Computer Science

Lecture # 4
Microsoft Windows
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 Switching on
1. Turn ON the UPS
2. Make sure that the floppy disk drive is empty
3. Press the power switch on the front of the
system unit
4. You might also need to switch on the monitor
5. You might need to type in a user name and
password
6. The Microsoft® Windows® desktop will appear
after a short time
 The Windows desktop
Icons

Start
button Notification
Taskbar
area
 Desktop icons
Double-click to open a folder
A folder icon
and select a file
Double-click to open a file in the
A file icon appropriate application (in this
case Microsoft® Word)
Double-click to open the
An application icon application

A deleted file is stored here. You

can retrieve it later if you
The Recycle Bin
change your mind, so long as
you haven’t emptied the bin!
Double-click to control how and
A printer icon
when documents are printed
 The taskbar
Start button

Notification area
Open applications

Click the Start button to access all Applications that are currently
programs, documents and running on the computer are
computer settings shown along the taskbar
 Using the mouse
The mouse point can appear as different icons
depending on where it is on the screen or what the
computer is doing

This is the general pointer and means the computer is ready for
you to do something
The hourglass shows the computer is busy, maybe loading a
program, and you should wait until the normal pointer appears
before you do anything
When the pointer changes to a two-headed arrow you can resize
a window
 Mouse clicks
Single-click When you are told to Right-click When you are told to
‘click’ an item, this means move
right-click an item, this means
the mouse so the pointer is over
the required item and then press move the mouse so the pointer is
the mouse’s left button once. This over the required item and then
selects the item. press the right-hand button once.
Double-click Generally speaking, This opens a shortcut menu
single-clicking selects an item and showing various things that can be
double-clicking activates it, but done.
there are exceptions to this rule. Drag and drop Click an item and
hold down the left mouse button
while you move the mouse. The
selected item will be dragged
across the screen. Release the
mouse button to drop the item
when you have reached the
desired position.
 The Start button
Click the Start button to
show a menu of
applications and utilities
If the application you want
isn’t shown on the Start
menu, hover the mouse
pointer over All Programs
Move the mouse pointer to
the required application
and click once
The application will start
 The parts of a window
Title bar
Minimise,
Maximise
and Close
Menu bar
buttons

Status bar
 What they all mean
Title bar This shows the name of the program
Menu bar A menu items that when clicked produce drop-down lists with
further options to choose from
Status bar Gives information about the current state of what you are
viewing in the window
Minimise Click to minimise the window to the taskbar. Click the taskbar
button button to restore the application to the desktop
Maximise Click to make the window fill the screen. The button changes to the
button Restore button – click it to return the window to its original size
Close button Click to close a window
Toolbar Groups of buttons that let you do related tasks. The toolbars and
menu bar have been replaced by a ribbon in Office 2007
 Moving and resizing a window
Move a window around To change the size of a
the desktop by dragging window, move the cursor
its title bar. over one of the window
borders so that it
changes to a double-
headed arrow. Then drag
one way or the other to
make the window bigger
or smaller.
 Scroll bars
Scroll bars are displayed if a
window is too small to
display all of its contents
A scroll bar appears at the
right of the window if the
window is not high enough
A scroll bar appears at the
bottom of the window if the
window is not wide enough
 Click an arrow to move to ‘hidden’
parts of the window
 Drag the scroll bar to move more
quickly
 Switching off your computer
Close all open programs
Click the Start button
Click log Off Computer
In the box that appears, click
log Off
Wait for the computer to
turn off automatically

Click Restart instead of log

Off if you change your mind
Running WordPad
Click the Start button
Hover the mouse pointer
over All Programs
Move the mouse point
over Accessories
Click WordPad
WordPad will run
 Saving WordPad files
Type some text
Click File
Click Save – the Save As
dialogue box appears
Select a folder in which to
save your file
Type a file name into the File
name: box
Click the Save button
Close WordPad
 File types
Windows® recognises many file types
When you save a file, Windows® will add a full
stop followed by an extension
Windows® uses the file extension to identify the
program used to create the file
 Some common file extensions
.accdb, .mdb A database created in Microsoft Access
.bmp A bitmapped graphic created in a graphics package
.docx, .doc A word-processed file created in Microsoft Word
.exe An executable file (that is a program that can be run)
.htm A web page file
.jpg, .gif, .tif Different types of graphics file
.mp3, .mid, .wav Different types of audio file
.pdf A file format that can be viewed in Adobe Reader
.pptx, .ppt A presentation file created in Microsoft PowerPoint
.tmp A temporary file
.txt A plain text file
.xlsx, .xls A spreadsheet created in Microsoft Excel
.zip A compressed file
 To Save or to Save As?
File, Save File, Save As
Use to save a file Use to save the file
for the first time with a different file
Use to save name
changes to a file
without changing Use to save a file to a
the file name – the different location
original file is Use to save a file in a
overwritten different format to the
original
 Opening an existing file
Open WordPad
Click File
Click Open – the Open
dialogue box appears
showing the contents of
the My Documents
folder
Select the file you want
and click the Open
button
 Printing a file
Click the Print button to
print one copy on the
default printer
Or
Click File, Print to open the
Print dialogue box for more
options – e.g. you can
choose which pages to print
and how many copies
Make the selections, then
click the OK button
 The desktop print manager
Click Start, devices and
printers window
Double-click the printer icon
for your printer – the print
queue for the printer is
displayed
Click the file name to
highlight it – a shortcut
menu appears
Select what you want to do
from the list of options
displayed
 Disk drives on your computer
Your computer might
have several drives
Windows® assigns a letter
to each drive
Click Start, Computer to
see the drives on your
computer
If your computer is in a
network, then you’ll also
see the network drives
you have access to
 Folders
Data is stored on a computer
as files – documents you
create are files, executable
programs are files etc.
You will create files when you
use the computer
You can organise files by
using named folders
Windows® automatically
creates the Documents folder
for you so you can save your
work in it
 Displaying folder content
Click Start, Computer
Double-click the C: drive
icon on the Computer
window to see a window
displaying the folders and
files on the C: drive
Click the Folders button (if
it is not already selected)
to show a more detailed
view
 Creating a new folder
Click Start, My
To create a subfolder
Documents
Double-click the name
From the File menu,
of the folder that you
select New, Folder – a
want the subfolder to
folder called New
be in
Folder is created
From the File menu,
Type in a new name for
select New, Folder
the folder
Type in a new name for
Click away from the
the folder
newly created folder
Click away from the
newly created folder
 Navigating to a file or folder
The left-hand pane displays
the folder structure
A sign indicates that there
are subfolders within the
folder click it to expand the
structure
Click a folder name to select
it and view its contents in
the right-hand pane
Click a sign again to
collapse the structure
 Renaming a file or folder
Make sure that the file or folder is not in use
Right-click the file name
Select Rename on the shortcut menu
Type a new name over the old one and press Enter
If you do not enter the file extension correctly, you will
be warned that the file might become unusable
 Changing file status
A read-only file cannot be altered
and saved with the same file
name – this means that the
original file cannot be altered
To make a file read-only, right-click
the file name and select
Properties
Click the Read-only attributes box,
so it is ticked

To remove the read-only status,

click the Read-only attributes box
to remove the tick
 Sorting files
You can change the order in which files are
displayed in the right-hand window by clicking
in the bar at the top of the Name, Size, Type or
Date Modified columns.
For example:
Click once on Name. The files will be sorted in
alphabetical order of name, from A to Z
Click again on Name. The files will be sorted in
reverse alphabetical order, from Z to A
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 Selecting files and folders
You might need to re- organize To select an individual file or
your files/folders, perhaps to folder, click it to highlight it
move or copy them to different To select several adjacent
folders or drives files or folders, click the first
filename. Then hold down
You can select files and folders the Shift key while you click
one at a time or you can select the last filename you want
all those you want to to select
move/copy and then To select non-adjacent files,
move/copy them in one hold down the Ctrl key while
operation you select each one
 Copying/moving files and folders
You can copy or move (cut) file(s) or folder(s) to
another folder or disk drive by first copying to the
Clipboard, and then pasting to the desired location
Select the file(s)/folder(s) you want to copy or cut
Click Edit, Copy or Edit, Cut
Select the folder where you want the file(s)/folder(s)
to go
Select Edit, Paste. The file(s)/folder(s) will be copied
or moved to the destination folder
 Making backups
Always keep a copy of Hardware is replaceable
important files Data is irreplaceable
Keep the backup copy
in a separate location
such as online storage
 Deleting files and folders
Select the file or folder that Files you delete from your
you want to delete C: drive are moved to the
Press the Delete key on the Recycle Bin and can be
keyboard retrieved
Files you delete from floppy
disks or network drives
cannot be retrieved
 The Recycle Bin
A storage area for deleted files To empty the Recycle Bin and
Double-click the Recycle Bin icon permanently delete its contents,
on the Desktop to show the right-click the Recycle Bin icon and
Recycle Bin contents select Empty Recycle Bin

Retrieve a deleted file/folder from To delete a single file/folder

the Recycle Bin by select item that permanently, right-click it and
will be retrive then choose Restore select Delete
all item
 Compressing files
If you want to send a file as In Windows®, right-click the
an e-mail attachment,
file you want to compress
compressing it first makes it
smaller so it will be quicker Select Send to, Compressed
to send and receive (zipped) folder
As a general rule, compress Or use a compression
files greater than 500kB program such as WinZip® or
StuffIt®
 Extracting a compressed file
To unzip a file/folder, right- Or use an extraction utility such as
click it and select Extract All WinZip® or StuffIt®
 Searching for files

Click the Start button and click

Search
In the Search Companion, click All
files and folders
Type all or part of the name of the
file you are looking for
Narrow down the search by
selecting a location
Select other search criteria if you
wish
Click the Search button
 Viewing recently used files
From the Start menu, select My
Recent Documents or just
Documents, depending on your
computer’s setup – a list of
recent documents is displayed
Open any of them by clicking on
the filename
 Viruses
A program designed to Always protect your
damage computer files computer by
A computer can ‘catch’ a  using up-to-date anti-
virus from infected files that virus software
are shared on floppy disks,  scanning files before
attached to e-mails or opening them
downloaded from the
Internet etc.
Creating/removing a desktop icon

Click Start, All Programs

Right-click a program name
Move the mouse pointer over Send
to and click Desktop (create
shortcut) – an icon will appear on
the Desktop
To delete the icon (not the
program), right-click it and select
Delete
 Creating other shortcut icons
Create a Desktop shortcut to Create a Desktop shortcut to
a printer so you can quickly a file that you use a lot
access your print jobs
Find the file in Windows
Open the devices and printer Explorer or Documents
window
Drag the file name to the
Drag a printer icon to the Desktop
Desktop
Double-click the shortcut icon
Double-click the shortcut to open the file
icon to check the status of a
print job
 Basic system information
Click Start
Right-click Computer and
select Properties
The General tab on the
System Properties window
gives you information about
your computer such as
 The version of Windows®
 The registered owner and serial
number of Windows®
 Processor details and RAM
installed
 Changing the background
From Start button select control
panel then choose Appearance
Select change desktop backround
Scroll down the Background: list
and click a background to highlight
it – you will see a preview of what
it looks like
When you find one you like, click
save changes
 Setting up a screen saver
Click start button ,control panel,
appearance, display then choose
change screen saver in the lift of
screen
Click a screen saver name to
highlight it and then click the Apply
(and OK if you want to close the
box)
 Changing the screen resolution
Open the control panel then
appearance, hardware and
sound, display
Select adjust screen
resolution
Change resoultion
When you find the
resolution you want, click
Apply – the screen will
momentarily go black and
then the dialogue box will
be redisplayed
Click OK if you want to close
the box
 Changing the date and time
From the Start menu, select
Control Panel, appearance,
hardware and sound
Options,clock,language,region
Change the date and time
Make any changes in the Date
and Time Properties dialogue
box and click OK
 Changing the volume settings
From the Start menu,
select Control Panel,
appearance, hardware
and sound, Adjust the
system volume
Adjust the volume
ok
 Changing the keyboard language
Your computer will probably have
English (United Kingdom) set as
default
If you need to enter text in a
different language you can add
different keyboard layouts
From the Start menu, click Control
Panel, Date, Time, Language, and
Region,
Click the Languages tab, then
select language
 Windows® Help and Support Center
On the Start menu, click
Help and Support to open
the Help and Support
Centre
Either click a topic or type a
keyword into the Search box
Read a solution for your
problems

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 Print Screen facility

It can be useful to take a screenshot of your screen

To take a screenshot of the whole screen, press the Print

Screen key (sometimes labelled Prt Sc on the keyboard
Click Paste in Microsoft® Word or paint
to copy the screenshot into a document

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 Installing a new printer
Select whether you are
From the Start menu, select installing a network printer
devices and printers to or a local printer
display the Printers and Select a printer port
devices window
Select the manufacturer
Click Add a printer under and model of the printer
Printer Tasks to display the
Add Printer Wizard – follow Assign a name to the printer
the steps Select whether or not you
want to share the printer
with other
network users
Print a test page
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