Microsoft Windows 95 is a graphical operating system that makes your computer easy to use by providing menus and pictures to select. Before you can take advantage of it, however, you must learn some Windows 95 basics.
You don't have to start Windows 95--it starts automatically when you turn on your
PC. After the initial startup screens, you arrive at a screen something like the
one shown in Figure B.1. (Notice how the open programs look on the Taskbar in Figure
B.1.)
Figure B.1
The Windows 95 screen.
As shown in Figure B.1, the Windows 95 screen contains many special elements and controls. Here's a brief summary:
You'll learn more about these elements as we continue.
Panic Button: Also Appearing... If your computer has Microsoft Office installed on it, you see the Office Shortcuts toolbar on-screen too. It's a series of little pictures strung together horizontally, representing Office programs. Hold the mouse over a picture to see what it does; click on it to launch the program. See your Microsoft Office documentation to learn more.
To work most efficiently in Windows, you need a mouse. Here are the mouse actions you need to know:
Windows are the heart of the Windows 95 program. Windows 95 sections off these
rectangular areas for particular purposes, such as running a program. You can control
a window using the procedures shown in Figure B.2.
Figure B.2
Use your mouse to control windows.
Plain English: Scroll Bars If your window contains more icons than it can display at once, scroll bars appear on the bottom and/or right edges of the window. To move through the window's contents, click on an arrow button at either end of a scroll bar to move in that direction, or drag the gray bar in the direction you want to move.
Windows 95 comes with a great on-line Help system. To access it, click your mouse
on the Start button, and click on Help.
You see the box shown in Figure B.3.
Figure B.3
Windows offers several kinds of help.
There are three tabs in this box: Contents, Index, and Find. The Contents tab appears
on top first. To move to a tab, click on it. Here's how to use each tab:
When you're done reading about a document, click Help Topics to return to the main Help screen, or click Back to return to the previous Help topic. Or, click the window's Close button to exit Help.
There are many ways to start a program, but here is the simplest (see Figure B.4):
Another way to start a program is to open a document that you created in that
program--the program automatically opens when the document opens. Double-click on
a document file in My Computer or Windows Explorer to open it, or click the Start
button and select a recently-used document from the Documents menu.
Figure B.4
Click on the Start button; then, click on each menu and submenu, until you find the
program you want to start.
You can also start a program by double-clicking on its shortcut icon on the desktop.
Shortcut icons are links to other files. When you use a shortcut, Windows simply
follows the link back to the original file.
Whenever you use a document or program frequently, you might consider creating a shortcut for it on the desktop. To do so, just use the right mouse button to drag an object out of Windows Explorer or My Computer. On the shortcut menu that appears, select Create Shortcut(s) Here.
Almost all Windows programs have menu bars containing menus. The menu names appear across the top of the screen in a row. To open a menu, click on its name. The menu drops down, displaying its commands. To select a command, click on it.
Timesaver Tip: Shortcut Keys Notice in Figure B.5 that key names, such as Enter for the Open command or F8 for the Copy command, appear after some command names. These are shortcut keys. You use these keys to perform the commands without opening the menu.
Figure B.5
A menu lists various commands you can perform.
Usually, when you select a command, Windows 95 executes the command immediately.
However:
A new feature in Windows 95 is the shortcut menu. Right-click on any object (any
icon, screen element, file or folder, etc.), and a shortcut menu appears, as shown
in Figure B.6. The shortcut menu contains commands that apply only to the selected
object. Click on any command to select it, or click outside the menu to cancel.
Figure B.6
Shortcut menus are new for Windows 95.
A dialog box is the operating system's way of requesting additional information.
For example, if you choose Print from the File menu of the WordPad application, you
see a dialog box something like the one shown in Figure B.7. (Its exact look will
vary depending on your printer.)
Figure B.7
A dialog box requests additional information.
Each dialog box contains one or more of the following elements:
If you need more help with Windows 95, I suggest one of these books:
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Windows 95 by Paul McFedries
Windows 95 Cheat Sheet by Joe Kraynak
The Big Basics Book of Windows 95 by Shelley O'Hara, Jennifer Fulton, and Ed Guilford
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