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
  • Part II: Morning Windows Desktop Exploration
  • Hour 4. Working with the My Computer Window
    • Looking at My Computer
    • Working in the My Computer Window
    • Accessing the Control Panel
    • Summary
    • Q&A
    • Workshop
  • 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

Working in the My Computer Window

People's needs for the My Computer window differ greatly, depending on which hardware they use to run Windows XP. For example, a network user probably displays the My Computer window more often than a single user working primarily on a spreadsheet program. The network user might have more reason to check the properties of a shared folder or disk drive.

Before looking at a sample My Computer window work session, you should understand that there are several ways to view the My Computer window, as well as most other Windows XP windows:

• In the tiled view shown in the previous section in Figure 4.1 with the links to other places on the left and icons for each hardware component on the right
• In the icon view so that more icons can be seen if your computer has many shared folders and drives
• In the detail view that shows disk drive sizes and free space

The tiled view is the default view that is set when you install Windows XP. The next hour's lesson, "Navigating Files with Windows Explorer," explains how to move files from one disk drive to another by dragging a file to the disk icon in which you want to put that file instead of typing a disk drive name, as computer users of older operating systems have to do.

As you progress, you might prefer to switch to a detail view to view more information about the items inside My Computer. Select View, Details from the menu to change to the detailed view. Although small icons still appear next to most of the items in a list view of the My Computer window, the icons are extremely small.

Figure 4.2 shows the detailed view. The detailed view becomes even more important if you display additional information in a window. The detailed list view shows the filename, size in bytes, file type, and the most recent date modified. You will learn in the next section how to display additional information inside My Computer and the detailed view shows more information than the tiled view can show.

Figure 4.2 The My Computer window shown in a detailed list view.

As you add hardware and as you traverse additional windows from within the My Computer window, your current view might no longer be adequate to display the data. For example, for only a few icons, the tiled view works well to show an overview of your machine.

Working with My Computer

The best way to begin learning about the My Computer window is to work within it. Follow the next To Do item to see some of the things that are possible with My Computer and, therefore, with all windows that you need to manage.

To Do: Working in the My Computer Window

1. Open the My Computer window if you don't have it open already.
2. From the menu bar, select View, List. The view instantly changes to the list view.
3. Select View, Details. The list view expands to tell you more about each item, such as free space and total space on the disk and CD-ROM drives.
4. Go back to the tiled view.
5. If not maximized already, maximize your My Computer window by clicking the Maximize button or by double-clicking the title bar.
6. Click the C: disk drive icon once to select it. The Details section shows the disk's size.

7. Now double-click the C: disk drive icon. When you do, you should see a window of folders and other icons. Each folder represents a folder on your disk drive named C:. A folder is a list of files (and subfolders) stored together in one group. The folder name appears under each folder icon. If you also see a hand holding the folder, the folder is known as a shared folder available to others on the network you're working on.

   You might see some grayed-out icons in the list. These are hidden system files that you generally do not need access to and you generally shouldn't change or delete. To protect these from view, if you can see them, you can select Tools, Folder Options and click the View tab to designate whether you want to see all hidden files and folders (in which case Windows XP grays out the system and normally hidden files and folders), all files except the hidden ones, or all files except both the hidden and system files. You generally won't work with system or hidden files, and by turning off their display, you clean up your file listings considerably. Click OK to save your changes.

   The icons that look like pieces of paper are document icons that represent individual files, including programs and text files, on your system's C: drive. You find other kinds of icons as well. If you see the list view when you display the C: disk drive, select View, Tiles to see the icons.

8. To look at the contents of a file folder, double-click the file folder. When you do, yet another window will open up, or possibly the current window will change to reflect the new file folder depending on the options set in your Tools, Options menu.

   If you have lots of files on drive C:, and most people do, you might have to use the scrollbars to see all the window's contents. As you open additional windows by opening new folders, you can always return to the previous folder window by clicking the toolbar's Back button.

9. Click the Back button to return to a previous view.
10. Every time you change the window contents from the My Computer window by double-clicking an icon such as the C: drive icon, a new set of window contents appears. You can traverse right back through all the windows you visited and return to the My Computer window contents by pressing the Back button on the toolbar, just as you do to traverse back through Web pages you might have traveled.

Other Start Menu Windows

You will master other Start menu windows besides the My Computer window as you learn more about Windows XP. The previous three lessons began describing many of these windows, such as the My Pictures, My Music, and the Control Panel window.

Here are two Start menu windows that you're not yet familiar with:

• My Documents—Contains a list of data files for many of your application programs.
• My Network Places—Contains a list of computers that are networked to yours (although you might not see this option if you do not use a network).

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