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Part II: Using Windows

Understanding Microsoft Windows XP

Taking Windows for a Spin

Personalizing Windows

Working with Files and Folders

Chapter 3. Understanding Microsoft Windows XP

In this chapter

What Windows Is—and What It Does
Different Versions of Windows
Working Your Way Around the Desktop
Important Windows Operations
Using the Start Menu
Understanding Files and Folders
All the Other Things in Windows
Getting Help in Windows

As you learned back in Chapter 1, "Understanding Your Computer Hardware," it's the software and operating system that make your hardware work. The operating system for most personal computers is Microsoft Windows, and you need to know how to use Windows to use your PC system. This is because Windows pretty much runs your computer for you; if you don't know your way around Windows, you won't be able to do much of anything on your new PC.

What Windows Is—and What It Does

Windows is a piece of software called an operating system . An operating system does what its name implies—it operates your computer system , working in the background every time you turn on your PC.

Equally important, Windows is what you see when you first turn on your computer, after everything turns on and boots up. The "desktop" that fills your screen is part of Windows, as is the taskbar at the bottom of the screen and the big menu that pops up when you click the Start button.

Different Versions of Windows

The version of Windows installed on your new PC is probably Windows XP. Microsoft has released different versions of Windows over the years , and XP is the latest—which is why it comes preinstalled on most new PCs.

If you've used a previous version of Windows—such as Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows Me—on another PC, Windows XP probably looks and acts a little differently to you. (It's even different from the version of Windows found in most large corporations—Windows 2000.) Don't worry; everything that was in the old Windows is still in the new Windows—it's probably just in a slightly different place.

There are actually two different retail versions of Windows XP. Windows XP Home Edition, which comes with most lower-priced PCs, is the version of XP for home and small-business users. Windows XP Professional Edition, which comes with some higher-priced PCs, is designed for larger businesses and corporate users. They both share the same basic functionality; XP Professional just has a few more features specifically designed for large corporate networks.

Some new "media center" PCs come with a slightly different version of Windows XP called Windows XP Media Center Edition. The Media Center is an optional interface that sits on the top of the normal Windows XP desktop and allows one-button access to key multimedia functions, including My TV, My Music, My Pictures, and My Videos. In fact, PCs equipped with Media Center come with a handheld remote control for quick switching from across the room! If you have Windows XP Media Center, don't panic; underneath the Media Center is the same Windows XP we all know and love, and that is described in this chapter.

Working Your Way Around the Desktop

As you can see in Figure 3.1, the Windows XP desktop includes a number of elements. Get to know the desktop; you're going to be seeing a lot of it from now on.

Figure 3.1. The Windows XP desktop—click the Start button to get going.

graphics/03fig01.jpg

The major parts of the Windows desktop include

Start button— Opens the Start menu, which is what you can use to open all your programs and documents.
Taskbar— Displays buttons for your open applications and windows, as well as different toolbars for different tasks .
System Tray— The part of the taskbar that holds the clock, volume control, and icons for other utilities that run in the background of your system.
Shortcut icons— These are links to software programs you can place on your desktop; a "clean" desktop includes just one icon, for the Windows Recycle Bin.
Recycle Bin— This is where you dump any files you want to delete.