Cover | Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: The Desktop and Start Menu

Content preview·Buy PDF of this chapter|Buy reprint rights for this chapter

When you turn on a Windows XP computer for the first time, you may think that you're simply seeing the traditional Windows startup process as redesigned by a West Coast graphic designer.

Yes, it starts up slightly faster—that's one of the most heavily advertised new features of Windows XP—but otherwise, turning on a PC shows little more than a newfangled version of the progress bar you may know and love from earlier editions of Windows.

If it's a new computer, you may also receive a big hello from the company that sold it to you.

Then, if you've just performed a clean installation of Windows XP (see Appendix A), or if it's a brand-new PC, you may now be treated to a series of blue "Welcome to Microsoft Windows" setup screens. This Setup Wizard guides you through setting up an Internet account, activating your copy of Windows (Introduction), setting up accounts for different people who will be sharing this computer (Chapter 16), and so on. Appendix A has a complete description of this process.

After that basic startup business is taken care of, however, you may be in for a series of surprises.

What happens next depends on whether you're the PC's sole proprietor or share it with other people in an office, school, or household.

Figure 1-1: If there are several accounts for this PC—that is, if more than one person uses it, each with his own account—the machine presents this screen each time you turn it on. See Chapter 16 for much more on this business of user accounts and logging on. Also see that chapter if, instead of the dialog box shown here, you see a message that says, "Press Ctrl-Alt-Delete to begin."

The desktop icons that once provided quick access to important locations on your PC—My Computer, My Documents, My Network Places, and Internet Explorer—have been swept away by the digital broom of Microsoft's clean-freak XP designers.

Additional content appearing in this section has been removed.
Purchase this book now or read it online at Safari to get the whole thing!

Logging On

Content preview·Buy PDF of this chapter|Buy reprint rights for this chapter

What happens next depends on whether you're the PC's sole proprietor or share it with other people in an office, school, or household.

Figure 1-1: If there are several accounts for this PC—that is, if more than one person uses it, each with his own account—the machine presents this screen each time you turn it on. See Chapter 16 for much more on this business of user accounts and logging on. Also see that chapter if, instead of the dialog box shown here, you see a message that says, "Press Ctrl-Alt-Delete to begin."

The desktop icons that once provided quick access to important locations on your PC—My Computer, My Documents, My Network Places, and Internet Explorer—have been swept away by the digital broom of Microsoft's clean-freak XP designers.

You can still get to these locations; they're listed in your Start menu now. On one hand, you can now open these folders and programs without having to hide whatever windows are covering up your desktop. On the other hand, opening them now requires two mouse clicks (including one to open the Start menu)—an egregious expenditure of caloric effort.

If you miss the old arrangement, it's easy enough to put these icons back on the desktop. To do so, right-click the desktop. From the shortcut menu, choose Properties.

Now the Display Properties dialog box appears. Click the Desktop tab. Below the list of backgrounds, click the Customize Desktop button. As shown here, awaiting your summons are checkboxes for the usual desktop icons: My Documents, My Computer, My Network Places, and Internet Explorer. Turn on the ones you'd like to install onto the desktop, putting checkmarks in the appropriate boxes, and then click OK twice. Your old favorite icons are now back where they once belonged.

Additional content appearing in this section has been removed.
Purchase this book now or read it online at Safari to get the whole thing!

The Elements of the XP Desktop

Content preview·Buy PDF of this chapter|Buy reprint rights for this chapter

Once you're past the heart-pounding excitement of the new startup logo and the Setup Wizard, you reach the digital vista shown in Figure 1-2. That's right, it's the Windows desktop, now graced by a pastoral sunny hillside that should look familiar to anyone who has ever watched Teletubbies.

On a fresh installation of Windows XP, you may be surprised to discover that Microsoft has gone cleanliness-crazy. A brand-new installation of Windows XP on a new computer presents an absolutely spotless desktop, utterly icon-free except for the Recycle Bin. Even the familiar My Computer, My Documents, and My Network Places icons seem to be missing. (If you've upgraded from an older version of Windows, you'll still see your old icons on the desktop. Furthermore, the company who sold you your PC may have stocked the desktop with a few of its own icons—but you get the point.)

Those former desktop icons are now in your Start menu, which appears when you click the Start button in the lower-left corner of your screen (Figure 1-2). The following pages cover the Start menu in detail.

Figure 1-2: A brand new Windows XP computer screen looks like this. Everything you'll ever do on the computer will begin with a click on one of these three elements: a desktop icon, the Start button, or the taskbar, which is described in Chapter 2. (The Start menu, now in a new, improved two-column format, lists every significant command and software component on your PC.) Some people enjoy the newly streamlined Windows XP desktop. Others deliberately place additional icons on the desktop—favorite programs and documents—for quicker access. Let your personality be your guide.

Windows XP is composed of 40 million lines of computer code, scattered across your hard drive in thousands of files. The vast majority of them are support files, there for behind-the-scenes use by Windows and your applications. They're not for you. They may as well bear a sticker saying, "No user serviceable parts inside."

Additional content appearing in this section has been removed.
Purchase this book now or read it online at Safari to get the whole thing!

StartLog Off

Content preview·Buy PDF of this chapter|Buy reprint rights for this chapter

This command is at the heart of Windows XP's accounts feature, in which each person who uses this PC gets to see his own desktop picture, email account, files, and so on (see Chapter 16). If you don't use that feature—if you're the only one who uses the computer—you can safely ignore this option forever.

Choosing this command may present either of two dialog boxes, depending on whether or not you have turned on the Windows XP feature called Fast User Switching.

• Switch User/Log Off. If you see the dialog box shown at the top of Figure 1-4, then Fast User Switching is turned on (as it is on any fresh installation of Windows XP Home Edition). It's among the most useful new features in Windows XP, since it lets somebody else log on to the computer, opening up his own world of documents, email, desktop picture, and so on. Meanwhile,—whatever you had up and running remains open behind the scenes. After the interloper is finished, you can log on again to find all of your open programs and documents exactly where you left them on the screen.

Figure 1-4: Top: If Fast User Switching is turned on, this is what you see when you choose Start→Log Off. No matter which button you click, you return to the Welcome screen. The only difference is that clicking Switch User leaves all of your programs open and in memory, and Log Off takes a few moments to close them.

Bottom: If Fast User Switching isn't turned on, the traditional Log Off dialog box appears when you choose Start→Log Off. If you click Log Off again, Windows quits your programs and then takes you to the Welcome screen once again.

Could someone explain why the Turn Off Computer command is in a menu called Start?

The Name-the-Button committee at Microsoft probably thought that you'd interpret

Additional content appearing in this section has been removed.
Purchase this book now or read it online at Safari to get the whole thing!

StartTurn Off Computer

Content preview·Buy PDF of this chapter|Buy reprint rights for this chapter

This menu item is more powerful than its name implies. Choosing it opens a dialog box that offers several variations on "off" (see Figure 1-5).

• Stand By puts your computer to "sleep." This special state of PC consciousness reduces the amount of electricity the computer uses. The machine remains in suspended animation until you use the mouse or keyboard.

Figure 1-5: Top: Just how off is off? Click the button corresponding to degree of off-ness you want—or press the letter H (for Hibernate), R (for Restart), S (for Stand By), or U (for Turn Off). Or just point to one of these buttons without clicking if you want to read an explanation of the command.

Bottom: The secret Hibernate button appears when you press the Shift key when the Turn Off Computer dialog box is open.

How the PC sleeps depends on its power-saving features. Usually, the hard drive stops spinning and the screen goes dark. Whatever programs or documents you were working on remain in memory.

If you're using a laptop and working on battery power, the Standby mode is a real boon. When the flight attendant hands over your microwaved chicken teriyaki, you can take a food break without closing all your programs or shutting down the computer. And best of all, Standby mode consumes only the barest trickle of battery power.

Use the Standby option when you want to put your computer to sleep on cue. It's worth noting, however, that you can set the computer to go into standby automatically whenever you haven't used the mouse or keyboard for a while. You can even make it so that the computer won't wake up again unless you type in a certain password. Section 8.23 has the details on these extra features.

• Turn Off quits all open programs (or, in some cases, prompts you to do so), offers you the opportunity to save any unsaved documents, and then exits Windows. Most modern PCs then turn off automatically.

Additional content appearing in this section has been removed.
Purchase this book now or read it online at Safari to get the whole thing!

StartAll Programs

Content preview·Buy PDF of this chapter|Buy reprint rights for this chapter

For most people, the Start→All Programs command is the most important function of the Start menu. It's the master list of every program on your computer. (The installer for any new program generally installs its own name in this menu; see Figure 1-6.) You can jump directly to your word processor, calendar, or favorite game, for example, just by choosing its name from the Start→All Programs menu.

When the Start menu is open, you can open the All Programs menu in a number of ways: by clicking the All Programs menu, by pointing to it and keeping the mouse still for a moment, or by pressing the P and then the right-arrow keys on your keyboard.

Speaking of keyboard fanaticism: Once the programs list is open, you can also choose anything in it without involving the mouse. Just type the first letter of a program's name—or press the up and down arrow keys—to highlight the name of the program you want. Then press Enter to seal the deal.

Clearly, the graphic designers were on vacation the day Microsoft came up with this one. The All Programs menu appears superimposed on the regular Start menu, adding a third column in a second layer—not the most elegant visual solution, to be sure, but at least easy to find.

If you have a lot of programs, the All Programs menu may itself consume multiple columns on your screen. If this columns-on-columns effect makes you a bit dizzy, just replace it with the simple, one-column, scrolling Programs menu of Windows gone by.

To do so, right-click the Start button, then choose Properties from the pop-up menu. Next, click the Customize button, click the Advanced tab, and scroll down the list of options until you see Scroll Programs. Turn on the checkbox and then click OK twice.

Even now, withe the scrolling feature turned on, your programs list may still be too tall for the screen. But you can scroll the list by pointing to the tiny black triangle arrow (at the top or bottom of the menu) without clicking. And of course, you can always select items in the list from the keyboard.

Additional content appearing in this section has been removed.
Purchase this book now or read it online at Safari to get the whole thing!

StartRun

Content preview·Buy PDF of this chapter|Buy reprint rights for this chapter

Use the Run menu item to get to a command line, as shown in Figure 1-8. A command line is a text-based method of performing a task. You type a command, click OK, and something happens as a result.

Working at the command line is becoming a lost art in the world of Windows, because most people prefer to issue commands by choosing from menus using the mouse. However, some old-timers still love the command line, and even mouse-lovers encounter situations where a typed command is the only way to do something.

If you're an old-time PC veteran, your head probably teems with neat Run commands you've picked up over the years. If you're new to this idea, however, here are a few of the useful and timesaving functions you can perform with the Run dialog box:

As noted later in this discussion, one of the most important Start menu commands is the All Programs menu, where you'll find the name of almost every application on your computer. You can open these programs one at a time by typing its program file name in the Open text box and then pressing Enter. That's an extremely useful shortcut for both pros and novices alike, because it's frequently faster to launch a program this way than to use the Start→All Programs menu.

Unfortunately, the program file name isn't the same as its plain-English name; it's a cryptic, abbreviated version. For example, if you want to open Microsoft Word, you must type winword. That's the actual name of the Word program icon as it sits in your My Computer→Local Disk (C:)→Program Files→Microsoft Office→Office folder. Some other common program file names are shown here:

Program's real name	Program's familiar name
iexplore	Internet Explorer
explorer	Windows Explorer
write	WordPad

Additional content appearing in this section has been removed.
Purchase this book now or read it online at Safari to get the whole thing!

StartSearch

Content preview·Buy PDF of this chapter|Buy reprint rights for this chapter

The humble Search command looks no more special than anything else on the Start menu. In Windows XP, however, it's a newly revised powerhouse that's far more complex to navigate. You'll probably use it often.

The Search function can quickly find all kinds of computerish things: file and folder icons, computers on your network, Web sites, email addresses, and phone numbers.

The Google Desktop Search program, a free download from www.google.com , is a powerful, much faster, and much easier-to-use replacement for the Windows Search program (and even the indexing service described later in this chapter). It can even find words inside your email messages, chat-session logs, and Web pages you've visited. Consider trying it out before investing a lot of effort in learning the Windows Search program.

If you save your files exclusively into the My Documents folder (Section 1.14), you'll have little need to use the Search function to locate your files. You'll always know where they are: right there in that folder.

Every now and then, however, you won't remember where you filed something, or you'll download something from the Internet and not be able to find it again, or you'll install something and not know where to look for it. In those situations, the Search command is just what you need (Figure 1-10). It lets you look for a particular file or folder based on its description—by its name, size, date stamp, and so on.

The Search command can also look for the words inside your files. That's a powerful feature if you remember having typed or read something, but can't remember what you named the file.

Section 1.7.1.1: Starting a search

Microsoft wanted to make absolutely sure you'd be able to find the Search command. It has provided at least seven different ways to begin a search:

• Choose Start

Additional content appearing in this section has been removed.
Purchase this book now or read it online at Safari to get the whole thing!

StartHelp and Support

Content preview·Buy PDF of this chapter|Buy reprint rights for this chapter

Choosing Start→Help and Support opens the new, improved Windows Help and Support Center window, which is described in Chapter 4.

Once again, speed fans have an alternative to using the mouse—just press the F1 key to open the Help window.

Additional content appearing in this section has been removed.
Purchase this book now or read it online at Safari to get the whole thing!

StartControl Panel

Content preview·Buy PDF of this chapter|Buy reprint rights for this chapter

This extremely important command opens an extremely important window: the Control Panel, which houses two dozen programs you'll use to change almost every important setting on your PC. It's so important, in fact, that it gets a chapter of its own (Chapter 8).

Additional content appearing in this section has been removed.
Purchase this book now or read it online at Safari to get the whole thing!

StartSet Program Access and Defaults

Content preview·Buy PDF of this chapter|Buy reprint rights for this chapter

This awkwardly named command appears only if you've installed Service Pack 1 or 2. It's actually just a shortcut to the Set Program Access and Defaults panel of the (equally clunkily named) Add or Remove Programs control panel.

Its purpose is to let your specify which program (not necessarily Microsoft's) you want to use as your Web browser, email program, instant-messaging program, Java module, and music player—a choice offered by Microsoft to placate the U.S. Justice Department. Details are on Section 5.11.

Additional content appearing in this section has been removed.
Purchase this book now or read it online at Safari to get the whole thing!

StartMy Network Places

Content preview·Buy PDF of this chapter|Buy reprint rights for this chapter

In previous versions of Windows, a My Network Places icon used to appear on everybody's desktop. Of course, for the millions of nonnetworked PC users in their home offices and bedrooms, it never made much sense. In Windows XP Home Edition, in fact, My Network Places appears only when your PC joins a network—and then only in the Start menu. (You can also put its icon on the desktop yourself, as described in Section 1.1.)

In any case, once it's there, choosing this command opens the My Network Places window, which displays icons for the disks and folders other people on the office network have made available for rummaging. (Much more on this topic in Chapter 18.)

Additional content appearing in this section has been removed.
Purchase this book now or read it online at Safari to get the whole thing!

StartMy Computer

Content preview·Buy PDF of this chapter|Buy reprint rights for this chapter

The My Computer command is the trunk lid, the doorway to every single shred of software on your machine. When you choose this command, a window opens to reveal icons that represent each disk drive in your machine, as shown in Figure 1-19. (Note to power users: Technically, My Computer displays a different icon for each hard drive partition.)

Figure 1-19: Top: The My Computer window is divided into at least three sections. At the top, you see what amounts to the My Documents folders for each person who has an account on this PC (Chapter 16). Then comes a list of hard drives, followed by removable disk drives. This computer has one floppy drive, two hard drives (or one partitioned hard drive—see Appendix A), and one CD-ROM drive. (If there's a disk in the CD-ROM drive, you get to see its name, not just its drive letter.)

Bottom: When you select a disk icon by clicking it, the Details pane on the left side of the window displays its capacity and amount of free space.

For example, by double-clicking your hard drive icon and then the various folders on it, you can eventually see the icons for every single file and folder on your computer. (The My Computer icon no longer appears on the desktop—unless you put it there, as described in Section 1.1.)

You don't have to live with "My This, My That" as the names of the important Windows folders. You can rename them extremely easily, as described in Section 1.16.3.

Additional content appearing in this section has been removed.
Purchase this book now or read it online at Safari to get the whole thing!

StartMy Music, My Pictures

Content preview·Buy PDF of this chapter|Buy reprint rights for this chapter

Clearly, Microsoft imagined that most of its Windows XP customers would be multimedia mavens, decked out with digital cameras and MP3 music players. To hammer home the point, it has stocked your My Documents folder with My Pictures and My Music folders to store digital photos and music files, respectively.

If you do indeed have a digital camera or MP3 player, you'll probably find that whatever software came with it automatically dumps your photos into, and sucks your music files out of, these folders (if, of course, they're Windows XP—compatible). You'll find much more on this topic in Chapter 7.

If you don't feel the need to stare at these folder names in your Start menu day after day, it's easy enough to get rid of them. Right-click the Start menu; from the shortcut menu, choose Properties. In the dialog box, click the Customize button, then click the Advanced tab. Now scroll down in the Start menu items list until you see My Music or My Pictures. Click "Don't display this item," and then click OK.

Some of the commands that populated the Start menus of previous Windows versions no longer appear in the home version of Windows XP. That's by design, of course: Microsoft is trying to make its new operating system look less overwhelming to the newcomer.

But if you miss some of the old folders—My Network Places and My Recent Documents, for example—it's easy enough to put them back. Over time, having them right in your Start menu can save you quite a bit of burrowing.

Right-click the Start menu. From the shortcut menu, choose Properties. Now the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box appears. Click the Customize button, and then the Advanced tab.

In the scrolling list, you'll find a checkbox that makes My Network Places appear in the Start menu. Windows 2000 veterans may also want to turn on "Display as Connect to menu" under Network Connections, so that you have a handy pop-up menu of network connections in your Start menu. If you scroll all the way to the bottom of the list, you'll also see an option that adds System Administrative Tools to your All Programs menu and even to your Start menu. (You can read about these technical utilities in Chapter 15.)

Additional content appearing in this section has been removed.
Purchase this book now or read it online at Safari to get the whole thing!

StartMy Recent Documents

Content preview·Buy PDF of this chapter|Buy reprint rights for this chapter

Actually, you probably don't see the My Recent Documents menu command in your Start menu. It's something you have to turn on, using the techniques described in the box on the facing page.

Still, the My Recent Documents feature can be useful. It adds, to your Start menu, a submenu list of the last fifteen documents you've opened. Using a list of recent documents can save you time when you want to reopen something you've worked on recently, but you're not in the mood to burrow through folders to find its icon.

Note, however, that:

• Documents appear on the "recently used" list only if your applications are smart enough to update it. Most modern programs (including all Microsoft programs) perform this administrative task, but not all do.
• The Documents list doesn't know when you've deleted a document or moved it to another folder or disk; it continues to list the file even after it's gone. In that event, clicking the document's listing produces only an error message.

Of course, there's another easy way to open a document you've recently worked on. To start, simply launch the program you used to create it. Many programs maintain a list of recent documents at the bottom of the File menu; choose one of these names to open the corresponding file.

Additional content appearing in this section has been removed.
Purchase this book now or read it online at Safari to get the whole thing!

StartMy Documents

Content preview·Buy PDF of this chapter|Buy reprint rights for this chapter

This command opens up your My Documents folder, which, until Windows XP, appeared as an icon on your desktop. It's designed to hold the data files you and your programs create.

Of course, you're welcome to file your documents anywhere on the hard drive, but most programs propose the My Documents folder as the target location for newly created documents.

Whenever you log on, Windows XP provides a My Documents folder just for you. (It actually sits in the My Computer→Local Disk (C:)→Documents and Settings→ [Your Name] folder.)

This feature can be confusing if you're not expecting it. For example, if you stop by the computer after somebody else has logged on, none of your stuff is where you expect to find it—specifically, in the My Documents folder. That's because the computer no longer opens your documents folder when you choose Start→My Documents.

If this happens to you, check the name that appears at the top of the Start menu. It identifies who's currently logged on—and whose documents are showing up in the My Documents window.

Sticking with that principle makes a lot of sense for three reasons. First, it makes navigation easy. You never have to wonder where you filed some document, since all your stuff is sitting right there in the My Documents folder. Second, this arrangement makes backing up easy, in that you can drag the entire My Documents folder right onto a Zip disk or blank CD.

Third, remember that Windows XP has been designed from the ground up for computer sharing. It's ideal for any situation where different family members, students, or workers share the same PC. Each person who uses the computer will turn on the machine to find her own separate, secure set of files, folders, desktop pictures, Web bookmarks, preference settings—and My Documents folder. (Much more about this feature in Chapter 16.)

Additional content appearing in this section has been removed.
Purchase this book now or read it online at Safari to get the whole thing!

Customizing the Start Menu

Content preview·Buy PDF of this chapter|Buy reprint rights for this chapter

As millions of Windows users have demonstrated, it's perfectly possible to live a long and happy life without ever tampering with the Start menu. For many people, the idea of making it look or work differently comes dangerously close to nerd territory. (It's true that listing your favorite files there gives you quicker access to them—but it's even easier to use the Quick Launch toolbar, as described in Section 2.5.1.)

Still, knowing how to manipulate the Start menu listings may come in handy someday, and provides an interesting glimpse into the way Windows works.

Thanks to the User Accounts feature described in Chapter 16, any changes you make to the Start menu apply only to you. Each person with an account on this PC has an independent, customized Start menu. When you sign onto the machine using your name and password, Windows XP loads your customized Start menu.

Microsoft offers a fascinating set of customization options for the Start menu. It's hard to tell whether these options were selected by a scientific usability study or by a dartboard, but you're likely to find something that suits you.

To view and change the basic options, right-click the Start menu; choose Properties from the shortcut menu. Now the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box opens, as seen in Figure 1-20.

Section 1.16.1.1: The General tab

When you click the Customize button, you see the dialog box shown at bottom in Figure 1-20. Here you're offered a random assortment of Start-menu tweaks:

• Select an icon size for programs. Turning on "Small icons" gives you smaller icons next to the commands in the left column of the Start menu. (You always get small icons on the right side and in the All Programs menu.) As a result, the Start menu is more compact. Consider converting to small icons as your All Programs menu gets crowded.

Additional content appearing in this section has been removed.
Purchase this book now or read it online at Safari to get the whole thing!

Chapter 2: Windows, Folders, and the Taskbar

Content preview·Buy PDF of this chapter|Buy reprint rights for this chapter

Windows got its name from the rectangles on the screen—the windows—where every computer activity takes place. You look at a Web page in a window, type into a window, read email in a window, and look at the contents of a folder in a window—sometimes all at once. But as you create more files, stash them in more folders, and launch more programs, it's easy to wind up paralyzed before a screen awash with cluttered, overlapping rectangles.

Fortunately, Windows is crawling with icons, buttons, and other inventions to help you keep these windows under control.

There are two categories of windows in Windows:

• Desktop windows. These windows, sometimes called Windows Explorer windows, include the windows that open when you double-click a disk or folder icon. This is where you organize your files and programs.
• Application windows. These are the windows where you do your work—in Word or Internet Explorer, for example.
  Nonetheless, all windows have certain components in common (see Figure 2-1).
• Title bar. This top strip displays the name of the window. Drag it like a handle when you want to move the window on the screen.
• Minimize button. Click this box to temporarily hide a window, shrinking it down into the form of a button on your taskbar (Section 2.4). You can open it again by clicking that button. Keyboard shortcut: Press Alt+Space bar, then N.
• Maximize button. Click this button to enlarge the window so that it fills the screen, gluing its edges to the screen borders. At this point, the maximize button turns into a restore down button (whose icon shows two overlapping rectangles), which you can click to return the window to its previous size.

Additional content appearing in this section has been removed.
Purchase this book now or read it online at Safari to get the whole thing!

Windows in Windows

Content preview·Buy PDF of this chapter|Buy reprint rights for this chapter

There are two categories of windows in Windows:

• Desktop windows. These windows, sometimes called Windows Explorer windows, include the windows that open when you double-click a disk or folder icon. This is where you organize your files and programs.
• Application windows. These are the windows where you do your work—in Word or Internet Explorer, for example.
  Nonetheless, all windows have certain components in common (see Figure 2-1).
• Title bar. This top strip displays the name of the window. Drag it like a handle when you want to move the window on the screen.
• Minimize button. Click this box to temporarily hide a window, shrinking it down into the form of a button on your taskbar (Section 2.4). You can open it again by clicking that button. Keyboard shortcut: Press Alt+Space bar, then N.
• Maximize button. Click this button to enlarge the window so that it fills the screen, gluing its edges to the screen borders. At this point, the maximize button turns into a restore down button (whose icon shows two overlapping rectangles), which you can click to return the window to its previous size. Keyboard shortcut: Press Alt+Space bar, then X.

You can also maximize or restore a window by double-clicking its title bar.

Figure 2-1: All windows have the same basic ingredients, making it easy to become an expert in window manipulation. This figure shows a desktop window—a disk or folder—but you'll encounter the same elements in application windows.

Additional content appearing in this section has been removed.
Purchase this book now or read it online at Safari to get the whole thing!

The Desktop Window Overhaul

Content preview·Buy PDF of this chapter|Buy reprint rights for this chapter

Windows' windows look just fine straight from the factory: all the edges are straight, and the text is perfectly legible. Still, if you're going to stare at this computer screen for half of your waking hours, you may as well investigate some of the ways these windows can be enhanced for better looks and greater efficiency. As it turns out, there's no end to the tweaks Microsoft lets you perform.

You can view the files and folders in a desktop window in any of several ways: as small icons, jumbo icons, a tidy list, and so on. Each window remembers its own view settings.

To change the view of a particular open window, choose one of these commands from its View menu (or from the little icon on the toolbar): Filmstrip, Thumbnails, Tiles, Icons, List, or Details. Figure 2-5 illustrates each of these options.

Some of these views are new in Windows XP. Filmstrip view, for example, is a home run for anyone with a digital camera or scanner. It turns the folder window into a slide show machine, complete with Next and Previous buttons beneath an enlarged picture, as well as buttons that rotate the image on the screen. (You get this view automatically when you open your My Pictures folder.)

Figure 2-5: The new Filmstrip view (upper left) creates a slide show right in the folder window. Thumbnails view (upper right) is also good for photos—or anyone who would like a larger target for clicking each icon. (Tip: If you press Shift as you switch to Thumbnails view, you hide the file names. Do it again to bring the names back.)

In the new Tiles view (middle left), your icons appear at standard size, sorted alphabetically into vertical columns—with name and file details just to the right. Icons view (middle right) sorts the icons horizontally in rows, displaying only their names. The List view (lower left) packs, by far, the most files into the space of a window. Details view (lower right) is the same as List view, except for the additional columns of information that reveal the size, the icon type, and the date and time the item was last modified.

Additional content appearing in this section has been removed.
Purchase this book now or read it online at Safari to get the whole thing!

Window Toolbars

Content preview·Buy PDF of this chapter|Buy reprint rights for this chapter

On the day it's born, every Windows XP desktop window has a standard toolbar across the top (see Figure 2-9). A toolbar is simply a strip of one-click buttons like Back, Forward, Search, and so on.

But by choosing View→Toolbars, or right-clicking a blank spot on a toolbar and pointing to Toolbars on the shortcut menu, you can add or hide whichever toolbars you like, on a window-by-window basis. Three different toolbars are available from the View menu: Standard Buttons, Address Bar, and Links.

As anyone in the U.S. Justice Department could probably tell you, the Internet Explorer Web browser is deeply embedded in Windows itself. These window toolbars are perfect examples: They appear not only in desktop windows but also in Internet Explorer when you're browsing the Web. In fact, you'll probably find them even more useful when you're browsing the Web than when browsing your desktop folders.

This toolbar helps you navigate your desktop (or the Web). The desktop version contains buttons like these:

• Back, Forward. On the Web, these buttons let you return to Web pages you've just seen. At the desktop, they display the contents of a disk or folder you've just seen. If you're using one-window-at-a-time mode (see "Uni-Window vs. Multi-Window" in Section 2.3), these buttons are your sole means of getting around as you burrow through your folders.

In both Internet Explorer and at the desktop, you can click the tiny down-pointing black triangle on the Back or Forward button to see a drop-down menu of every Web page (or desktop window) you visited on your way to your current position. Similarly, if you point to one of these buttons without clicking, a tooltip indicates which Web site or folder you'll go to if you click.

Additional content appearing in this section has been removed.
Purchase this book now or read it online at Safari to get the whole thing!

The Taskbar

Content preview·Buy PDF of this chapter|Buy reprint rights for this chapter

The permanent blue stripe across the bottom of your screen is the taskbar, one of the most prominent and important elements of the Windows interface (see Figure 2-11).

Figure 2-11: When you see nothing but microscopic icons, point without clicking to view an identifying tooltip.

The taskbar has several segments, each dedicated to an important function. Its right end, the notification area, contains little status icons that display the time, whether or not you're online, whether or not your laptop's plugged in, and so on. The main portion of the taskbar, of course, helps you keep your open windows and programs under control. You can even dress up your taskbar with additional little segments called toolbars, as described in the following pages.

This section covers each of these features in turn.

In Windows XP, Microsoft has chosen a new name for the area formerly known as the tray (the group of tiny icons at the right end of the taskbar): the notification area. (Why use one syllable when eight will do?)

The purpose is much the same: to give you quick access to little status indicators and pop-up menus that control various functions of your PC. Many a software installer inserts its own little icon into this area: fax software, virus software, palmtop synchronization software, and so on.

Didn't there used to be another toolbar—the radio toolbar? How am I supposed to tune in my favorite Internet radio stations?

It's gone from Windows XP. When you're in the mood for a little classical music as you crunch numbers, use the new Media Explorer bar panel instead (Section 2.2).

To figure out what an icon represents, point to it without clicking so that a tooltip appears. To access the controls that accompany it, try both left-clicking and right-clicking the tiny icon. Often, each click produces a different pop-up menu filled with useful controls.

Additional content appearing in this section has been removed.
Purchase this book now or read it online at Safari to get the whole thing!

Taskbar Toolbars

Content preview·Buy PDF of this chapter|Buy reprint rights for this chapter

Taskbar toolbars are separate, recessed-looking areas on the taskbar that offer specialfunction features. You can build your own toolbar, for example, stocked with documents related to a single project. (Somewhere in America, there's a self-help group for people who spend entirely too much time fiddling with this kind of thing.)

Sometimes, after manually hiding the taskbar (or going too far when you're trying to make it smaller), you can't get it back. The thin blue line disappears, or your mouse pointer won't turn into a double-headed arrow when you position it on the thin line. Here's how to fix the problem:

1. Press Ctrl+Esc. This keystroke selects the taskbar, even though you can't see it (although you can now see the Start menu).
2. Press Esc to make the Start menu disappear. (The taskbar is still selected, even though you can't see it.)
3. Press Alt+Space bar to bring up a shortcut menu.
4. Choose Size from the shortcut menu; this changes your mouse pointer into a four-sided shape. Don't click anything.
5. Press the arrow key that points toward the center of the screen (from the taskbar's perspective). As you do, the taskbar reappears.
6. Resize the taskbar very carefully to avoid repeating all of these steps.

To make a toolbar appear or disappear, right-click a blank spot on the taskbar and choose from the Toolbars shortcut menu (Figure 2-15). The ones with checkmarks are visible now; select one to make the toolbar (and checkmark) disappear.

The Quick Launch toolbar, once you've made it appear, is fantastically useful. In fact, in sheer convenience, it puts the Start menu to shame. It contains icons for functions that Microsoft assumes you'll use most often. They include:

Additional content appearing in this section has been removed.
Purchase this book now or read it online at Safari to get the whole thing!

Chapter 3: Organizing Your Stuff

Content preview·Buy PDF of this chapter|Buy reprint rights for this chapter

Every disk, folder, file, application, printer, and networked computer is represented on your screen by an icon. To avoid spraying your screen with thousands of overlapping icons seething like snakes in a pit, Windows organizes icons into folders, puts those folders into other folders, and so on.

This folder-in-a-folder-in-a-folder scheme works beautifully at reducing screen clutter, but it means that you've got some hunting to do whenever you want to open a particular icon.

Helping you navigate and manage your files, folders, and disks with less stress and greater speed was one of the primary design goals of Windows—and of this chapter.

To create a new folder to hold your icons, right-click where you want the folder to appear (on the desktop, or in any desktop window except My Computer), and choose New→Folder from the shortcut menu. The new folder appears with its temporary "New Folder" name highlighted. Type a new name for the folder and then press Enter.

Before Windows took over the universe, folders were called directories, and folders inside them were called subdirectories. Keep that in mind the next time you're reading an old user guide, magazine article, or computer book.

The top-level, all-encompassing, mother-ship window of your PC is the My Computer window. From within this window, you have access to every disk, folder, and file on your computer. Its slogan might well be: "If it's not in here, it's not on your PC."

To see it, choose Start→My Computer, or double-click its icon on the desktop, if you've put it there (Section 1.1). (And if it is on your desktop, remember that you can rename it something that's a little more, well, dignified, by clicking it and then pressing the F2 key.)

No matter how you open the My Computer window (Figure 3-1), you generally see several categories of icons:

Additional content appearing in this section has been removed.
Purchase this book now or read it online at Safari to get the whole thing!

The Folders of Windows XP

Content preview·Buy PDF of this chapter|Buy reprint rights for this chapter

The top-level, all-encompassing, mother-ship window of your PC is the My Computer window. From within this window, you have access to every disk, folder, and file on your computer. Its slogan might well be: "If it's not in here, it's not on your PC."

To see it, choose Start→My Computer, or double-click its icon on the desktop, if you've put it there (Section 1.1). (And if it is on your desktop, remember that you can rename it something that's a little more, well, dignified, by clicking it and then pressing the F2 key.)

No matter how you open the My Computer window (Figure 3-1), you generally see several categories of icons:

Figure 3-1: Top: The My Computer window, shown here on a corporate-network PC, is the starting point for any folder-digging you want to do. It shows the disk drives of your PC. If you double-click the icon of a removable-disk drive (like your CD-ROM drive, Zip drive, or Jaz drive), you receive only an error message unless there's actually a disk in the drive.

Bottom: The My Computer window on a workgroup computer (that is, not part of a corporate domain network) includes all the perks included on a network computer with the added advantage of the "Files on This Computer" category.

• Hard Disk Drives. These icons, of course, represent your PC's hard drive (or drives, if you've installed or attached additional ones). Most people, most of the time, are most concerned with the Local Disk (C:), which represents the internal hard drive preinstalled in your computer. (You're welcome to rename this icon, by the way, just as you would any icon.)
• Files on This Computer. This category appears only if your computer is a member of a workgroup, not if it's part of a domain network (see Introduction). These folders, which bear the names of people with accounts on that PC (Chapter 16), store links to all files and preferences for each person.

Additional content appearing in this section has been removed.
Purchase this book now or read it online at Safari to get the whole thing!

Life with Icons

Content preview·Buy PDF of this chapter|Buy reprint rights for this chapter

Both of the navigational schemes described so far in this chapter have only one goal in life: to help you manage your icons. You could spend your entire workday just mastering the techniques of naming, copying, moving, and deleting these icons—and plenty of people do.

Here's the crash course.

To rename a file, folder, printer, or disk icon, you need to open up its renaming rectangle You can do so with any of the following methods:

• Highlight the icon and then press the F2 key at the top of your keyboard.
• Click carefully, just once, on a previously highlighted icon's name.