The Operating System: Windows to the World of Computing

Before you can use all the pieces and parts of your computer to do anything, you need to know how to operate Microsoft Windows. 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.

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 powers 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.

note

This book is written for PCs running Windows XP, Windows Me, or Windows 98. If your PC is running a different version of Windows, most of the advice here is still good, although not all the step-by-step instructions will apply.

The version of Windows installed on most new PCs is Windows XP. There are actually two different flavors of Windows XP: Windows XP Home Edition is designed for home and small-business users; Windows XP Professional Edition is designed for larger businesses and corporate users. They both share the same basic functionality; XP Professional just has a few more features specially for large corporate networks.

If you have an older PC, it might be running an older version of Windows, such as Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows Me (Millennium Edition) and if you're computing in a large corporation, you might be using Windows NT or Windows 2000. All of these Windows operate in the same general fashion, even if some of the specific details are different.