In this chapter:
Windows NT uses folders and icons and plain-English names. But most of all,
it uses the mouse ...
If you've never used a computer before, you'll need to learn a few things before
Windows NT makes sense. If you have used a computer before, you'll need to unlearn
a few things before Windows NT makes sense.
Your old computer probably used Microsoft DOS and Windows 3.1 (or maybe 3.11), which means you had to learn how to think like a computer to get even the simplest jobs done. It's hard to imagine anything more complicated and frustrating than good ol' DOS. Most sensible people would rather program a VCR while blindfolded than struggle with a DOS prompt.
With Windows NT, you don't have to look at that ugly old C:\ prompt anymore (as in Fig. 2.1--try not to shudder as you view it). Once you learn to maneuver the mouse, you don't have to type complicated commands to get even the simplest job done, and you don't have to wrack your brain coming up with eight-character names for your files. In fact, you don't even have to think about files anymore.
Fig. 2.1
Goodbye, DOS! Windows uses icons and folders and plain-English names instead of this unfriendly DOS prompt.
Trying to use Windows without a mouse is like trying to drive your car backward while using only the rear-view mirror. You could probably do it, but it would take forever to get where you're going, and you'd have a horrible headache when you got there.
Mastering a mouse isn't that difficult. It may seem unnatural at first, but once you learn the basic techniques, you'll be able to move things around on your Windows desktop as easily as you shuffle papers on your real desktop.
The secret is to learn a handful of basic techniques that you'll use over and over in Windows, by themselves and in combination. Most of them are easy, especially after a little practice. In fact, one of the best ways to master mouse maneuvering is to use the Solitaire game (see Fig. 2.2).
Fig. 2.2
The Solitaire program is included with Windows to help you learn to work with a mouse. At least, that's what you can tell anyone who catches you playing when you should be working.
Here are some things you'll need to know before you start messing with the mouse:
As you get more comfortable with Windows, you'll find yourself using the same mouse techniques over and over. Let's review the entire list right now.
As you roll the mouse up, down, and around on your desk or mouse pad, the mouse pointer (often called just the pointer--it's the arrow you see on the screen) moves up, down, and around, too. When you aim it at one thing in particular, that's called "pointing."
Most of the time, nothing happens when you simply point to a Windows icon. It's just like moving your finger over the buttons on your VCR. Until you actually push one, nothing happens.
One exception is the help you get from the taskbar. Point to any button (including the Start button), and just leave the arrow there for a few seconds. Then watch as a small label pops up to tell you the purpose of that button. You didn't click--all you had to do was point.
Under normal circumstances, your mouse pointer looks like a white arrow. But as
you do different things and move the pointer to different spots, its appearance changes.
Here are some of the most common mutations:
Plain
old pointer
Windows is waiting for you to click something.
Pointer
with trails
Windows is still waiting, but at least youíve found the pointer and moved it a little.
Pointers
for resizing windows
Use these pointers to make a window bigger or smaller.
Hourglass
Windows is working. You can move the pointer, but you canít do anything else.
Pointer
with hourglass
Windows is working, but youíre free to do something else if youíd like.
I-beamóinsertion
point
Type some letters or numbers here.
No!
pointer
Whatever youíre dragging, you canít drop it here.
Help
pointers
Find more help about this item by clicking here.
You and your mouse will get along just fine if you remember the most fundamental
principle of Windows: First you point, then you select, and then you act.
Think of Windows as a furniture mover. Youíll get great results if you say this:
ìSee these chairs? This one, that one, and those two over there? I want them out
of here.î You point, you select, and you say the magic words. Poof! Theyíre gone.
But what happens if you try it the other way around? You say, ìI want you to move
some chairs.î With no further direction, the mover has no idea what to do next. Move
them all? Just these three over here?
Repeat after me: First you point, then you select, and then you act.
CAUTION: When you hit the edge of the screen, Windows just ignores the messages coming up the wire from the mouse. "Move up? Sorry, I've reached the edge here. You'll have to head in another direction."
TIP: What do you do if the pointer seems to disappear every time you turn your head? Make it bigger. Make it darker. Make it leave a trail so you can spot it the instant it moves. To do any or all of these things, double-click on My Computer, open the Control Panel folder, and double-click on the Mouse icon. Experiment with the options till you find the settings that work best for you.
If you actually want to do something with whatever you're pointing at, you'll have to click it. Point at the Start button, for example, and click once on the left mouse button to pop up a menu of choices. In Solitaire, each time you point at the deck and tap the left mouse button, three cards flip off the deck and onto the face-up stack at the right.
But some tasks require you to use the right mouse button rather than the left one. Most of the time, clicking once on the right mouse button pops up a menu that's tailor-made for whatever you're pointing at. Right-clicking the My Computer icon, for example, pops up a menu that includes an option to rename the icon. Whenever you're not sure what you can do with an icon, just point at it and right-click. The popup menu will tell you what's possible.
Plain English, please!Pushing the right button is called right-clicking, but no one ever says "left-clicking." When you see the word click by itself, in this book or anywhere in Windows, you can safely assume that you're supposed to push the left mouse button.
Double-click an icon and something happens: Programs start, folder windows open, a printer pops up a list of all the jobs it's waiting to do. To see an example, aim the mouse pointer at the My Computer icon, and give the left mouse button two quick clicks, one right after another. (That's called a double-click.) If you double-clicked correctly, the My Computer window will open. If it didn't work, try again.
TIP: Double-clicking can be tricky. Don't let the mouse move between clicks, or Windows will interpret your actions as two single clicks instead of a double-click. If you have trouble keeping the mouse steady, try resting your wrist on the flat surface behind the mouse. Press gently. If you jab too hard at the button, the whole mouse is likely to flinch from the shock. If you still can't get it, and you're ready to fling the mouse into the next room, just click the right mouse button and choose Open. Most of the time, that has the same effect as double-clicking.
How do you know when to click and when to double-click? Just remember the difference between buttons and icons.
It's easy to spot a button. Look for the 3-D effect, with a small shadow along the right side and the bottom. It takes a single click to work the following buttons:
How can you spot an icon? Just look for a picture with a label underneath. These icons, for example, demand a double-click before they'll open into a window:
TIP: When you double-click, Windows expects that the clicks will come one right after the other, as fast as lightning. But you can slow down the double-click rate so that Windows will wait a little longer for that second click. To retrain the mouse, open the Control Panel window and double-click on the Mouse icon. Slide the Double-click speed lever all the way to the left, and test the new settings by double-clicking the jack-in-the-box. There--isn't that better?
Q&A: I'm left-handed. Is there an easier way to use this mouse?
Windows lets you reverse your mouse settings, so that the right button does the jobs normally handled by the left button, and vice versa. To switch mouse buttons, double-click on the Control Panel's Mouse icon and follow the instructions. It's a handy trick for left-handers. If you try it, though, remember to do a mental translation from now on: every time we talk about clicking and right-clicking, just reverse the directions.
Before you can move something, you first have to pick it up. Imagine that the mouse is controlling a robotic arm on your computer's screen. Point at an icon, click and hold down the left mouse button, and the claws at the end of the arm clamp on just as if you had grabbed the icon in your hand. As you move the object around on the screen, you can see it move with the pointer.
As long as you keep the button down, the claws stay clamped on and you can move the icon around. But you can only carry something around for so long before it starts to seem kind of, well, pointless. When you've dragged something far enough, release the pressure on the mouse button and the object drops at the pointer's current location.
You'll move objects from one place to another all the time in Windows. I've moved the Recycle Bin, for example, from its place on the left edge of the screen to the lower right corner of my desktop. And whenever it's time to clean out old files I no longer need, I pick them up and drag them into the Recycle Bin.
TIP: Remember this sequence of events anytime you want to move something from here to there: Point. Click and hold the left mouse button down. Drag the object. Let go of the mouse button to drop it.
Most of the time, you'll simply want to move an object from point A to point B. But, in special cases, you can drop it on top of something else and actually cause something to happen. Here are a few things you can do with this trick:
Here's something that's guaranteed to confuse everybody. When you drag a file onto a folder, what happens? That depends. If the file you're dragging and the folder you're dropping it onto are both on the hard drive in your computer, then the file will move. But if the folder is on another drive (like a file server on your network, or someone else's drive, or even a floppy disk drive on your own PC), then the file will be copied rather than moved. Unless it's a program file, in which case.... Well, the rules are confusing. Fortunately, you don't need to memorize them; instead, use this foolproof alternative.
Whenever you want to move something, or copy something, or create a shortcut, click with the right mouse button and drag it. When you release the button, you'll see a list of choices like the one in Figure 2.3. You can decide whether you want to move the file, make another copy of it, or cancel the whole thing.
Fig. 2.3
Windows lets you right-drag just about anything and drop it just about anywhere.
When you're packing up your household possessions, you can help the movers work faster and more efficiently by labeling all the furniture in the house with signs saying "Take this" and "Leave this." This method works well with the mouse, too. When you tag one or more objects you want to do something with, it's called selecting.
As I emphasized a few pages back, first you point, then you select, and then you act. Up until now, we've been using the mouse to do one thing at a time: move an icon or delete a file. But you can save time and energy by doing the same thing with more than one object at a time. Instead of moving a bunch of files one by one, for example, you can pick out a group of icons and drag them all to a new folder. It's just two steps:
How can you tell when you've selected something? Watch the way the highlighting changes. Click on the Start button and move the mouse pointer up to Settings. Move the pointer to the right until a new menu pops out that side. Slide the pointer over to Control Panel and click to open the Control Panel window. Let's try highlighting some icons.
Fig. 2.4
Drag an imaginary box around a group of icons to select them all. Icons inside the box take on a dark shading to show that you've successfully selected them.
TIP: Anytime you have to simultaneously hold down a key (or keys) and click a mouse button, remember to press the keys first and then click.
CAUTION: Be careful when double-clicking an icon, or you might accidentally rename a file! Watch what happens when you click the name of an icon twice, slowly. The highlighting changes and Windows assumes you want to start typing a new name. To avoid this possibility, always aim at the picture, not the label. (Press Esc to quit renaming this time.) And practice double-clicking until you can do it flawlessly.
If you've been using DOS or Windows 3.1 for the past few years, you've grown accustomed to seeing lists of files --either in the Windows File Manager or in a DOS directory. With Windows 95, all your files are still there--don't worry about that. And you can see all those icons in a list, if you prefer, just as you do in the File Manager. (I'll describe how to do that later in this chapter.) The biggest difference with Windows NT is that you don't have to deal with files and directories. Instead, start learning how to work with icons, because in Windows NT, everything is an icon.
Those small pictures scattered all over your Windows desktop are called icons. (There's one in Figure 2.5, for instance.) Every icon consists of a picture and (usually) a text description, like "My Computer" or "Program Files" or "Interoffice Memo."
Fig. 2.5
Look closely at an icon (like this one for a CD-ROM drive). You'll see that it's made out of square dots--32 of them on each side.
Think of each icon as the label on a box that holds something inside your computer. You may have the world's messiest office, but Windows is fussier than Felix Unger. Windows makes sure that everything inside your computer is contained inside one of these icon/boxes. And not just any icon/box, either. There are five distinct types of icons, and each one is reserved for a special kind of data. (After all, it wouldn't do to have your dress shirts and muddy old work boots just shoved into the same drawer, would it?)
Don't let the tiny size fool you, either; Windows can pack an amazing amount of data inside each one of these boxes.
TIP: If you pick up a magnifying glass and look really closely, you'll see that each icon is composed of square dots called pixels--normal icons have 32 pixels on each side. Look in the top left corner of each window, and you'll see miniature versions of the same icons--these scaled-down icons are a mere 16 pixels on each side.
Everything inside your computer is contained inside one of five distinct types
of icons. , The type of icon gives you an important clue about what you can expect
to find inside; for example, document icons often combine a picture of a piece of
paper with the icon for the program you use to work with that document type.
| The Icon | What it's called... | What it really means... |
| Document | A document is the basic unit of Windows, the equivalent of one or more pieces of paper. A document might consist of words or numbers or pictures, or all of them combined. | |
| Program | Programs are the parts of Windows that actually do the work of putting words, numbers, and pictures into documents. They get the coolest icons, too. | |
| Folder | Folders are special places where you can organize a bunch of icons of any kind. If you're the fussy sort, you can even put folders inside of folders inside of folders. | |
| Device | Each piece of your PC--hard drive, printer, mouse, and the like--gets its own icon. Inside, there are knobs and levers to help you fiddle with the device. | |
| Shortcut | A shortcut is a special sort of icon that helps you organize icons. The icon you're looking for isn't really stored here, but double-clicking on the shortcut will open the original program or folder anyway. |
There's one surefire way to open an icon, and that's to double-click it. When you do, the icon opens into a window, which is simply another view of what's inside that icon. Depending on the type of icon you double-clicked, you might see a folder full of documents, a program like Word for Windows, a document like an Excel spreadsheet, or a collection of controls for all the hardware in and around your PC.
It's easy to find out: Click the right mouse button and choose Properties from the pull-down menu. This lets you look at the icon's Properties sheet (see Fig. 2.6). No, it has nothing to do with Donald Trump, and you won't have to pay any taxes on these Properties. Instead, it's Windows' way of providing you with detailed information about the contents of each icon.
The label underneath an icon is useful, but a bit limited--especially because you fill it out yourself. You've probably had the same experience in your own garage or attic. You wrote "Christmas Ornaments" on the outside of five different boxes. Next December, when you're trying to find the one with the angel for the top of the tree, you'll have to pry each one open and look inside. Unless, of course, you were fussy enough to make a list of each box's contents and tape it to the outside.
Fig. 2.6
What's underneath that icon? Click the right mouse button and look at the Properties sheet to see for yourself.
Well, Windows is that fussy. You can scribble whatever you want underneath the icon, but Windows assigns an inventory clerk to follow along behind you, so that later, when you click the right mouse button, it can hand over a detailed report summarizing the contents of the icon you just clicked, in the form of the Properties sheet.
TIP: To quickly change an icon's label, press F2 and then start typing the new name.
CAUTION: Windows hides things from you, including a lot of the files it needs to run. With the help of a few DOS tricks, you can easily find these hidden files. But you're better off just leaving them alone. They're hidden for a good reason, and if you accidentally mess with them, you could get your PC so thoroughly confused that it won't run.
The little arrow in the lower left corner of an icon means it's a shortcut to an original file. If you've grown accustomed to DOS and Windows 3.1, you've never seen anything like shortcuts before. But once you learn what they do, you'll find yourself using them everywhere.
Shortcuts work like small pushbuttons that let you jump straight to a particular file, called the target file, stored somewhere else. When you double-click a shortcut, Windows looks inside the shortcut for instructions on where to go next. (Those instructions will probably look a lot like those in Fig. 2.7.) In this case, the target file is the program called Calc, stored in the System32 folder inside the Winnt folder. Windows scurries off in search of Calc and opens it up, just as if you had opened all those folders yourself and then double-clicked the icon. But a lot faster.
Q&A: Hey! That target file thing looks a lot like a DOS command! Didn't you say I wouldn't have to type in DOS commands anymore?
Yes, I did. And no, you don't. You can create a shortcut by simply dragging a file or folder icon to the desktop, or you can have Windows automatically fill in the blanks for you with the Create Shortcut Wizard (right-click on the desktop or in a folder, then choose New, Shortcut). You can type in commands if you want, but you never have to.
Fig. 2.7
When you create a shortcut, Windows fills in these blanks on its Properties sheet. Later, when you double-click the shortcut, Windows finds the target file and opens it up instead.
Why are shortcuts useful? Well, let's say you crunch numbers for a living. The fastest, easiest way to crunch all those numbers is with the help of the Windows Calculator, but you don't like poking and clicking through all those menus and folders looking for it. No problem--just create a shortcut on your Windows desktop.
Let's say you're moving across the country, and all of your worldly goods are packed in cardboard boxes. You've got a Magic Marker, but someone just told you that you can only use eight letters (although you can have an extra three letters if you separate it from the eight letters with a dot). "That's ridiculous!" you'd complain. And you'd be right. But that's exactly how MS-DOS (and previous versions of Windows that required MS-DOS) worked for more than a decade.
If you've used MS-DOS, you've learned to compress complex thoughts into ridiculously compact spaces. All the letters you wrote last June, for example, went into a directory called LETTER06, with names like BILLTHX1.DOC and WLDPRC11.DOC. Who knows what those names meant?
Well, with Windows NT, you don't need to create cryptic eight-letter file names anymore, because Windows replaces your folders and documents with icons and lets you label each one with a plain-English name of up to 255 characters. (You'll run out of room on the screen before you'll use that many characters.) And won't it be easy to find documents when they have names like Thank you letter to Bill Karow, 6-30?
Windows lets you use up to 255 characters to name each icon on your screen; thatís
more room than you get on the average postcard. But when it comes to storing data
on your hard disk, Windows still uses the old-fashioned DOS filing system, which
is limited to an eight-character name, plus a period and three more letters. You
rarely have to worry about the short names, though, because Windows handles the confusing
details behind the scenes.
As far as youíre concerned, that WordPad file you just finished is called ìLetter
to the IRS, begging for a four-month extension.î But as soon as you saved it, Windows
converted the long icon name into a short file name that follows the DOS rules. First,
it trimmed away all the spaces inside (spaces are a no-no for DOS files, but theyíre
A-OK for you to use in Windows NT). It also whacked away everything after the first
six characters, and then added a tilde (~ a squiggly character youíll recognize from
high school Spanish classes), the number 1, a period, and the letters DOC at the
end. So your letterís real name, known only to Windows, is LETTER~1.DOC.
Whenever you ask for the file, you double-click an icon labeled with an easy-to-understand
name. When Windows gets your message, it looks through its list of short file names
to find the one that matches the icon you asked for.
Now, letís say you used your word processor to create another letter in the same
folder. This oneís called ìLetter to our accountant demanding a pretty good explanation!î
Windows might try to save this file under the name LETTER~1.DOC, but it wonít workóthereís
already a file by that name, and duplicates arenít allowed. So Windows reaches into
its bag of file-naming tricks to come up with a unique name. Add a character here
and chop one off there, and you wind up with the next name in the series, LETTER~2.DOC.
That name may be meaningless to you and me, but we donít care, because we use the
iconís long name.
So far, so good. But what happens when you save a file with a long name to a network
folder so that other people in your company can share it? Well, if the other person
is using Windows NT or Windows 95, then thereís no problem. Theyíll see the long
file name just as you created it. But if the person at the other end is using DOS
or Windows 3.1, then they canít see the long file name; all they can see is a file
called LETTER~1.DOC.
TIP: You can make an icon's name up to 255 characters long, and you can even use some punctuation marks: periods, commas, semicolons, ampersands, parentheses, and dollar signs. There are a handful of characters you can't use to name a file or folder, though. Here are the characters that you're not allowed to use in an icon's name:
: " \ / * ? | < >
What happened to the three-letter file extensions, like .TXT, that you used to tack onto the end of files when you used DOS and old versions of Windows? Windows NT still keeps a record of these (and you can change settings to make them appear on-screen, if you like). Whenever possible, though, Windows hides the extensions and gives you a more meaningful explanation. Instead of .TXT, Windows labels those files as Text Documents.
One of the most confusing parts of the good ol' DOS file system is the way it forces you to use complicated directory names. If you wanted to stay organized, the only way to store your data (and then find it again) was to type a mind-boggling path name like C:\WALDO\DATA\LETTERS\JAN95\AARRGGH!
With Windows, you don't need to type in complicated path names because all your files are icons, remember? And they're arranged neatly inside folder icons. Even the Desktop, the place where you see My Computer and the Network Neighborhood, is really just a folder that's always open.
Deep down inside, there's not much difference between a folder and a DOS directory, except for the fact that one is easy to use and the other is nearly impossible.
Folders hold icons. Most of the folders you'll work with every day will hold icons representing your program files and documents. But folders can also hold other folders. If you want all your work filed in one place, for example, you might create a folder called Projects and fill it with other folders, one for each iron you and your fellow workers have in the fire right now.
This folder-in-a-folder idea isn't difficult to understand. Just think of a typical filing cabinet. Let's say our imaginary cabinet has four drawers, and in the top drawer there's a divider where we keep manila folders full of blank expense report forms. When you need a fresh form, you march over to the file cabinet, open the top drawer, flip through folders to find the one you want, and finally look in the folder. Windows works the same way.
If you're the sort who puts each paper in its own color-coded folder in separate drawers, you can put folders inside of folders inside of still other folders, until they're buried so deeply you'll need a backhoe to dig them out. Windows makes it easy to find folders within folders by arranging folders at the top, ahead of any other icons it finds, whenever you open a window.
To open a folder, just double-click it. By default, you'll see the contents of the folder displayed as large icons, like the ones in figure 2.8. You can change the way the icons appear (known as their view) by selecting a different choice from the View menu, or by clicking one of the View buttons in the top right corner of the window.
Fig. 2.8
Four ways to look at your work: Large icons or Small, in List form, or in Details view (which gives you more information about the files).
Of course, you didn't get a computer so that you could simply move files from folder to folder. Your computer is a tool that lets you get work done. That means you need programs to get that work done. (We'll talk more about programs in Chapter 10.) After work--or whenever the boss is away--you can also use it to relax with a game of Solitaire or Pinball.
Plain English, please!A program (also referred to as an application) is a piece of software that helps you do a wide range of business tasks. Your word processor is a program; so is your spreadsheet and your e-mail access software. Tiny application programs that do a simple job are sometimes called applets.
The advantage of Windows software is that when you learn how to use one program, you've learned the basics of every Windows program. They all use windows and icons and menus and mouse pointers. Windows also gives you a special tool called the Clipboard--with its help, you can copy information (a list of names, perhaps, or a column of numbers) from one place and paste it into another, even if the two programs are completely different.
Finally, Windows lets you work with different programs at the same time. And inside each program you can handle many different data files, also at the same time. As long as you're not overwhelmed by all those windows, it's a great way to get a lot of work done.
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