About-These-Arrows

Some Experience Required

This book assumes that you already know the basics of Windows XP. It doesn't explain how to log in, create an account, use menus , or other basics. (You might think of this book as a sort of intermediate sequel to Windows XP Home Edition: The Missing Manual and Windows XP Pro: The Missing Manual .)

Once you have some experience with the operating system, this book can help you progress from anybody- can-do -this to power hound.

About These Arrows

Throughout this book, you'll find sentences like this one: "Open the My Computer C: Windows folder." That's shorthand for a much longer instruction that directs you to open three nested folders in sequence, like this: "On your hard drive, there's an icon called My Computer. Open that. Inside My Computer, there's a folder for your C: drive. Open that. Inside your C: drive is your Windows folder. Open that."

Similarly, this kind of arrow shorthand helps to simplify the business of choosing commands in menus , such as File New Window, as shown in Figure P-1. Youll also see this arrow notation used to indicate which tab or pane of a dialog box you're supposed to click: "Choose Tools Options General," for example.

Figure P-1. In this book, arrow notations help to simplify folder and menu instructions. For example, "Choose File New Window" is a more compact way of saying "From the File menu, choose New; from the submenu that appears, choose Window," as shown here.

About MissingManuals.com

At http://www.missingmanuals.com, you'll find news, articles, and updates to the books in the Missing Manual and Power Hound series.

But the Web site also offers corrections and updates to this book (to see them, click the book's title, then click Errata). In fact, you're invited and encouraged to submit such corrections and updates yourself. In an effort to keep the book as up to date and accurate as possible, each time we print more copies of this book, we'll make any confirmed corrections you've suggested. We'll also note such changes on the Web site, so that you can mark important corrections into your own copy of the book, if you like.

In the meantime, we'd love to hear your own suggestions for new books in the Missing Manual and Power Hound lines. There's a place for that on the Web site, too, as well as a place to sign up for free email notification of new titles in the series.

Chapter 1. Getting Started

There's more to getting started with Windows XP than just turning on your computer. With XP, the most stable and customizable version of Windows developed so far, you can tweak pretty much every aspect of how your computer looks, starts up, and shuts down ‚ plus a whole lot in between.

The hints in this chapter help you get more out of Windows XP's most basic functions.