Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional in 10 Minutes

By Dorothy Burke and Jane Calabria

• Table of Contents
  • Copyright
  • Tell Us What You Think!
  • About the Authors
  • Introduction
  • Conventions Used in This Book
  • Lesson 1. Navigating Windows 2000 Professional
  • Lesson 2. Working with a Window
    • What Is a Window?
    • Opening a Window
    • Sizing a Window with Maximize, Minimize, and Restore
    • Sizing a Window's Borders
    • Using Scroll Bars
    • Moving a Window
    • Viewing a Window's Contents
    • Closing Windows
  • Lesson 3. Using Menus
  • Lesson 4. Using Windows 2000 Professional Help
  • Lesson 5. Using Dialog Boxes
  • Lesson 6. Working with Multiple Windows and Applications
  • Lesson 7. Copying, Moving, and Linking Between Windows and Applications
  • Lesson 8. Using My Computer
  • Lesson 9. Managing Files with My Computer
  • Lesson 10. Using WordPad
  • Lesson 11. Understanding File Properties and the Recycle Bin
  • Lesson 12. Printing
  • Lesson 13. Using My Network Places
  • Lesson 14. Using the Control Panel
  • Lesson 15. Using Outlook Express Mail
  • Lesson 16. Sharing Workstations and Setting Passwords
  • Lesson 17. Using Internet Explorer 5
  • Lesson 18. Web Site and Document Searching
  • Lesson 19. Troubleshooting, Restarting, and Disaster Planning
  • Lesson 20. Customizing the Windows 2000 Environment

Viewing a Window's Contents

By default, the contents of a window display in icon form; for example, elements in the My Computer window are represented by pictures of a hard drive, floppy drive, and folders. Other windows, such as your hard drive window, display elements as folders and files.

The default view for displaying the contents of a window is Large Icons. You can change the default by selecting one of the following choices:

• Large Icons: Contents are displayed with a large icon below the file or folder name; icons represent the application in which a file was created, folder, or executable program.
• Small Icons: Contents are displayed with a small icon beside the file or folder name; small icons represent the application in which a file was created, folder, or executable program. Similar to List except the files are alphabetized vertically instead of horizontally.
• List: Similar to Small Icons except the files are alphabetized horizontally instead of vertically.
• Details: Lists the icon, file or folder name, size, type, and date last modified. If you are viewing the contents of your hard drive instead of the contents of a file folder, the Details shown are name, type, total size, and free space. When in Details view, you can click the heading button—Name, Size, Type, or Modified— to automatically sort the contents by that heading. For example, click Name and folders list in alphabetical order followed by file names listed alphabetically.
• Thumbnails: Displays files as thumbnail prints. Useful when you want to view the contents of a folder containing graphics.

Figure 2.6 shows four windows, each with a different view of the window's contents. Starting with the upper left window, the first view is a Thumbnail view, below it is a Large Icon view, the upper right is a Details view, and the bottom right is Small Icons. Small Icons and List views are similar in that they display the same information, but the Small Icons view requires that you scroll down and the List view scrolls across. Please note that you cannot re-create this image on your screen without customizing your Windows 2000 Professional defaults. By default, Windows 2000 will display only one window at a time while you are viewing the contents of My Computer and will not open four windows as you see in Figure 2.6.

Figure 2.6 Display the contents of a window in a different view, so you can easily identify files or folders.

To change theview of a window's contents, click on the word View in the menu and then select Large Icons, Small Icons, List , Details, or Thumbnails.

Share This