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 desktopclick the Start button to get going.

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.