figure 2-18.
Icons: Shows just an icon and name for each file and folder.
List: Reduces the size of the icons to about the same size as corresponding text, and
presents the information in a list.
Details: Shows detailed information about each icon, including its size (except in the case
of folders), type, and the date and time the item was last modified. Although as discussed
later, you can choose for yourself what you want the Details view to display.
The Thumbnails and Details views offer some extra unique options, discussed in the sections that
follow.

The New Explorer Bar

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The Explorer window, shown in Figure 2-18, is currently divided into two panes. The left pane is called
the Explorer bar. The Explorer bar contains three drop-down bars, as described in the following list.
Tasks: Provides quick access to tasks you might want to perform at the moment. The
tasks available to you will change as you make different selections from the rightmost
pane. Clicking an option will start the selected task.
Other Places: Lists other places on your computer that you can jump to within Explorer.
When you click one of those options, the right pane changes to show the contents of that
new location. The Back button in the toolbar takes you back to wherever you just left.
Details: Shows detailed information about the current location, or the selected file or
folder in the right pane.
You can open or close the Tasks, Other Places, or Details portion of the bar by clicking the small button
to the right of the title.
A couple of good things to know about the Explorer bar, right off the bat. . . . First, if you resize the
Explorer window, the Explorer bar automatically disappears (which is helpful if you get to a point when
leaving it open would prevent the contents of the right pane from being displayed). Second, the Explorer
bar is optional and may not be visible at all if someone else has disabled it. If you can’t see the Explorer
bar, no matter how large you make the window, you can turn it back on by following these steps:
1. Choose Tools › Folder Options from the Explorer menu bar.
2. On the General tab, choose Show Common Tasks in Folders.
3. Click the OK button to close the Folder Options dialog box.
The rightmost pane displays the contents of whatever it is you’re exploring at the moment. In Figure 2-
18, for example, I can see that my My Documents folder currently contains several additional folders,
including My Music and My Pictures. There also are a couple of documents in there, named Resume
and My First WordPad Document. Note that the folders all have icons that look like manila file folders.
Documents will have other icons. As you know, you can open any icon just by clicking or double-clicking
the icon. If you open a folder icon, you’ll see the contents of that folder within Explorer. The Explorer title
bar will then display the name of the currently open folder. To return to My Documents, click the Back
button on the Explorer toolbar.
If you open a document icon, the document will open in whatever program is associated with the type of
document you opened. For example, opening the My First WordPad Document icon in the figure opens
that document in Microsoft Word (if it’s installed) or the Windows WordPad program (if Microsoft Word
isn’t available). The program’s window covers (or overlaps) the Explorer window. From within the open
program, you can then edit, print, or do whatever else the program enables you to do. After you have
finished working with the document, you can close the program (by clicking its Close button).

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Exploring Your Computer
Now that you have the basic skills to work in the Windows desktop, as well as any dialog boxes that pop
up, it’s time to turn our attention to the one Windows program you’re likely to use more than any other.
Its name is Windows Explorer (or just Explorer, for short). As its name implies, its purpose is to enable
you to explore the contents of your computer.
There are lots of ways to start Explorer, as you’ll learn. For starters, either of these methods will do:
Click the Start button and choose My Documents.
Or, click the Start button and choose All Programs › Accessories › Windows Explorer.
Either way, Explorer will open, looking something like Figure 2-18. Like all windows, Explorer has a title
bar with Minimize, Maximize/Restore, and Close buttons, a menu bar, toolbar, and so forth. Unlike most
programs, however, Explorer doesn’t display its own name in its title bar. Instead, it displays whatever it
is that you’re exploring at the moment. In Figure 2-18, for example, Explorer’s title bar shows the
contents of the folder named My Documents. As you’ll learn shortly, My Documents is a folder on your
computer’s hard disk where you’ll store all your personal files.
Figure 2-18: Windows Explorer currently showing the contents of the My Documents folder, as indicated in
its title bar

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Copying text and pictures
The ability to cut and paste into text boxes is also a huge timesaver. If the information that you need to
type into a text box is visible just about anywhere on the screen or available someplace where you can
get it to the screen, there’s never any need to retype it. Just select the text that you want to copy into the
text box by dragging the mouse pointer through that text. Then, press Ctrl+C to copy the selected text to
the Windows Clipboard (which is an invisible placeholder for cut and copied text). Then click in the text
box into which you need to type the text, so it gets the blinking cursor, and press Ctrl+V. The text lands
in the text box.
The Ctrl+C (Copy) shortcut, and Ctrl+V (Paste) shortcut are supported universally throughout Windows
and Windows programs. You can use these keys to copy just about anything to just about anything else.
If you’re not sure, don’t be afraid to try it out. You cannot do any harm by trying! The same technique
works for pictures as well. To select a picture, however, you don’t drag the mouse pointer. Instead, you
just click the picture to select it, and then press Ctrl+C. To paste the picture into a graphics program or
word processing document, click at about where you want to place the picture, and then press Ctrl+V.
Often you can even do it without even touching the keyboard. Just drag the mouse pointer through the
text you want to copy, or click the picture you want to copy. Then right-click the selected text or picture
and choose Copy. Then right-click where you want to paste and choose Paste.
Tip If, for whatever reason, you cannot copy a picture on the screen into the Clipboard,
you can always take a snapshot of the screen and paste that into your word
processing document or graphics program. The section titled “Screenshots” in
Chapter 24 explains how.

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Selecting text
To change or delete a chunk of text, you also can select that text first. To select text, do one of the
following:
Drag the mouse pointer through the text you want to select.
Position the blinking cursor to the start or end of the text you want to select and then hold
down the Shift key while you press the arrow keys to extend the selection.
In some cases, you can select all the text in a text box by clicking the label next to the
text box.
Select a single word by double-clicking that word.
The selected text will be highlighted somehow, typically as white letters against a blue background.
Once you select a chunk of text, you can
Press Delete (Del) to delete the selected text.
Or, start typing new text.
When you type new text, whatever you type replaces what was previously selected.
Knowing these simple techniques can actually save you quite a bit of time. When you’re browsing the
World Wide Web with Microsoft Internet Explorer, for example, you often need to type in some fairly
lengthy URLs, such as http://www.microsoft.com. Because so many URLs are alike, however,
you can save a lot of time by selecting just the text you want to change. To change that Microsoft URL
to http://www.coolnerds.com, for example, you could just drag the mouse pointer through
microsoft to select that chunk of text. Then type coolnerds to replace the selected text, ending up with
http://www.coolnerds.com.

Changing text

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Several general rules apply to typing and editing (changing) text in text boxes, as well as most forms of
text in general. To make simple changes or corrections, you can position the blinking cursor where you
want to make a change, either by clicking the spot or by using the arrow keys. Then:
To delete the character to the right of the cursor, press the Delete (Del) key.
To delete the character to the left of the cursor, press the Backspace key.
To insert new text, start typing.
To choose between Insert and Overwrite mode, press the Insert (Ins) key.
Let me explain the difference between Insert mode and Overwrite mode. Let’s say a text box already
contains this text:
Wanda Starr
Next, you place the cursor just to the left of the S in Starr. If you then type Bea and a space, in Insert
mode, the new text is inserted, like this:
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Wanda Bea Starr
If you were to type Bea followed by a blank space in Overwrite mode, the new text would replace
existing text, like this:
Wanda Bea r
In the preceding example, the new letters Bea and the blank space that follows have replaced the
letters Star.

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Figure 2-16: Scroll bars in this window indicate that’s there more than can be seen at the moment.
Vertical and horizontal scroll bars in the right pane tell me that there are more icons to view both below,
and to the right, which I can scroll into view. All scroll bars consist of a slider box, a slider bar, and a
couple of buttons
Figure 2-17: The anatomy of a scroll bar
The size of the slider box relative to the size of the slider bar gives you a sense of how much additional
information is available. If the slider box is about 10 percent of the size of the slider bar, about 90
percent of the available information is currently scrolled out of view. You can use any of the following
techniques to scroll through the additional information:
To move up or down a little bit at a time, click the up- or down-arrow button at the end of the
taskbar.
To move more quickly than that, drag the slider box through the slider bar.
To jump to a specific part of the list, click within the slider bar at about where you want to
position the slider box.
If your mouse has a wheel, you may be able to scroll vertically by spinning the mouse
wheel. (I say may be able to, because the wheel doesn’t work in all programs.)
Tip If your wheel doesn’t work right off the bat, click the scroll bar, or just to the left of
the scroll bar. Then try again. It might work this time.
If your hands are super-glued to the keyboard and don’t want to use the mouse, you can use the
Page Up (PgUP), ˇ Page Down (PgDn) keys to scroll vertically. To jump to the top of the list, press the
Home key. To jump to the end of the list, press the End key. If a horizontal scroll bar is available as well,
you can use the ‹ and › keys to scroll left and right.
Text boxes
Text boxes appear wherever you need to type in some information. Before you can type in a text box,
however, the blinking cursor needs to be in the text box. To move the cursor into the text box, just click
the text box. Alternatively, press the Tab or Shift+Tab keys to move through the available controls until
the cursor lands in the text box. Then start typing.

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Figure 2-15: The Background control here is an example of a list.
To choose an option from a list, click it. If the list has a scroll bar, you can use any of the techniques
described in the next section to scroll through the list and view additional options.
You also can make selections from a list box using the keyboard. Press Tab or Shift+Tab until the focus
(the gray frame) is inside the list box. Then use the up- and down-arrow keys to move the highlighter to
the option you want and press Enter.
Scroll bars
Scroll bars, as mentioned, enable you to scroll through lengthy lists of items. They usually appear to the
right of a lengthy list. However, scroll bars aren’t limited to dialog boxes. They appear any time there’s
more information that can be seen at the moment. In Figure 2-16, for example, I’m viewing the contents
of my My Music folder, using the Windows Explorer program (which isn’t a dialog box at all!). The scroll
bar near the middle of the window is actually attached to the Explorer bar on the left side of the window.
Which tells me that there’s more information below in the Explorer bar.

Spin buttons

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If a text box displays a number, a date, or a time, the text box may have a pair of little spin buttons
attached to it, such as the Wait option in Figure 2-14. Click the up button to increase the number, or the
down button to decrease the number. Optionally, you can just drag the mouse pointer through the
contents of the box, and type in a new number.
Lists
A list or list box is a list of alternative options. It’s similar to a drop-down list, except the list is already
open — you don’t need to click any button to view the list. In Figure 2-15, the Background control
presents a list of backgrounds from which to choose. There are more items in the list than are currently
visible, as indicated by the scroll bar to the right of the list.

Figure 2-14:

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The Screen Saver control in this dialog box is an example of a drop-down list.
If the drop-down list contains more options than can fit in the drop-down menu, the list displays a scroll
bar that enables you to scroll additional options into view (as discussed later in this chapter).
Like other controls, it is possible to work a drop-down list via the keyboard. The trick is to press Tab or
Shift+Tab until the blinking cursor is inside the control you want. To display the drop-down list, press
Alt+ˇ (hold down the Alt key, press the down-arrow key on the keyboard, and then release both keys).
When the list is open, you can select an option by moving the highlighter up and down using the up- and
down-arrow keys. When the option you want is highlighted, press Alt+Enter.

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Figure 2-13: The Screen resolution control in this dialog box is an example of a slider.
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Drop-down lists
A drop-down list (also called a combo box) is a small control containing some text and a button with a
little “v” shape or down-pointing arrow on it. Clicking that down-pointing arrow opens a list of choices. In
Figure 2-14, for example, I have opened the drop-down list for the Screen Saver option on the Screen
Saver tab of the Display Properties dialog box. To make a selection from the drop-down list, just click
whatever option you want.

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Figure 2-12: Check boxes in this dialog box enable you to control the appearance and behavior or the
taskbar.
Although the mouse is the simplest way to turn a check box on or off, you also can do so with the
keyboard. Press Tab or Shift+Tab until the option you want has a gray border around it. Then press the
spacebar to select and deselect the check box.
Sliders
Sliders enable you to adjust a setting along some ruler. For example, the Screen Resolution option on
the Settings tab of the Display Properties dialog box, shown in Figure 2-13, enables you to adjust the
screen resolution by dragging the slider left and right across the bar. If you must use the keyboard, you
need to press the Tab key until the slider control is selected. Then you can use the ‹ and › keys to
move the slider left and right.

Check boxes

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Check boxes, like the examples shown in the in Figure 2-12, enable you to turn some option on or off.
(That figure is showing the Taskbar tab of the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box.) Unlike
option buttons, check boxes are not mutually exclusive. You can select any combination of check boxes
you want. When a check box is selected (contains an X or a check mark), the option is turned on. When
the check box is empty (clear), the option is turned off. If the check box is gray in the middle, that
usually means that some, but not all, of a subset of options is selected. (Don’t worry about that right
now.) To select — or clear — a check box, click it. Often you can click the text to the right of a check
box to turn it on and off.

Preview area

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Some dialog boxes offer a preview area, which is an area of the dialog box that gives you a preview of
how the applied selection will affect the object. For example, the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties
dialog box shown in Figure 2-11 contains a preview of the Start menu. Choosing one of the option
buttons below the preview area shows you how your selection will change the appearance of the Start
menu. Therefore, if you don’t like what you see in the preview area, you can switch back to the other
option before you actually apply the change to the real Start menu.

Option buttons

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Option buttons (also called radio buttons) are a set of two or more mutually exclusive options. The name
radio button comes from the buttons on old-fashioned car radios, where pushing a button to select a
station automatically unpushed whatever button was previously pressed. Figure 2-11 shows a couple
option buttons available on the Start Menu tab of the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box
(which opens when you right-click the Start button and choose Properties).
Figure 2-11: The Start menu and Classic Start menu options here are mutually exclusive, as indicated by
the option buttons. You can select one or the other, but not both.
Choosing an option button is simple, just click it. Often you can click the text next to the radio button,
which provides a larger target. Choosing radio buttons with the keyboard is a little trickier. Within the
dialog box, you need to press the Tab or Shift+Tab keys until one of the radio button options is selected
(has a little gray border around it or its label). Then you can use the arrow keys to move that gray border
to the option you want. To move out of the radio button group, press the Tab or Shift+Tab keys.

Dimmed

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(disabled) controls
Buttons aren’t the only controls that might be dimmed and disabled. At any given time, any control in a
dialog box, as well as any option on a menu, might be dimmed. This doesn’t mean something is broken.
It means that the control is not relevant or meaningful at the moment. Therefore, there’s no point in
selecting it. When you first open a dialog box, for example, the Apply button will be disabled, because
you haven’t yet made any selections to apply. As soon as the situation changes (for instance, you make
a selection that can be applied) and the control becomes meaningful, it will automatically be enabled
(undimmed).
Tip I’ve actually seen people click away repeatedly at a disabled control, as though
doing so will some how “wake up” that control. Trust me on this. It won’t.

Figure 2-10:

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An example of buttons
If your hands happen to be on the keyboard rather than the mouse and you want to choose a button,
you can press the Tab key to move forward from one control to the next, or you can press Shift+Tab to
move backward through the controls until the button you want to press is highlighted with a dotted line.
Then press Enter to push that highlighted button.
The buttons play an important role in dialog boxes. Keeping them straight is important. Remember
these important points:
The Apply button (if available and enabled) applies your selection right now, without closing
the dialog box.
The OK button applies your selection(s) and then closes the dialog box.
The Cancel button (or pressing the Esc key) closes the dialog box without applying or
saving any options you selected. However, it does not undo any selections you have
already applied!
Any button that appears to be dim is currently disabled, and clicking it will do you no good.
The button will become enabled again once it can serve some purpose. For example, the
Apply button will be enabled only after you make some selection that you can apply.
Don’t forget the handy Help (?) button displayed near the top of many dialog boxes. You can click this
button and then click any option within the dialog box to learn more about that option.

Buttons

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Buttons are simple. You click them with your mouse. If a button has an underlined letter in its label, you
can optionally hold down the Alt key and press the key that represents the underlined letter. For
example, as an alternative to clicking a button labeled Pattern, you can press Alt+P.
You might notice one button in a group has a slightly darker appearance than the others, such as the
OK button shown in Figure 2-10. That button is called the default button and, as an alternative to
clicking directly on that button, you can press the Enter key. Many dialog boxes also have a Cancel
button, which enables you to escape gracefully from the dialog box without saving any changes. As an
alternative to clicking the Cancel button, you can press the Esc key or click the Close (X) button in the
upper-right corner of the dialog box.

Using Dialog Boxes

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A dialog box is sort of like a window. Instead of representing an entire program, however, a dialog box
generally contains some simple settings from which you can choose. The term dialog box comes from
the fact that you carry on a kind of “dialogue” with the box by making selections from the options it
presents. Controls within a dialog box are similar to the controls on any other kind of machine, be it a
car, dishwasher, or stereo. Controls enable you to control how a program behaves and looks.
As you may recall, many objects on your screen have properties, characteristics such as size, color,
and so forth that you can change. If an object does offer properties that you can change, right-clicking
the object and choosing Properties from the shortcut menu will take you directly to the Properties dialog
box for that particular object. For example, the desktop itself has properties that you can alter. If you
right-click the desktop “proper” (not the taskbar, not an icon, not an open window) and choose
Properties, you’ll come to the Display Properties dialog box shown in Figure 2-8.
Figure 2-8: The Display Properties dialog box
Tip The Properties dialog boxes for many objects also are available in the Control
Panel, which you can get to by choosing the Control Panel option from the Start
menu.
Within the dialog box, you see examples of some common controls. The following sections explain how
to work all the different kinds of controls you may come across in your daily use of Windows. The
sample Display Properties dialog box doesn’t offer all the controls discussed here. But trust me, you will
eventually come across all the controls described in the next few sections.
Tabs
Some dialog boxes contain more controls than can actually fit into the box. In this case, options are split
into two or more tabs. For example, the Display Properties dialog box contains the tabs shown in Figure
2-9. To view the options offered by a tab, click the tab you want. Alternatively, you can hold down the
Ctrl key while pressing the Tab key to move from one tab to the next. Pressing Ctrl+Shift+Tab moves
through the tabs in the opposite order, from right to left.

Taskbar Tips

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As mentioned earlier, clicking an open window’s taskbar button is a quick and easy way to make it the
active window (bringing it to the top of the stack). However, you can do other things with the buttons as
well:
You can minimize an open window just by clicking its taskbar button. Clicking the button a
second time brings it back into view.
To see the options for a particular window, right-click its taskbar button.
Note Some of the options below require that the taskbar be unlocked. If you have any
problems, right-click the neutral area of the taskbar and select the Lock the
Taskbar option to turn it off.
To size the taskbar (to make it thinner or thicker), drag its inner edge (the edge nearest the
center of the screen) up or down.
To move the taskbar to some other edge of the screen, drag the neutral area to some other
edge of the screen. If it won’t go, try widening it first.
To size a toolbar within the taskbar (such as the Quick Launch toolbar), drag the dotted lines at
the edge of the taskbar to the left or right.
To add toolbars to, or remove toolbars from, the taskbar, right-click its neutral area and choose
Toolbars. Then choose any toolbar to display or hide.
To turn a taskbar toolbar into a free-floating toolbar that you can place anywhere on the screen,
drag the dots at the edge of the toolbar out onto the desktop.
To put a floating toolbar back into the taskbar, drag it back into the taskbar.
To rearrange items in the toolbar, drag the dots nearest the Start button to the right, past any
item that you want to put to the left of the current item.
To resize an item within the toolbar, drag its dots to the left, right, up, or down.
You can further personalize the taskbar in a variety of ways to suit your own work style and
environment. Chapter 13 describes some of those more advanced techniques. If you want to take a
quick look at the Properties dialog box that offers those additional options, just right-click the neutral
area of the taskbar and choose and choose Properties.
For the moment, I think our time is better spent on more basic skills. In particular, it’s time to talk about
those dialog boxes that come up from time to time, and how you operate the various controls they offer.

Cascading and tiling open windows

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You can instantly arrange all the open windows on the desktop with just a couple of mouse clicks. Just
to the left of the Notifications area in the taskbar is a neutral area that never gets covered by buttons.
Right-clicking that neutral area displays the menu shown near that area in Figure 2-7. Options on that
menu for arranging open windows are summarized in the following list:
Cascade: Stacks open programs from the upper-left corner of the desktop with just their
title bars showing, as in Figure 2-7.
Figure 2-7: The taskbar’s right-click menu revealed near the Notifications area of the taskbar. Open windows
on this desktop are cascaded.
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Tile Windows Horizontally: Sizes windows equally (if possible) and presents them as tiles
with no overlap. If there are only two or three windows open, each is stretched lengthwise
across the screen.
Tile Windows Vertically: As above, but windows are stretched to the height of the screen.
Show the Desktop: Hides all open windows, leaving only their taskbar buttons visible
(same as clicking the Show Desktop button in the Quick Launch toolbar).
Undo: Undoes whichever option you last selected.
Note Calculator is unique in that its window cannot be resized. The reason that the
Calculator window is as large as it is in Figure 2-7 is because I switched to the
Scientific calculator by choosing View › Scientific from the Calculator’s toolbar.
When the desktop is crowded, consider minimizing all the open windows. Then click the taskbar button
for the program you want to work with, to open only its window on the desktop.

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Now here are two ways in which you can make any open window the active window, with just a click of
the mouse:
Click on any visible portion of the window that you want to make active.
Alternatively, click the toolbar button for the window you want to make active (very handy if
that window is completely covered by other windows on the desktop!).
Instantly, the window pops to the top of the stack, no longer obscured by other windows. You then can
use the keyboard to work within that window if you like.
You also can use the keyboard, if you want, to make any open window the active window. Just hold
down the Alt key, and press the Tab key. A small box containing an icon for each open window appears.
Without releasing the Alt key, press the Tab key repeatedly until the title of the window you want to
make active displays. Then release the Alt key.
Tip The buttons in the taskbar will get smaller and smaller as you open more windows.
If you cannot read a toolbar button’s label, just point to the button. The full label will
appear in a ToolTip.
The bottom line is this: If you do something at the keyboard, and nothing happens (or something
unexpected happens), there’s a good chance that you weren’t paying attention to which window was the
active window at the moment. You can easily make any open window the active window by clicking
anywhere on that window, or by clicking the window’s toolbar button.

The active window

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When you have two or more windows open on the desktop, only one window is the active window. If
you use the keyboard at all, it’s important to know which of those windows is currently the active
window, because that’s the only window that can accept keyboard input. If I were to try to type text into
the WordPad document shown in Figure 2-6 right now, no text would appear in the window. Why?
Because currently the Calculator program is in the active window, and only the program in the active
window will respond to input from the keyboard. The problem is easily solved. Just click anywhere on
WordPad’s window to make it the active window, and start typing.
If you look at the taskbar in Figure 2-6, you’ll notice that it now contains four new buttons labeled
WordPad Doc, Solitaire, Calculator, and My Computer (which actually represents the Windows Explorer
program, as discussed later). The taskbar always displays a button for each “running task” — that is,
each open program on the desktop. You can usually tell, at a glance, which window on the desktop is
currently the active window by the following clues:
The taskbar button for the active window is colored a little differently, and appears “pushed
in.”
The title bar for the active window is a little brighter than the title bars of the inactive
windows.
The active window is always at the “top of the stack.” That is, no other windows overlap the
active window.

Arranging Open Windows

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Essentially, no limit restricts the number of windows you can open on your desktop. You can stack
windows one atop the other, in exactly the same manner you can stack sheets of paper one atop the
other on your real desk. And just like on your real desktop, you can quickly make a disorganized mess
of things. I

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Moving a window without the title bar
As mentioned earlier, you can move a window about the screen by dragging its title bar. (Unless the
window is already maximized, in which case you need to shrink the window down a bit first.) Every now
and then, however, you might run into a situation where the title bar of the window isn’t visible onscreen.
This is often the case when some free Internet service places some irritating banner ad on your screen
that cannot be covered by any open windows.
Not to fear, however; there is a solution. Even without being able to see the title bar, you can move the
window by following these steps:
1. Click anywhere on the window you want to move, just to make sure it’s the active window
(the one capable of accepting input from the keyboard).
2. Press Alt+Spacebar to open that window’s system menu. (Don’t worry if you can’t see that
menu.)
3. Type the letter M to choose Move from the system menu.
4. Press the ˇ (down-arrow key) several times to move the window downward.
If it doesn’t work, it may be because the window is currently maximized and therefore cannot be moved.
In that case, repeat Steps 1 and 2. Then type the letter R to choose Restore (thereby shrinking the
window a bit). Then proceed with Steps 3 and 4.

Document area

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Programs designed to help you create and edit things generally offer a large document area where your
work appears. The document might be a photograph, drawing, spreadsheet, written text . . . whatever. It
all depends on what the specific program you’re using at the moment is designed to do. We’ll get
deeper into the concepts of working with documents in Chapter 3. For now, let’s continue to look at tools
and techniques for managing open windows on your desktop.
System menu
The System menu enables you to move, size, and close the window by using the keyboard rather than
the mouse. You might find this handy if you do a lot of typing and prefer not to take your hands off the
keyboard to manage a window. To open the System menu, press Alt+Spacebar (hold down the Alt key,
press and release the spacebar, and then release the Alt key) or click the System menu icon in the
upper-left corner of the window. When the System menu is open, you can choose options in the usual
manner. Click the option you want. Alternatively, on the keyboard, type the underlined letter of the
option you want; for example, type the letter N to choose the Minimize option.

Status bar

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The status bar along the bottom of a window plays different roles in different programs. However, a
common role is to display helpful information. For example, the status bar at the bottom of the WordPad
window often displays the helpful message For Help, press F1 to let you know that help is
available for the program. When you point to a toolbar button in WordPad, the status bar message
changes to describe the purpose of that button.
Tip Virtually any program you use will also offer a Help option in its menu bar, which
you can choose to get help with that particular program.
Like toolbars, a program’s status bar is often optional. You can usually turn it on and off by choosing
View › Status Bar from the program’s menus.

Toolbar

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Some windows also have a toolbar just below the menu bar. The toolbar provides one-click access to
the most frequently used menu commands. Most toolbars provide ToolTips, a brief description that
appears on the screen after you rest the mouse pointer on the button for a few seconds. Other
programs, including WordPad, might show the descriptive text for the button you’re pointing to down in
the status bar.
Toolbars are optional in most programs. You can turn them on and off using options from that program’s
View menu. Some programs even offer customizable toolbars (although WordPad isn’t one of them). If
a toolbar can be customized, right-clicking the toolbar and choosing Customize from its shortcut menu
will take you to the options for customizing the toolbar. For future reference, keep in mind that if you’re
looking to learn more about the toolbars in a specific program, you can open that program’s help system
and search for the word toolbar.

Occasionally,

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you will come across a menu option that acts as a toggle, which is to say the option
represents some feature that can be turned on, or turned off. If you open the View menu in WordPad,
for instance, you might notice that some of its items have check marks next to them, as in Figure 2-5.
Choosing an option that has a check mark next to it turns the toggle off and removes the check mark. If
you choose the currently checked Toolbar option in WordPad’s View menu, for example, the Toolbar
option is turned off, which makes the toolbar disappear from the screen. To turn the toolbar back on,
choose View › Toolbar again to switch that option back on.
Figure 2-5: The View menu in WordPad is open.

Shortcut Keys

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(Key+Key)
Many keyboard shortcuts are actually combination keystrokes, expressed as Key+Key. These involve
holding down the first key, tapping the second key, and then releasing the first key. For example, Ctrl+A
means hold down the Ctrl key, press and release the letter A, and then release the Ctrl key. Shift+F1
means hold down the Shift key, press and release the function key labeled F1, and then release the
Shift key. Alt+Enter means hold down the Alt key, press and release the Enter key, and then release the
Alt key.
As you’ll eventually discover, most combination keystrokes start with one of the following special keys:
Ctrl (Control), Alt (Alternate), or Shift. That’s partly because those keys never actually type any
characters on the screen. Most keys offer Ctrl, Alt, and Del keys on both the left and right side of the
keyboard, so you can use either hand to press the combination keystroke.
Many menu options display shortcut keys. These are keystrokes you can use as an alternative to going
through the menus. If you look to the right of the Save option in the File menu shown in Figure 2-4, for
example, you’ll notice the shortcut option Ctrl+S. So let’s say you’re working on a document and you
want to save your work. Your hands are on the keyboard rather than on the mouse. Instead of going
through the menu and choosing File › Save, you can just press Ctrl+S on the keyboard if you prefer.
If you don’t know the shortcut key for performing a task, but would still prefer to use the keyboard rather
than the mouse, you can work the menus right from the keyboard. Just press and release the Alt key.
You’ll notice that each option in the menu suddenly sports one underlined letter. After you press the Alt
key, for example, the letter F in the File option will be underlined. After the underline appears, you can
just type that underlined letter to open the corresponding menu.
When the menu is open, you can use the ‹,›, , and ˇ arrow keys on the keyboard to move the
selection highlight about the menus. To choose the currently highlighted option, press Enter. Optionally,
you can just type the underlined letter of the option you want.
Tip Remember, shortcut keys and other keyboard alternatives are just an alternative
for people who prefer the keyboard to the mouse. You can always use the mouse
to work the menus.

Figure 2-4:

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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

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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

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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

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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.
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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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.

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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:

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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,

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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.)

right-click

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You can right-click just about anything on the screen to see a menu of options relevant to that
item.
If the item you right-clicked can be customized in any way, shape, or form, you’ll see a Properties option
in the menu. An item’s properties are its characteristics, such as color, size, shape, and so forth.
Choosing the Properties option will take you to the dialog box for changing that item’s properties.
If the item you right-clicked can be moved, renamed, deleted, and so forth, you’ll see appropriate
options. You can never do any harm by right-clicking an item, so don’t be afraid to try it. If, for whatever
reason, the item you right-clicked has no shortcut menu, nothing will happen when you right-click. If you
right-click an item, and then decide not to make a selection from the shortcut menu, just click some
neutral area outside the shortcut menu, or press the trusty Escape key, to close the menu without
making a selection.

ToolTips,

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right-clicks, and the “What’s This?” button
Although the Help system provides extensive help, you can get to a couple of simple “quick and dirty”
types of help without going through the Help system. For starters, be aware that just about everything
you see on your screen has a small hidden ToolTip. This is really no more than the name of the item in
most cases. However, when you cannot figure out what the heck some icon is supposed to represent,
you can just point to the item for a moment to reveal its tiny ToolTip.
Most items also offer shortcut menus. If you’re not quite sure what’s going to happen when you click an
icon, or want a quick overview of the options available for an icon, try right-clicking, rather than clicking,
the item. Usually you’ll see a little shortcut menu of options. In Figure 1-13, for example, I right-clicked
directly on the desktop. You can see the shortcut menu that appeared after I did so.

Closing Help

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The Windows Help and Support Center window is like any other window. You can size it and move it
like any other. You’ll learn specific techniques for doing so in Chapter 2. But one thing you’ll want to
learn right now is that you can close any open window on the screen by clicking the Close (X) button in
the upper-right corner of the window. So when you’re done with Help and want to close its window, to
uncover the desktop once again, just go ahead and click the Close button.
Tip For an overview of Windows XP, click the Start button and choose Tour Windows
XP. Alternatively, if you don’t see that option on the Start menu, click the All
Programs option and choose Accessories, and then choose Tour Windows XP
from the menu.

Print:

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Prints the current Help page.
If the amount of text available in the window is longer than what can display on the Help screen, a scroll
bar will appear to the right of the text. You can scroll through the text by clicking the buttons at the top
and bottom of the scroll bar. Or, if your mouse has a wheel, click anywhere within the text and spin the
wheel on your mouse to scroll up or down.
Tip You’ll learn more about using scroll bars in Chapter 2.
The Help index, which appears when you click the Index button near the top of the page, displays an
index to the Help system, similar to the index at the back of a book. You can scroll through the index
using the scroll bar at its right edge. Optionally, click in the text box below Type in the keyword to
find and start typing some word that best describes the information you’re looking for. As you type,
you’ll automatically be taken to the part of the index that matches what you have typed so far. If you
locate an index entry that matches what you’re looking for, click it. Then click the Display button below
the index. If several topics are available, a Topics Found dialog box displays. Click whichever topic in
that dialog box best describes what you’re looking for, and then click the Display button.
Figure 1-12 shows an example where I searched for the word volume. When I got to that section of the
index, I chose adjusting speaker volume to display the help you see in the right pane.
Figure 1-12: The Help index in the left pane of Window’s Help and Support window
Whether you use Search or the Help index to get help on specific topics is entirely up to you. I do
recommend trying Search first, however, as it’s easier and often produces better results. If you can’t find
what you’re looking for using Search, then try the Help index.

The right panel

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offers help on the topic you clicked, usually in the form of step-by-step instructions. To
see the definition of any green underlined term, just click the term. Buttons above the right pane offer
the following:
Add to Favorites: Adds the Help topic to your list of favorites. At any time in the future, you
can quickly jump back to this topic by clicking the Favorites button near the top of the
screen.
Change View: Removes the left pane so that you can see more of what’s behind the
window. Clicking that button a second time restores the left pane.

What’s with the Internet Connection Wizard?

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Some of the choices within the Help system will attempt to access the Internet to provide you with the
most current information. If your computer isn’t connected to the Internet, you’ll end up at an Internet
Connection Wizard dialog box rather than at the appropriate Internet page. As discussed in Chapter 5,
you need some kind of modem and an account with an Internet service provider (ISP) to get beyond the
Internet Connection Wizard to the Help page you were actually supposed to see. Part II of this book tells
you everything you need to know. For now, if you just want to close the Internet Connection Wizard
without setting up an account, click the Cancel button near the lower-right corner of the Internet
Connection Wizard dialog box.

Buttons across

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the top of the Help and Support Center window help you get around within Help, as
follows:
Back: After you go to a new page, you can press the Back button to return you to the page
you just left.
Forward (right-pointing arrow): The forward-pointing arrow to the right of the Back button
enables you to return to the page that you just backed out of (if any.)
Home: Takes you back to the first page of Help and Support Center, shown in Figure 1-10.
Index: Takes you to the Help system index, which is the same as the index at the back of a
book. For more information, see the section “Using Help’s Search and Index features” later
in this chapter.
Favorites: Lists Help topics you have added to your list of favorites, as discussed in the
section “Using Help’s Search and Index features.”
History: Displays a list of Help pages you have already visited.
Support: Provides an overview of Support options available from Microsoft.
Those buttons alone will enable you to explore the Help system on your own. When looking for help with
specific questions, however, the Search and Index features will be your best bet.
Using Help’s search and index features
The Search box is always available in the Help and Support Center window. To use it, just click the text
box titled Search. If there’s already some text in that box that you want to get rid if, just drag the mouse
pointer through that text. Whatever you type replaces that selected text. Type in a word or phrase that
describes what you need help with, and then click the button just to the right of where you typed the
word or phrase. In Figure 1-11, for example, I typed Make a CD and then clicked the button. The Help
window splits into two panes. The left pane displays topics relevant to my search. To see the help for
any of those listed topics, just click the topic. The right pane will display the help.
Figure 1-11: Results of searching for “Make a CD” and clicking the Copy files and folders to a CD topic

The Windows Task Manager

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The Task Manager will list all running programs. The hung program (if any) will have the words not
responding after the program name in the Status column of the display. Click the name of that errant
program, and then click the End Task button. The program should close, and things should return to
normal. To close the Windows Task Manager, click the Close (large red X) button in its upper-right
corner.
Again, only use the Windows Task Manager as a last resort. As you’ll learn later, there are far better
and safer ways to end “normally” running programs.
Using the Help and Support Center
Windows XP offers a wide range of Help and Support options. You can see what’s available by doing
either of the following:
Click the Start button, and then click Help and Support.
Press the Help key (labeled F1 near the upper-left corner of your keyboard).
Tip The Help key (F1) is almost universal. You can press it in just about any program to
get help for whatever program you’re working with at the moment.
The Help and Support Center will open (see Figure 1-10). Some options on the screen are updated
automatically from time to time, via the Internet. So yours may not look exactly like the one shown. To
use this, just click any blue text that looks interesting. The Windows basics help topic provides
instructions for specific tasks (although not in any particular order).

Figure 1-8:

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The Escape key, and any of these buttons, will help you back out of unfamiliar territory.
If all else fails, press Alt+F4. (On the keyboard, hold down the key labeled Alt, press and
release the key labeled F4, and then release the Alt key.) This key combination closes
whatever window is currently open.
If you can remember these techniques, you should be able to back your way out of any jam, no matter
how lost you feel. If you really, really, really get stuck and none of the previous techniques work, and the
computer appears to be hung (not responding normally to your keystrokes and mouse clicks), you might
have to use the Windows Task Manager to locate and kill the offending task. This is the least desirable
approach because it doesn’t give you a chance to save any work you’ve completed. If all else fails,
however, it might be your last resort.
To get to the Windows Task Manager, right-click the taskbar and choose Task Manager from the menu
that appears. Alternatively, press Ctrl+Alt+Del (hold down the Ctrl key, hold down the Alt key, hold down
the Delete keys simultaneously for a moment), and then release all three keys. The Windows Task