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
  • Hour 3. Managing the Windows XP Interface
    • A Quick Taskbar and Start Button Review
    • Moving the Taskbar
    • The Taskbar Menu
    • Managing Multiple Windows with the Taskbar
    • Sizing the Taskbar
    • Starting Programs with the Start Menu
    • Using the Run Command
    • Summary
    • Q&A
    • Workshop
  • 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

Starting Programs with the Start Menu

The Start menu offers an extremely simple way for you to start the programs on your computer. Two or three clicks start virtually any program on your disk drive. When you install new programs on your computer, those programs add themselves to your Start menu. (Hour 8, "Installing Programs with Windows XP," explains how to install programs on your computer.)

As you open programs and use your computer, Windows XP keeps track of your most recent programs and places them in a handy position on the Start menu as Figure 3.11 shows.

Figure 3.11 The Start menu keeps track of the programs you've used recently.

The More Programs command on the Start menu enables you to launch any program on your disk. To start a program, you display the menu that contains that program and then click the program's name or icon.

Microsoft gives you the Solitaire card game. You can practice starting programs from the Start menu's More Programs command by starting Solitaire.

To Do: Playing Solitaire

1. Click the Start button to display the Start menu.

2. Select the More Programs command. A cascaded menu will appear next to the Start menu.

   Each of these items in the menu represents either a program or a folder of programs. When you buy a program such as a word processor, the word processor might come with several related programs that help you manage the word processor environment. The word processor folder opens to yet another window (you can tell by the presence of an arrow at the right of the word processor's folder) that then lists all the related programs in the folder.

3. Select the Games option to display the programs in the Games folder. If you don't see Games, first select Accessories and look there.
4. Select the Solitaire option. You'll see the opening Solitaire card game screen.
5. There's no time to play right now! This hour's closing quickly. Therefore, terminate the Solitaire program by clicking the window's Close button (the button with the X, as you learned in Hour 2). Solitaire goes away and you are back to the regular Windows XP desktop.

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