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
  • 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
    • What Is My Computer?
    • Browsing Folder Options
    • The My Computer Menu
    • The My Computer Toolbars
    • Customizing View Columns
  • 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

What Is My Computer?

My Computer is a way to quickly see everything on your computer—files, folders, and drives—and how files and folders are organized. If you are connected to a network, My Computer displays any drives mapped to your computer.

To open My Computer, double-click its icon on the desktop (see Figure 8.1).

Figure 8.1 When double-clicked, the My Computer icon on the desktop displays the files and folders on your computer.

Tip

My Window Doesn't Have All Those Things! The icons that appear in the My Computer window vary from computer to computer. Depending on what components are installed on your computer, you may see different icons than those shown in Figure 8.2.

Figure 8.2 The My Computer window can be changed to display large icons (shown here), small icons, details about files, or a list of files.

When you double-click the My Computer icon, the My Computer window appears (see Figure 8.2).

Some of the icons in the My Computer window represent drives; in this case A: represents the floppy drive, C: and perhaps D: are the computer's hard drive(s), and E: the CD-ROM drive. Your drive letters might be assigned differently. Icons for those items will also appear in this window.

There are also icons within folders. The Control Panel icon opens the Control Panel window. You use the icons in that window to configure your computer. For more information on using the Control Panel, see Lesson 14, "Using the Control Panel."

At the top of the window is the title bar, which indicates the name of the currently opened window, drive, or folder. You can move the entire window on your screen by dragging the title bar.

Below the title bar is the menu bar, which contains the options available for this drive or folder.

Below the menu bar is the toolbar. If your toolbar is not showing, choose View, Toolbars, Standard Buttons from the menu. The toolbar contains icons to quickly execute common commands used in My Computer.

The address bar appears below the toolbar. The address bar shows your current path and location. A path is a roadmap showing the location of a file.

The address bar can also indicate a Web page address or URL (Uniform Resource Locator). If you enter a Web page address, you can view a Web page without opening your Web browser.

To turn the display of the address bar on or off, choose View, Toolbars, Address Bar from the menu.

At the bottom of the screen is the status bar. In My Computer, the status bar displays the number of objects (files and folders) and the size (disk space) of those objects. If you are connected to a network, the Status bar displays a message indicating your connection, such as "local intranet zone." If you select one or more files, the status bar changes to display the number of selected files and the total number of bytes or storage space they use. If you don't see the status bar on your window, choose View, Status Bar from the menu.

There are several ways to open the drives or folders displayed in My Computer:

• Double-click the drive or folder icon.
• Select the drive or folder icon by pointing to it or using the arrow keys to move around the window to highlight the icon you want. Press Enter to open the highlighted drive or folder.
• Select the drive or folder icon by clicking it or using the arrow keys to move around the window to highlight the icon you want. Choose File, Open.
• Point at the drive or folder icon and click the right mouse button. From the pop-up menu, select Open.

When you double-click one of the drive icons in the My Computer window, you see the folders and files contained on that drive (see Figure 8.3).

Figure 8.3 The window for the hard drive (C:) displays the folders and files found on this drive. Double-click a folder to view its contents.

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