What do you see?

The intent of this book is to provide a very “hands-on” guide. Rather than trying to pick up in the middle of things, where your screen might display almost anything, I will start with turning on the computer. In a typical installation, and until it is changed, Windows 95 comes up showing the Welcome to Windows dialog box. XE "welcome:dialog box"

Microsoft has provided a good set of messages for this box, giving a new tip each time Windows is started. Many of them are quite useful. The check-box at the bottom controls this dialog box. Clearing the check box (to blank) suppresses the display. If you are new on the computer, and someone else has turned off the Welcome box, it is worth your while to bring it back using the following instructions.

Regaining your Welcome from Windows: In My Computer, or any direct Windows 95 window (not in an application program) click Help then Help Topics, and lastly the Index tab. Type in “ welcome” in Box 1. In box 2,Welcome screen, viewing should be highlighted. Click at the bottom on the display button. This should bring up a little Windows Help box with the legend To view the Welcome screen again followed by a tiny box with a bent arrow. Click the bent arrow and bring up the Welcome screen. If you want to continue seeing this screen, click the check box on the bottom of the Welcome box about next time, and you will continue to get the box when you sign on.

Having read the messages associated with the Welcome box, click Close, which should bring up a Windows 95 desktop XE "desktop" screen with some resemblance to the view below.

The Windows 95 desktop is what you see when there are no other operations running to overlay it, just as you can see your own desktop when it isn’t piled high with papers and other important things. The tiny pictures with titles are icons, the stock in trade of a Graphic User Interface (GUI.) Each represents something the computer can do for you.

Starting programs is done XE "starting programs" XE "starting:programs" by double-clicking on the icon for the program. Among the icons you should see one that represents QuickBooks, placed there when the program was installed on your computer. Double click on this and you would be off and running in our favorite application. (There are other ways to start programs, but the subject at hand is the desktop.)

Taskbar runs across XE "taskbar" the bottom of this view. If you don’t like it there, put the mouse pointer on a blank area of the taskbar, hold down the left mouse button, and drag it to one side or to the top.

Buttons are the little XE "buttons" rectangles in the taskbar, containing words. One button is shown for each object open, most of the objects being programs. Click on a button, and the object it represents becomes active, restored to the size at which it was last running.

This taskbar is somewhat busy, so it has been expanded to two rows. (If all these object icons were crammed into one line, little would be showing of the names.) To expand your taskbar, move the mouse pointer to the top edge where the pointer will become a re-sizing arrow, hold down the left mouse button and drag the border upward to the position shown.

TIP

To change the taskbar, point in its blank area, click the right mouse button, and select Properties. Yes, that menu is confusing, but if you know what you want to do, there it is. You can play with it, but be careful, there is no reset button.

Active Window is the object (file or program) where XE "window:active" the action is at any one time. In the illustration My Computer is active. In the taskbar, the bold type on the button for My Computer (it is actually highlighted) shows that it is active.

Icons in the XE "icon" taskbar indicate background functions, in this case the volume control for sound and fax. (In Windows 95, if your modem includes a fax function, any output that can be printed can be “printed” to fax. The same feature is also in software for Windows 3.1, included with the sale of any fax-capable modem.) If a print job had been running, a printer icon would also be showing.

More information about what is behind a XE "properties:in right-click menu" taskbar icon, or actions to do with it, can XE "rename" be found by highlighting it (single click) and then clicking it with the right mouse button.

Properties, selecting the Shortcut tab, names the drive, folder, and file name of the object behind this icon . The General tab lists file size, the insignificant size being that of the shortcut, which is a cross-reference to a program, or to another object, such as a document.

Rename allows you to do just that, often a useful idea, considering the long titles some publishers hang under their icons.

Delete almost does that. Picking XE "delete:file" up on the Macintosh “trash can,” Windows sends files to the recycle bin. They are not gone, just marked for deletion. When file space gets critical on a disk, it becomes necessary to empty the recycle bin and then they are really gone.

Create Shortcut is meaningless when the file is already a shortcut. Within a folder, it is possible to create a shortcut for an object, and then drag it to the desktop. That places the shortcut XE "shortcut" icon on the desktop, allowing direct opening of the object.