zambak_IT_windows7

WINDOWS 7

CHAPTER 3

STARTING PROGRAMS

Starting a program from the Start menu

This task is easy. Click the Start button, and the Start menu pops out of the button’s head. If you see an icon for your desired program, click it, and Windows loads the program.

If your program isn’t listed, though, click All Programs, located near the bottom of the Start menu. Yet another menu pops up, this one listing the names of programs and folders full of programs. Spot your program? Click the name, and Windows kicks that program to the front of the screen.

If you still don’t see your program listed, try pointing at the tiny folders listed on the All Programs menu. The menu fills with that folder’s programs. Don’t spot it? Click a different folder and watch as its contents spill out onto the Start menu.

When you finally spot your program’s name, just click it. That program hops onto the desktop in a window, ready for action.

If you don’t spot a program listed, type the program’s name into the Start menu’s Search box. Type Chess, for example, press Enter, and Windows’ Chess Titans program pops onto the screen, ready to crush you.

Still don’t see your program?

There’s another way to load a lost program — if you can find something you created or edited with that program. For example, if you wrote letters to the tax collector using Microsoft Word, double-click one of your tax letters to bring Microsoft Word to the screen from its hiding place.

No program yet? Try right-clicking a blank part of your desktop, choosing New, and choosing your program’s name from the pop-up menu. Your program will appear, ready to create your new masterpiece.

NAVIGATING PANE WITH A WINDOW’S ADDRESS BAR

Navigation Pane:

Look at most “real” desktops, and you’ll see the most-used items sitting within arm’s reach: the coffee cup, the stapler, and perhaps a few crumbs from the coffee room snacks. Similarly, Windows

7 gathers up your PC’s most frequently used items and places them in the new Navigation Pane Found along the left edge of every folder, the Navigation Pane contains five main sections: Favorites, Libraries, Home group, Computer, and Network. Click any of those sections — Favorites, for example — and the window’s right side shows you the contents of what you’ve clicked on.

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Window’s Address Bar:

Directly beneath every folder’s title bar lives the Address Bar, shown atop the Documents folder in Figure 3-3. Internet Explorer veterans will experience déjà vu: The Windows 7 Address Bar is lifted straight from the top of Internet Explorer and glued atop every folder. ust as the Internet Explorer Address Bar lists a Web site’s address, the Windows 7 Address Bar displays your current folder’s address — its location inside your PC.

Creating a New Folder: To create a new folder quickly, click Organize from the folder’s toolbar buttons and choose New Folder when the little menu drops down. If you don’t spot a toolbar, here’s a quick and foolproof method:

1. Right-click inside your folder (or on the desktop) and choose New.

The all-powerful right-click shoots a menu out the side.Renaming a File or Folder: Sick of a file or folder’s name? Then change it. Just right-click the offending icon and choose Rename from the menu that pops up. Windows highlights the file’s old name, which

disappears as you begin typing the new one. Press Enter or click the desktop when you’re through, and you’re off

Windows 7 Stuff Everybody Thinks You Already Know

Modifying files and folders

To copy or move more than one file (or folder) at a time, select all the files (or folders) before right-clicking. To select more than one file:

Hold down Ctrl while clicking.

Click and drag around the outside of the files and folders to “lasso” them.

Use the Shift key if you want to choose a bunch of contiguous files and folders — ones that are next to each other. Click the first file or folder, hold down Shift, and click the last file or folder.

Always drag icons while holding down the right mouse button. Windows 7 is then gracious enough to give you a menu of options when you position the icon, and you can choose to copy, move, or create a shortcut. If you hold down the left mouse button, Windows 7 sometimes doesn’t know whether you want to copy or move

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Release the mouse button and choose Copy Here, Move Here, or Create Shortcuts Here from the pop-up menu.

When dragging and dropping takes too much work, Windows offers a few other ways to copy or move files. Depending on your screen’s current layout, some of the following on-screen tools may work more easily:

1.Right-click menus: Right-click a file or folder and choose Cut or Copy, depending on whether you want to move or copy it. Then right-click on your destination folder and choose

Paste. It’s simple, it always works, and you needn’t place the item and its destination onscreen simultaneously.

2.Menu bar commands: Click your file and then press Alt to reveal the folder’s hidden menus. Click Edit from the menu and choose Copy to Folder or Move to Folder. A new window appears, listing all your computer’s drives. Click through the drive and folders to reach the destination folder, and Windows carries out the Copy or Move command. A bit cumbersome, this method works if you know the exact location of the destination folder.

3.Navigation Pane: Computer area displays a list of your drives and folders along the bottom of the Navigation Pane. That lets you drag a file into a folder inside the Navigation Pane, sparing you the hassle of opening a destination folder.

Showing filename extensions

If you’re looking at the Documents library on your computer and you can’t see the period and three-letter suffixes of the filenames (such as .doc and .xls and .jpg)

Take off the training wheels, okay? To make Windows show you filename extensions the easy way, follow these steps:

1.Open Windows Explorer by choosing Start Documents.

2.Press Alt to show the menu; then choose Tools Folder Options and click the View tab

3.Deselect the Hide Extensions for Known File Types check box.

While you’re here, you may want to change two other settings if you can avoid the temptation to delete or rename files that you don’t under-stand. Select the Show Hidden Files, Folders and Drives option button if you want Windows to show you all files on your computer. Also consider deselecting the Hide Protected Operating System Files (Recommended) check box — showing protected files tends to clutter the screen, so use your own discretion. Sometimes you need to see all your files, even if Windows wants to hide them from you.

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WINDOWS 7

USING KEYBOARD

The keyboard is the primary way of entering text in a computer, although it may be replaced by handwriting and speech recognition technologies in the future.

A keyboard does not require adjustments or software settings after you plug it in. It should just work.

You can change keyboard settings in Control Panel Start > Control Panel > Keyboard. You can adjust the rate at which a character is repeated when you hold down a key, and the time delay before it starts repeating. You can also adjust the blink rate of the insertion point.

Most actions you can perform with your mouse can also be performed with your keyboard.

You can switch to a different keyboard layout or enter text in other languages without changing keyboards. However, the key labels may no longer match the characters you are entering.

You can use shortcut keys as an alternative to the mouse when working in Windows. You can open, close, and navigate the Start menu, desktop, menus, dialog boxes, and Web pages using keyboard shortcuts. Keyboard shortcuts may also make it easier for you to interact with your computer.

In the next page you will learn some Windows 7 shortcut keys.

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WINDOWS 7

WINDOWS 7

CHAPTER 4

CONTROL PANEL

To open the Control Panel window, first click on the START button to reveal the Start Menu. Then look on the right-hand-side of the Start Menu, towards the middle, until you see the CONTROL PANEL menu-item. Click on it to open the Control Panel window.

Click on the START button to reveal the Start Menu

If this is the first time the Control Panel has been opened, or unchanged, it will be in Category view. Category view is aimed at the beginner and allows you to change certain hardware and

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WINDOWS 7

software settings using Links, rather than Icons. If this is the case, look towards the top-right- hand corner of the window and click on the LARGE ICONS (or SMALL ICONS) link to put the Control Panel window into Large Icons (or Small Icons) view. Selecting one of these views will display icons and links instead of links only. There is nothing wrong with Category view, but overall the Icons views go straight to the settings - Category view splits things up into categories and therefore tends to send you through sub-categories before showing you the settings. The same could be said of the Icons views in that they give you TABs (subwindows), but overall the Icons views have the advantage in my opinion.

Date and Time

As well as the obvious changing of the Data and Time this control panel also allows you to change the Time Zone (i.e. to Baku), Synchronize the time with a time server (internet clock) and have two additional times (clocks) as part of the notification area clock.

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WINDOWS 7

Keyboard

You can change some speed properties of keyboard. When you press and hold a character key on keyboard Windows repeats this character. You can change repeat delay and repeat rate. You can also adjust cursor blink rate.

Step 1: Click Start button and then Control Panel.

Step 2: Click Keyboard. This opens the Keyboard Properties dialog box at the Speed tab. Step 3: Drag the sliders for Repeat delay and Repeat rate as you want.

Step 4: Click the text box and test the speeds by pressing and holding a character. You can immediately see the change in the blink rate when you drag the Cursor blink rate slider.

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WINDOWS 7

Mouse

There are Buttons, Pointers, Pointer Options, Wheel and Hardware tabs in Mouse Properties dialog box. As the tab names imply, you can change button and wheel settings, select pointer schemes, and change pointer properties.

Step 1: Click Mouse. Mouse Properties dialog box opens.

To change primary mouse button. Test the double-click speed by double-clicking the folder to the right side and if it is not comfortable use the slide again to adjust the speed.

Step 2: To change Mouse pointer click Pointers.

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Step 3: To change mouse speed open Pointer options than drag the speed slide to left to decrease the speed or to right to increase

Regional and Language

You can change the format of numbers, currency, date, and time. When you select country from the list in Regional and Language Settings dialog box Regional Options tab, the preferences for this country are displayed under Samples. Windows programs automatically use these preferences.

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