Making Life With A Computer Easier

Moving around the Hard drive and Network

My Computer:

A: Floppy Drive
C: Hard Drive
D: Zip drive or second hard drive
E: CD ROM
Z: Network Drives

To look at the contents of a drive you need to open (double click) My Computer, then double click on the Drive name and/or letter you want to open. When you do this it will display the resources available to you. The drives will show the files and folders (directories) you can use.

Saving

When you save something, the best location is the Z drive. It is on the network and gets backed up every day. This is a much more secure place than your hard drive or a disk drive. Floppy disks are very unreliable.

Deleting

To delete something you should drag it to the recycle bin.

Opening Programs

You click on the Start button to run programs, open documents, change settings, etc. You can also place shortcuts on your desktop, which are the same thing as going to the Start menu.

Task Bar

Displays the programs you have open
Use to switch between programs

Right Click

When you right click on any object Windows will display a contextual menu, showing you a list of the most often used commands for that object. This will include cut, copy, paste, etc.

Something to remember
Look at your taskbar from time to time, especially if your program suddenly disappears. Usually adisappearing program has just been minimized, and can be recovered inthe taskbar.

Window control:. Here's one way to understand themain window controls in the upper right of every Windows programs: The first two buttons-minimize andmaximize- toggle between two states.

State 1 (default) - Your program window is open and visible - the normal state. Clicking theminimize button creates State 2.

State 2 - Your program window is not visible. The program is not closed, however - an icon for it appears in the task bar at the bottom of the screen. Clicking that icon creates State 1.

If your program seems to disappear, look at the taskbar at the bottom of the screen. Click on any program icons to view them.

State 1 (default) - For most programs (although this varies), the default state is full-screen - the program window fills the screen from corner to corner. Click the maximize button creates State 2.

State 2 - The program window shrinks to something less than full-screen.

Check the size of your program window - new users often leave it small by accident. If the window does not fill the screen, click the Maximize button.

New users seem to understand Close well - click it and your program ends. This is the same thing as selecting Quit under the File menu.

Creating Folders to Save your Work

When you are browsing your drives (hard drive, network, etc.) using My Computer you can create folders by clicking on File dragging down to New and over to Folder. You should then name the folder.
If you are opening or saving a document you can click on the new Folder icon at the top of the Microsoft Save/Open Window.



Renaming Folder

After a folder is created, you can rename it. If you click on it once and leave the cursor there for three seconds you will be able to rename the folder.

Finding Files
To locate files you cannot find click on Start go to Find then over to Files or Folders. You should then type the name (or part of name) you are looking for, then make sure it is looking at the correct drive(s).