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Setting the Desktop BackgroundYou can change the image, or wallpaper, that appears under the icons on your desktop. You can use your own pictures in addition to the ones that Windows or your PC manufacturer provides. Windows can show a static background image or cycle through a multiple-image slideshow. To set the desktop background:
Chapter 1. Getting Started, Desktop, & Start MenuMicrosoft wants to make one thing perfectly clear: Compared with Windows XP, Windows 7 isn’t just a whole new ball game—it’s practically a different sport. It’s different on the surface, under the hood, and everywhere in between. (It’s so different, in fact, that this book includes an appendix called Appendix C which lets you look up a familiar Windows landmark and figure out where Microsoft stuck it in Windows 7.) If you’re moving to Windows 7 from Vista, well, your new world won’t be quite as much of a shock. But the landscape still has shifted quite a bit. Either way, it’s hard to predict exactly what you’ll see at the fateful moment when the Windows 7 screen first lights up on your monitor. You may see a big welcome screen bearing the logo of Dell or whomever; it may be the Windows 7 Setup Wizard (Appendix A); or it may be the login screen, where you’re asked to sign in by clicking your name in a list. (Skip to Logging On for details on logging in.) The best place to start, though, might be the shining majesty of the Getting Started window shown in Figure 1-1. If it doesn’t open automatically, choose Start→Getting Started. Getting StartedAll VersionsGetting Started is supposed to be an antidote to the moment of dizzy disorientation you’d otherwise feel the first time you fired up Windows 7. It’s basically a window full of links to useful places in the Windows empire. What’s confusing is that just clicking one of these promising-looking buttons (“Back up your files”? Hey, yeah!) doesn’t actually do anything except change the billboard in the top part of the window. You have to double-click to open up the control panel or program you need to make changes. Figure 1-1. Getting Started offers links to various useful corners of the operating system. Most are designed to help you set up a new PC. (Click once to read a description, and then double-click to open the link.) Here are a few highlights:
To get rid of the Getting Started window, click its Close box—or press Alt+F4, the universal Windows keystroke for “close this window.” The Windows Desktop—Now with Aero!Home Premium • Professional • Enterprise • UltimateOnce you’ve recovered from the excitement of Getting Started, you get your first glimpse of the full Windows 7 desktop (Figure 1-2). If you’d rather not go through life staring at the Windows logo, then by all means choose one of the much more attractive Windows 7 desktop pictures, as described in Chapter 4. All the usual Windows landmarks are here—the Start menu, the taskbar, and the Recycle Bin—but they’ve been given an extreme makeover, especially if you’re used to Windows XP. What you’re seeing is the latest face of Windows, known to fans as Aero. (It supposedly stands for Authentic, Energetic, Reflective, and Open, but you can’t help suspecting that somebody at Microsoft retrofitted those words to fit the initials.) It debuted in Windows Vista, and it’s been refined in Windows 7. Figure 1-2. There are some gorgeous new desktop pictures in Windows 7—Microsoft evidently endured one Teletubbies joke too many during the Windows XP era—although the factory-installed wallpaper isn’t among them. See page 179 for details on choosing a better-looking background. If you’re into this kind of thing, here’s the complete list of what makes Aero, Aero:
Aero isn’t just looks, either—it also includes a couple of features, like Flip 3D and live taskbar icons. You can read about these two useful features in Chapter 2. The Aero design may not actually be Authentic or whatever, but it does look clean and modern. You see it, however, only if you have a fairly fast, modern PC. Basically, you need a Windows Experience Index score of 3 or higher (The Windows Desktop—Now with Aero!), meaning a good amount of memory and a recent graphics card. TipIf you’re not seeing the Aero goodies, and your Experience Index score indicates that you should, let the new Windows 7 Aero troubleshooter help you figure out why. Open the Start menu. Into the Search box, type aero. Click “Find and fix problems with transparency and other visual effects.” Click Next to walk through the wizard. It will check things like your video memory, your Desktop Windows Manager (DWM) service, your screen’s color settings, your chosen visual theme, your power settings, and so on. After this analysis, Windows tries to fix whatever was wrong. Furthermore, the Aero features are not available in the Starter edition of Windows 7. If you don’t have Aero, you can still enjoy most of Windows 7’s features—just without the transparencies, animations, and other eye candy. The pictures in this book still match the buttons and text you see on the screen, but without so much decoration around the edges. Nobody ever said Microsoft’s specialty was making things simple. The Start MenuAll VersionsWindows is composed of 50 million lines of computer code, scattered across your hard drive in thousands of files. The vast majority of them are support files, there for behind-the-scenes use by Windows and your applications—they’re not for you. They may as well bear a sticker reading, “No user-serviceable parts inside.” That’s why the Start menu is so important (Figure 1-3). It lists every useful piece of software on your computer, including commands, programs, and files. Just about everything you do on your PC begins—or can begin—with your Start menu. In Windows 7, as you’ve probably noticed, the word “Start”. doesn’t actually appear on the Start menu, as it did for years; now the Start menu is just a round, backlit, glass pebble with a Windows logo behind it. But it’s still called the Start menu, and it’s still the gateway to everything on the PC. If you’re the type who bills by the hour, you can open the Start menu (Figure 1-3) by clicking it with the mouse. If you feel that life’s too short, however, open it by tapping the key on the keyboard instead. (If your antique, kerosene-operated keyboard has no key, pressing Ctrl+Esc does the same thing.) TipTo find out what something is—something in your Start menu (right side), All Programs menu, or indeed anywhere on your desktop—point to it with your cursor without clicking. A tinted, rectangular tooltip bar appears, containing a text description. (If the tooltip doesn’t appear, it might be that the window you’re pointing to isn’t the active window on your desktop. Click the window and then try again.) Anatomy of the Start MenuThe Start menu is split down the middle into two columns:
TipAfter many years, the “My” prefix finally disappeared from all the important folders of your PC in Windows Vista (My Pictures, My Music, My Documents, My Computer, and so on). Maybe Microsoft was tired of all the lawsuits from Fisher-Price. In Windows 7, “My” may be gone from the libraries containing those file types. But within your own Personal folder, there they are again: My Pictures, My Music…! Your Personal Folder explains why, but in the meantime, you’re not stuck with “My.” You can rename these special icons just as you would any other icon (Renaming Your Icons). Call it “My Computer,” call it “Your Computer,” call it “Jar Jar Binks”—makes no difference to Windows. Keyboard NavigationYou can navigate and control the Start menu in either of two ways: Use the arrow keysOnce the Start menu is open, you can use the arrow keys to “walk” up and down the menu. For example, press ↑ to enter the left-hand column from the bottom. Or press → to enter the right-hand column. Either way, once you’ve highlighted something in either column, you can press the ← or → keys to hop to the opposite side of the menu; press the ↑ or ↓ keys to highlight other commands in the column (even the Shut Down button); or type the first initial of something’s name to highlight it. (If there’s more than one command that starts with, say, W, press W repeatedly to cycle through them.) Once you’ve highlighted something, you can press Enter to “click” it (open it), or tap the key or Esc to close the Start menu and forget the whole thing. Use the Search boxThis thing is awesome. The instant you pop open the Start menu, your insertion point blinks in the new Start Search box at the bottom of the menu (Figure 1-4). That’s your cue that you can begin typing the name of whatever you want to open. Figure 1-4. As you type, Windows winnows down the list of found items, letter by letter. (You don’t have to type the full search term and then press Enter.) If the list of results is too long to fit the Start menu, click “See more results” below the list. In any case, Windows highlights the first item in the results. If that’s what you want to open, press Enter. If not, you can click what you want to open, or use the arrow keys to walk down the list and then press Enter to open something. The instant you start to type, you trigger Windows’s very fast, whole-computer search function. This search can find files, folders, programs, email messages, address book entries, calendar appointments, pictures, movies, PDF documents, music files, Web bookmarks, and Microsoft Office documents, among other things. It also finds anything in the Start menu, making it a very quick way to pull up something without having to click through a bunch of submenus. You can read the meaty details about search in Chapter 3. The All Programs ListAll VersionsWhen you click All Programs at the bottom of the Start menu, you’re shown an important list indeed: the master catalog of every program on your computer. You can jump directly to your word processor, calendar, or favorite game, for example, just by choosing its name from the Start→All Programs menu. Clearly, Microsoft has abandoned the superimposed-menus effect of Windows XP. Rather than covering up the regularly scheduled Start menu, the All Programs list replaces it (or at least the left-side column of it). You can restore the original left-side column by clicking Back (at the bottom of the list) or pressing the Esc key. TipWhen the Start menu is open, you can open the All Programs menu in a number of ways: by clicking the phrase “All Programs,” by pointing to it and keeping the mouse still for a moment, or by pressing the ↑ key (to highlight All Programs) and then tapping the Enter key, the → key, or the space bar. Just for keyboard fanatics: Once the programs list is open, you can also choose anything in it without involving the mouse. Just press the ↑ and ↓ keys, to highlight the item you want (or type a few letters of its name, as shown on the previous page). Then press Enter to seal the deal. FoldersAs you’ll quickly discover, the All Programs list doesn’t list just programs. It also houses a number of folders. Software-company foldersSome of them bear the names of software you’ve installed; you might see a folder called, for example, PowerSoft or Logitech. These generally contain programs, uninstallers, instruction manuals, and other related junk.
TipSubmenus, also known as cascading menus, have been largely eliminated from the Start menu. Instead, when you open something that contains other things—like a folder listed in the Start menu—you see its contents listed beneath, indented slightly, as shown in Figure 1-3. Click the folder name again to collapse the sublisting. Keyboard freaks should note that you can also open a highlighted folder in the list by pressing the Enter key (or the → key). Close the folder by pressing Enter again (or the ← key). Program-group foldersAnother set of folders is designed to trim down the Programs menu by consolidating related programs, like Games, Accessories (little single-purpose programs), and Maintenance. Everything in these folders is described in Chapter 7. The Startup folderThis folder contains programs that open automatically every time you start Windows. This can be a very useful feature. For instance, if you check your email every morning, you may as well save yourself a few mouse clicks by putting your email program into the Startup folder. If you spend all day long word processing, you may as well put Microsoft Word in there. In fact, although few PC users suspect it, what you put into the Startup folder doesn’t have to be an application. It can just as well be a document you consult every day. It can even be a folder or disk icon whose window you’d like to find open and waiting each time you turn on the PC. (The Documents folder is a natural example.) Of course, you may be interested in the Startup folder for a different reason: to stop some program from launching itself. This is a particularly common syndrome if somebody else set up your PC. Some program seems to launch itself, unbidden, every time you turn the machine on. TipAll kinds of programs dump components into this folder. Over time, they can begin to slow down your computer. If you’re having trouble determining the purpose of one startup program or another, visit this Web page, which provides a comprehensive list of every startup software nugget known, with instructions for turning off each one: http://www.sysinfo.org/startupinfo.html. Fortunately, it’s easy to either add or remove items from the Startup folder:
Start Menu: The Right SideAll VersionsAs noted earlier, the left-hand Start menu column, the white column, is your launcher for program, files, and folders you use a lot. The right side, the dark column, contains links to important functions and places. Here’s a whirlwind tour of these options, from top to bottom. Start→[Your Name]: The Personal FolderAs the box on this page makes clear, Windows keeps all your stuff—your files, folders, email, pictures, music, bookmarks, even settings and preferences—in one handy, central location: your Personal folder. This folder bears your name, or whatever account name you typed when you installed Windows 7. As described in Chapter 23, everyone with an account on your PC has a Personal folder. Technically, your Personal folder lurks inside the C:→Users folder. But that’s a lot of burrowing when you just want a view of your entire empire. That’s why your Personal folder is also listed here, at the top of the Start menu’s right-side column. Choose this listing to open the folder that you’ll eventually fill with new folders, organize, back up, and so on. Start→DocumentsThis command opens up your Documents folder, a very important folder indeed. It’s designed to store just about all the work you do on your PC—everything except music, pictures, and videos, which get folders of their own. Of course, you’re welcome to file your documents anywhere on the hard drive, but most programs propose depositing newly created documents into the Documents folder. That principle makes navigation easy. You never have to wonder where you filed something, since all your stuff is sitting right there in Documents. NoteThe Documents folder actually sits in the Computer→Local Disk (C:)→Users→[Your Name] folder. If you study that path carefully, it should become clear that what’s in Documents when you log in (Logging On) isn’t the same thing other people will see when they log in. That is, each account holder (Chapter 23) has a different Documents folder, whose contents switch according to who’s logged in. Start→Pictures, MusicMicrosoft assumes (correctly) that most people these days use their home computers for managing digital photos and music collections. As you can probably guess, the Pictures and Music folders are intended to house them—and these Start menu commands are quick ways to open them. In fact, whatever software came with your digital camera or MP3 player probably dumps your photos into, and sucks your music files out of, these folders automatically. You’ll find much more on these topics in Chapters Chapter 14 and Chapter 15. Start→GamesThis item opens the Games folder, where Microsoft has stashed 11 computer games for your procrastination pleasure. (You get only six in the Starter edition of Windows 7.) NoteThe first time you open the Games folder, a message pops up to ask if you want to use the recommended update and folder settings. If so, Windows will notify you when updates to your games are available; auto-download rating and genre details about your games; and, in certain folder views, show when you last played a game. Start→ComputerThe Computer command is the trunk lid, the doorway to every single shred of software on your machine. When you choose this command, a window opens to reveal icons that represent each disk drive (or drive partition) in your machine, as shown in Figure 1-6. For example, by double-clicking your hard drive icon and then the various folders on it, you can eventually see the icons for every single file and folder on your computer. Start→Control PanelThis command opens an extremely important window: the Control Panel, which houses more than 50 mini-programs that you’ll use to change almost every important setting on your PC. It’s so important, in fact, that it gets a chapter of its own (Chapter 8). Figure 1-6. The Computer window lists your PC’s drives—hard drives, CD drives, USB flash drives, and so on; you may see networked drives listed here, too. This computer has two hard drives, a USB flash drive, and a CD-ROM drive. (If there’s a disk in the CD drive, you see its name, not just its drive letter.) When you select a disk icon, the Details pane (if visible) shows its capacity and amount of free space (bottom). Start→Devices and PrintersYes, kids, it’s a direct link to the Devices and Printers pane of the Control Panel, where you can fiddle with the settings for various gadgets (cameras, cellphones, headsets, scanners, fax machines, printers, monitors, mice, and so on). Details in Chapter 18.
Start→Default ProgramsThis command is a shortcut to the Default Programs control panel. It has two functions:
NoteGrizzled, longtime Windows veterans may want to note that this file-association function used to be called File Types, and it was in the Folder Options window. Start→Help and SupportAll VersionsChoosing Start→Help and Support opens the Windows Help and Support Center window (Chapter 5). TipOnce again, speed fans have an alternative to using the mouse—just press the F1 key to open the Help window. (If that doesn’t work, some other program may have Windows’s focus. Try it again after clicking the desktop.) Start→Shut down (Sleep, Restart, Log Off…)All VersionsWhat should you do with your PC when you’re finished using it for the moment? Millions of people shut their PCs off, but they shouldn’t; it’s a colossal waste of time on both ends. When you shut down, you have to wait for all your programs to close—and then the next morning, you have to reopen everything, reposition your windows, and get everything back the way you had it. You shouldn’t just leave your computer on all the time, either. That’s a massive waste of electricity, a security risk, and a black mark for the environment. What you should do is put your PC to sleep. The Sleep command, along with Shut down, Restart, and other relevant options, appears in the “Shut down” pop-up menu at the lower-right corner of the Start menu. Click the to see these commands. As shown in Figure 1-7, these are the options for finishing your work session:
TipOnce again, it’s worth noting that you can trigger any of these commands entirely from the keyboard; save your mouse for Photoshop. Hit the key to open the Start menu. Then hit the → key twice to open the menu shown in Figure 1-7. At this point, you can type the underlined letter of the command you want: L for “Log off,” S for Sleep, and so on. Three Triggers for Sleep/Shut Down—and How to Change ThemYou now know how to trigger the Shut down command using the mouse (Start→Shut down) or by pressing a keyboard sequence. But there are even faster ways. If you have a laptop, just close the lid. If you have a desktop PC, just press its power button (). In all these cases, though—menu, lid, power button—you can decide whether the computer shuts down, goes to sleep, hibernates, or just ignores you. That’s really important, because Microsoft’s proposed responses aren’t always the best ones. For example, “Shut down” is what’s listed at the bottom of the Start menu, but Sleep is what you’ll probably want more often. Here’s how to change the factory setting when you open the Start menu, close the lid, or hit the power button:
Commands That No Longer AppearIf you’re coming from an earlier version of Windows, you may wonder what became of a few useful Start menu commands, like Recent Items, Connect To, Network, and Run. Turns out they’re gone, but not forgotten; you can restore them, if you like, as described next. Customizing the Start MenuAll VersionsIt’s possible to live a long and happy life without ever tampering with the Start menu. In fact, for many people, the idea of fiddling with it comes dangerously close to nerd territory. Still, Start-menu customizing got a big boost in Windows 7, so you may as well sniff around to see what Microsoft offers. Besides, knowing how to manipulate the Start menu listings provides an interesting glimpse into the way Windows works, and tweaking it can pay off in efficiency down the road. NoteThanks to the User Accounts feature described in Chapter 23, any changes you make to the Start menu apply only to you. Each person with an account on this PC has an independent, customized Start menu. Start Menu SettingsMicrosoft offers a fascinating set of customization options for the Start menu. It’s hard to tell whether these options were selected by a scientific usability study or by a dartboard, but you’re likely to find something that suits you. To view and change the basic options, right-click the Start menu; from the shortcut menu, choose Properties. Now the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box opens (Figure 1-9, top). When you click Customize, you see the dialog box shown at bottom in Figure 1-9. Here you’re offered an assortment of Start-menu tweaks, neatly listed in alphabetical order; they affect the Start menu in some fairly simple yet profound ways. The hide/show switches for things in the Start menuMost of the checkboxes in this scrolling list are on/off switches for things that appear on the right side of the Start menu: Games, Music, Computer, Control Panel, your Personal folder, Pictures, and so on. If you never use some of these things, then for heaven’s sake turn them off; you’ll reduce clutter and eliminate that nagging feeling that you’re not using all of Windows’s features. Also in this list, though, are checkboxes for items Microsoft didn’t put in the Start menu but that you, the oddball fringe case, can put there if you like. Here’s what they are:
A note about “Display as menu”Take a look at the options for Computer, Control Panel, Documents, Downloads, Games, Music, Personal folder, Pictures, Recorded TV, System administrative tools, Videos. Beneath each of these headings, you’ll find three options:
More options for the Start menuA few of the checkboxes in the list aren’t on/off switches for Start menu items, but rather checkboxes that control the Start menu’s behavior. For example:
Below the scrolling listBelow the massive list of checkboxes, two additional controls await in the Customize dialog box:
Add Your Own Icons to the Start MenuUsually, when you install a new program, its installer inserts the program’s name and icon in your Start→All Programs menu. There may be times, however, when you want to add something to the Start menu yourself, such as a folder, document, or even a disk. The “free” sections of the Start menuIn the following pages, you’ll read several references to the “free” portions of the Start menu. These are the two areas that you, the lowly human, are allowed to modify freely—adding, removing, renaming, or sorting as you see fit:
These two areas are highlighted back in Figure 1-3. In other words, most of the following techniques don’t work in the right column, nor the lower-left quadrant of the Start menu, where Windows lists your most recently used programs. Microsoft wouldn’t be Microsoft if it didn’t provide at least 437 different ways to do this job. Here are two of the world’s favorites: Method 1: Drag an icon directly
TipIf “Sort All Programs menu by name” is not turned on, your All Programs list may gradually become something of a mess. If you want to restore some order to it—specifically, alphabetical—then right-click anywhere on the open All Programs menu and choose Sort by Name from the shortcut menu. (This command doesn’t appear if “Sort All Programs menu by name” is already turned on.) Figure 1-11. Left: You can add something to the top of your Start menu by dragging it onto the Start button to open the Start menu, and then dragging it into position. (You can also drag it onto the All Programs link and then anywhere in that list.) Right: When you release the mouse, the item is happily ensconced where you dropped it. Remember, too, that you’re free to drag anything up or down in the “free” areas: the circled area shown here, and the All Programs list. (One exception: when alphabetical sorting is on.) Method 2: Use the Start menu foldersWindows builds the All Programs menu by consulting two critical folders:
Therefore, instead of the fancy drag-and-drop scheme described above, you may prefer to fine-tune your Start menu the low-tech way. Unfortunately, these folders are normally hidden. Fortunately, you don’t really care; there’s a quick shortcut to opening them, as described in Figure 1-12. Then, once you’ve opened the relevant Programs folder, you can add shortcut icons there, remove them, or rename them. Whatever changes you make are reflected in your All Programs menu. Removing Icons from the Start MenuWhen it comes time to prune an overgrown Start menu, there are two different sets of instructions, depending on which section of the Start menu needs purging. Figure 1-12. To edit your All Programs menu, edit its source folders. To begin, open the Start menu and right-click All Programs; from the shortcut menu, choose either Open All Users (to view the list of programs for the masses) or Open (to see the list of your personal programs). Those commands take you directly to the deeply buried Programs folders described above.
TipYou can spawn instant shortcuts (Auto-emptying the Recycle Bin) of anything in the left-hand column of the Start menu by dragging them off the menu—onto the desktop, for example. That’s a handy tactic if you want a desktop icon for something you use often, so you don’t even have to open the Start menu to get at it. Renaming Start-Menu ItemsAlthough few people realize it, you can rename anything in the Start menu’s left side (or in the top half of the right side—like Pictures, Music, or Documents). Open the Start menu, right-click the item you want to rename, and choose Rename from the shortcut menu. The command sprouts a little editing box. Type the new name and then press Enter. Reorganizing the Start MenuTo change the order of listings in the “free” portions of the Start menu, including the All Programs list, just drag the items up and down the lists as you see fit. As you drag, a black line appears to show you the resulting location of your dragging action. Release the mouse when the black line is where you want the relocated icon to appear. TipIf you change your mind while you’re dragging, press the Esc key to leave everything as it was. You can drag program names from the lower-left section of the Start menu, too—but only into one of the “free” areas. TipA reminder: If you can’t seem to drag program names around in the All Programs list, it’s probably because you’ve told Windows to auto-alphabetize this list (Method 1: Drag an icon directly). Add folders to hold submenusAs noted earlier, some items in the All Programs list are actually folders. For example, clicking Games reveals a submenu of the games that come with Windows (see Figure 1-13). It’s worthwhile to know that you can create All Programs menu folders of your own and stock them with whatever icons you like. For instance, you may want to create a folder for CD-ROM games, eliminating those items from a too-long All Programs menu. To add a folder to the All Programs menu, follow these steps:
TipYou can even create folders within folders in your Start→All Programs menu. Just double-click to open any of the existing folders in the Programs folder, and then repeat from step 3. Your new folder appears in the folders list of the Start→All Programs menu, already sorted into alphabetical order. Now you can put your favorite file, folder, disk, or application icons into this new folder. To do so, drag an icon onto the Start→All Programs menu, and then, without releasing the mouse, onto the All Programs link, and then into the new folder/submenu you created. Figure 1-14. Notice that some of the items in Programs have folder icons; these are the folders that will become submenus in the Start menu. Jump ListsAll VersionsThere’s one more bit of Start-menu customization left. It’s one of the stars of Windows 7, a new feature called jump lists. They’re handy submenus that list frequently or recently opened files in each of your programs. For example, the jump list for Internet Explorer shows the Web sites you visit most often; the jump list for Windows Media Player shows songs you’ve played a lot lately. The point, of course, is that you can reopen a file just by clicking its name. Jump lists can save you time when you want to resume work on something you had open recently but you’re not in the mood to burrow through folders to find its icon. Often, jump lists also include shortcut-menu-ish commands, like New Message (for an email program), Play/Pause (for a jukebox program), or Close All Windows (just about any program). As Microsoft puts it, it’s like having a separate Start menu for every single program. Interestingly enough, the same jump lists appear both in the Start menu and in your taskbar (Figure 1-15). Figure 1-15. Jump lists display the most recently opened documents in each program. These submenus show up in the Start menu (left), but they also sprout from the taskbar when you right-click a program’s icon there (right). You have several ways to make jump lists appear:
Figure 1-16. Suppose there’s a document you refer to a lot, and you don’t want it to vanish from its program’s jump list. Just point to its name without clicking, and then click the pushpin icon (left). Now there’s a new section in the jump list called Pinned, where that document will remain undisturbed until you unpin it by clicking the pushpin again (right). PinningIn general, jump lists maintain themselves. Windows decides which files you’ve opened or played most recently or most frequently and builds the jump lists accordingly. New document listings appear, older ones vanish, all without your help. You can, however, pin an item to a program’s jump list so it doesn’t. disappear. It’s out of Windows’s clutches, at least until you unpin it. Figure 1-16 shows the technique. Jump List CaveatsJump lists are great and all, but you should be aware of a few things:
TipOf course, even if you turn off jump lists, there’s another easy way to open a document you’ve recently worked on—from within the program you used to create it. Many programs maintain a list of recent documents in the File menu. Jump List SettingsThere are all kinds of ways to whip jump lists into submission. For example:
TipJump-list items are draggable. For example, suppose you’re composing an email message, and you want to attach your latest book outline. If it’s in your Start menu, in a jump list, you can drag the document’s icon directly from the jump list into your email message to attach it. Cool. The Run CommandAll VersionsThe Start menu in a fresh installation of Win7 doesn’t include the Run command. But power users and über-geeks may well want to put it back in the Start menu, following the instructions on The All Programs List. (Or don’t bother. Whenever you want the Run command, you can just press +R, or type run into the Start menu’s Search box and then hit Enter.) Figure 1-17. Top: The last Run command you entered appears automatically in the Open text box. You can use the drop-down list to see a list of commands you’ve previously entered. Bottom: The Run command knows the names of all your folders and also remembers the last few commands you typed here. As you go, you’re shown the best match for the characters you’re typing. When the name of the folder you’re trying to open appears in the list, click it to prevent having to type the rest of the entry. The Run command gets you to a command line, as shown in Figure 1-17. A command line is a text-based method of performing a task. You type a command, click OK, and something happens as a result. NoteThe command line in the Run dialog box is primarily for opening things. Windows 7 also comes with a program called Command Prompt that offers a far more complete environment—not just for opening things, but for controlling and manipulating them. Power users can type long sequences of commands and symbols in Command Prompt. Working at the command line is becoming a lost art in the world of Windows, because most people prefer to issue commands by choosing from menus using the mouse. However, some old-timers still love the command line, and even mouse-lovers encounter situations when a typed command is the only way to do something. If you’re a PC veteran, your head probably teems with neat Run commands you’ve picked up over the years. If you’re new to this idea, however, the following are a few of the useful and timesaving functions you can perform with the Run dialog box. Open a ProgramFor example, you can use the Run command as a program launcher. Just type any program’s program filename in the Open text box and then press Enter. For both pros and novices, it’s frequently faster to launch a program this way than to click the Start→All Programs menu with the mouse. Unfortunately, the program filename isn’t the same as its plain-English name; it’s a cryptic, abbreviated version. For example, if you want to open Microsoft Word, you must type winword. That’s the actual name of the Word program icon as it sits in your Computer→Local Disk (C:)→Program Files→Microsoft Office→Office folder. Some other common program filenames are here:
To discover the real filename of a certain program, open Computer→Local Disk (C:)→Program Files. Inspect the folders there; with the window in Details view, you’ll be able to spot the icons whose type is “application.” NoteTrue, the Start Search box at the bottom of the Start menu offers another way to find and open any program without taking your hands off the keyboard. But the Run method is more precise, and may require less effort because you’re not typing the entire program name. In fact, keyboard lovers, get this: You can perform this entire application-launching stunt without using the mouse at all. Just follow these steps in rapid succession:
Open Any Program or DocumentUsing the Run dialog box is handy for opening favorite applications, because it requires so few keystrokes. But you can also use the Run dialog box to open any file on the computer. The trick here is to type in the entire path of the program or document you want. (See the box on The Path to Enlightenment about Paths if you’re new to the idea of file paths.) For example, to open the family budget spreadsheet that’s in Harold’s Documents folder, you might type C:\Users\Harold\Documents\familybudget.xls. Of course, you probably wouldn’t actually have to type all that, since the AutoComplete pop-up menu offers to complete each folder name as you start to type it. TipTyping the path in this way is also useful for opening applications that don’t appear in the Start→All Programs menu. (If a program doesn’t appear there, you must type its entire pathname—or click Browse to hunt for its icon yourself.) For example, some advanced Windows utilities (including the Registry Editor, an advanced diagnostic program) are accessible only through the command line. You also need to use the Run command to open some older command-line programs that don’t come with a listing in the All Programs menu. Open a Drive WindowWhen you click Computer in your Start menu, you see that Windows assigns a letter of the alphabet to each disk drive attached to your machine—the hard drive, the DVD drive, the floppy drive, and so on. The floppy drive is A:, the hard drive is usually C:, and so on. (There hasn’t been a B: drive since the demise of the two-floppy computer.) By typing a drive letter followed by a colon (for example, C:) into the Run box and pressing Enter, you make a window pop open, showing what’s on that drive. Open a Folder WindowYou can also use the Run dialog box to open the window for any folder on your machine. To do so, type a backslash followed by the name of a folder (Figure 1-17, bottom of screen). You might type, for example, the first few letters of \Program Files to see your complete software collection. NoteThe Run command assumes you’re opening a folder on Drive C. If you want to open a folder on a different drive, add the drive letter and a colon before the name of the folder (for example, D:\data). If you’re on a network, you can even open a folder that’s sitting on another computer on the network. To do so, type two backslashes, the computer’s name, and then the shared folder’s name. For instance, to access a shared folder called Budgets on a computer named Admin, enter \\admin\budgets. (See Chapter 26 for more on sharing folders over the network.) It might make you feel extra proficient to know that you’ve just used the Universal Naming Convention, or UNC, for the shared folder. The UNC is simply the two-backslash, computer name\folder name format (for example: \\ComputerName\foldername). TipIn any of these cases, if you don’t remember the precise name of a file or folder you want to open in the Run dialog box, then click the Browse button to display the Browse dialog box, as shown in Figure 1-17, bottom. Connect to a Web PageYou can jump directly to a specific Web page by typing its Web address (URL)—such as http://www.bigcompany.com—into the Run dialog box and then pressing Enter. You don’t even have to open your Web browser first. Once again, you may not have to type very much; the drop-down list in the Run dialog box lists every URL you’ve previously entered. Simply click one (or press the ↓ key to highlight the one you want, and then press Enter) to go to that site. Get Windows 7: The Missing Manual now with the O’Reilly learning platform. O’Reilly members experience live online training, plus books, videos, and digital content from nearly 200 publishers. Which category of Control Panel will be used to add a printer?The Hardware and Sound category allows you to add and remove printers and other hardware, change system sounds, update drivers and more.
Which applet in the Control Panel do you use to change the computer name?All you have to do is press Windows-Pause to open the System Control Panel applet. There you find listed the computer name and full computer name under "computer name, domain, and workgroup settings". It is there that you find options to change the name.
What is the default number of categories in the Control Panel?The default view of the Control Panel has not changed extensively over the past few years. The Category View has eight (8) categories, and clicking each one opens up a world of possibilities.
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