Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft Windows XP in 24 Hours

By Greg Perry

• Table of Contents
  • Copyright
  • About the Author
  • Acknowledgments
  • Tell Us What You Think!
  • Introduction
  • Part I: Wake Up with Windows XP
  • Hour 1. Taking a Bird's-Eye Look at Windows XP
  • Hour 2. Getting Started with Windows XP
    • First Things First
    • Shut Down Before Leaving
    • I Do Windows!
    • Manually Changing Window Sizes
    • Moving Windows
    • Closing a Window
    • A Window's Menu
    • A Window's Toolbar
    • One Last Note About Windows
    • Summary
    • Q&A
    • Workshop
  • Hour 3. Managing the Windows XP Interface
  • Part II: Morning Windows Desktop Exploration
  • Hour 4. Working with the My Computer Window
  • Hour 5. Navigating Files with Windows Explorer
  • Hour 6. Calling for Help
  • Hour 7. Improving Your Windows Desktop Experience
  • Part III: Early Afternoon Windows Exploration
  • Hour 8. Installing Programs with Windows XP
  • Hour 9. Finding Files, Folders, and Friends
  • Hour 10. Using the Desktop Accessories
  • Part IV: Late Afternoon Internet Integration
  • Hour 11. Surfing the Web with Internet Explorer
  • Hour 12. Tying Windows into the Web
  • Hour 13. Networking with Windows XP
  • Hour 14. Managing E-mail and Newsgroups with Outlook Express
  • Part V: An Evening with Advanced Windows
  • Hour 15. Exploring Your Hardware Interface
  • Hour 16. Understanding Printing and Fonts
  • Hour 17. Using Windows on the Road
  • Hour 18. Giving Windows XP a Tune-Up
  • Hour 19. Managing Your Hard Drives
  • Hour 20. Tinkering with the Advanced System Tools
  • Part VI: Having Fun at Nighttime
  • Hour 21. Using Media Player
  • Hour 22. Picturing Windows XP Graphics
  • Hour 23. Making Movies with Windows XP
  • Hour 24. Advanced Windows XP Tips
  • Part VII: Appendixes
  • Appendix A. Differences Between the Windows Home and Professional Edition
  • Appendix B. Glossary
  • Appendix C. Answers to Quizzes

I Do Windows!

The rest of this lesson focuses on managing the individual windows within Windows XP. You must know how to maneuver throughout the multiple windows on your Windows XP desktop so you can effectively use your computer.

The example window primarily used here is a special window named the My Computer window. Hour 4 explains how to use the contents of the My Computer window. The rest of this lesson uses the My Computer window only as an example window to show you how to manage windows.

First, select the My Computer option on your Start menu to open the My Computer window. (A new button appears on your taskbar showing the new open My Computer window.) Most Start menu entries open to windows or start programs running when you select them, as you'll see throughout this book. Some menu options produce additional menus from which you can select.

Figure 2.6 shows the My Computer window with all its control buttons and components labeled. You will find this same window structure in almost every window that you open, as well as in applications that you run, such as a database program. Although you'll often see other kinds of windows, such as the dialog box you studied in the previous hour, the window in Figure 2.6 is more typical of the general windows with which you will work. Your My Computer window, and your other windows, might differ slightly from the look of Figure 2.6's window depending on how your system is configured. As you progress in this 24-hour tutorial, you will learn how to customize windows to look the way you prefer.

Figure 2.6 Use a window's controls and menus to manage the window.

Familiarize yourself with the buttons and window sections pointed out in Figure 2.6 because almost every window contains these window controls or a subset of them. Here are some of the more general things you can do with such a window on the screen:

• Minimize the window down to an icon on the taskbar, eliminating the window from the screen, while keeping it open.
• Maximize a minimized window to partial- or full-screen size.
• Move a window from one location to another on the screen.
• Bring a window to the top of a stack of windows so that you can work within that window. (Because of the Windows XP multitasking capability, hidden windows can still perform data processing, such as calculating and printing.)
• Display different windows by clicking one of the Tasks or Other Places options. If you display new window contents, you can click the back toolbar button to return to the window's previous contents.
• Drag items, with the mouse, from one window to another if you have two or more windows on the screen at once. You can also drag an item to a different location within the same window.
• Close a window completely, removing its icon from the taskbar and stopping the application that is running inside the window.

You can have one or more windows on your screen, some overlapping other windows, some completely covering others, and you will sometimes see windows side by side or above others. The taskbar indicates the contents of all your open windows. In a typical Windows XP user's day, the user might have two or more applications running at the same time. Each of those applications might display one or more windows of its own.

Don't jump to the conclusion that multiple windows result in confusion. On a typical desk, even the desks of the most organized people (the author not being one of them!), you'll find all sorts of paper stacks, and those stacks don't imply disorganization. The desk's user simply has to know how to organize the stacks and bring the most important stacks to the forefront when he wants to work on them. It is the same with Windows XP.

Some applications open single windows. Other applications might open multiple windows. For example, there are word processors that can display two documents side by side in two different windows. Almost all windows in Windows XP look and act just as all the others.

Minimizing Windows

Minimizing a window clears the window from your desktop, but the program is still loaded, active, and out of sight until you are ready to return to the program. The taskbar continues to list the window or application until you completely close the application as the following To Do item explains.

To Do: How to Minimize Windows

1. Locate your My Computer window's Minimize button.
2. Click the button. Look closely at the screen as you minimize the window. Notice that Windows XP graphically and quickly shrinks the outer edges of the window into the taskbar button labeled My Computer.

When you minimize a window, whichever window or icon is behind it appears. Remember that a window is active when its icon and description still appear on the taskbar.

Enlarging Windows

Windows supplies several ways to enlarge windows. You can enlarge a minimized window from its taskbar status to the window's regular size. You can also maximize a window that's already showing to take up the entire screen space. You can alter the size of a window by doing one of the following:

• Click the window's taskbar button when the window is minimized.
• Click the window's Maximize button to enlarge the window to full screen. (The Maximize button changes to a Restore button as soon as you maximize a window.)
• To manually expand or shrink a window, drag one of the window's outward or inward.

As long as a window contains a Maximize button, you can maximize that window to the screen's full size. (Some windows are designed to be no larger or smaller than a preset size; these windows have Maximize or Minimize buttons that are disabled, indicated by grayed-out buttons.) When you want to dedicate the entire screen to a window, you can usually maximize the window by clicking the window's Maximize button.

To Do: Maximizing Windows

1. Click the My Computer window's Maximize button. The window grows to consume the entire screen. The My Computer window does not often contain many items, so maximizing it is not very beneficial other than for this practice. The more a window contains, the larger you will want to make it so that you can see contents that might not fit in a nonmaximized window.

   There is no need for Windows to keep a Maximize button on a window that's already maximized; thus, the Restore button takes the Maximize button's place when maximized. The Restore button always restores the window to the size it measured before you maximized it.

2. Click the My Computer window's Restore button. The window resizes (down) to its original size. As soon as you restore the window's size, you will see that the Restore button switches back to a Maximize button once again.
3. This time, double-click the My Computer window's title bar (point the mouse anywhere over the title in the window's title bar before double-clicking). Double-clicking the title bar maximizes a window just as pressing the Maximize button does.
4. Restore the My Computer window's original size again by clicking the Restore button.

You will often want to maximize a window if you are doing a lot of work within that window's program. For example, most word-processor users maximize the word-processing window while typing a document so that more screen real estate goes to that document and, therefore, more of it appears on the screen at one time.

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