Computer Basic

Quick Reference s

Personalize your Computer Anatomy of a Computer Desktop

Right-click on an empty section of the desktop and click
Personalize:

Icons There are six icons on the above desktop. Five of them are
shortcuts, as denoted by the small arrow on the icon. The last
icon is an actual file stored on the desktop.
This link will take you to a special section of the Control
Start Button The blue button in the lower-left corner. This button gives you
Panel where you can change the window appearance,
access to other programs installed on the computer.
background, screensaver, sound schemes, mouse pointers,
overall Windows theme, and the resolution of your monitor. Quick Launch Bar To the immediate right of the Start button, this is a bar
containing shortcuts to commonly used programs and services
Printing from Applications on your computer. Any shortcut can be added to this bar,
simply click and drag a shortcut onto the Quick Launch bar.
There will no doubt come the time when you want to print
something from your computer. With your printer installed Program Buttons Each opened program/file will have its own button here. Click
and powered on, you can print from nearly any program by the button to restore the window to the desktop.
clicking File  Print. You can also press Ctrl + P in most
cases. System Tray In the lower-right corner of your screen is the System Tray. This
area of your computer lists services currently being used on
Some programs have a direct printer icon in the interface: your computer and the system time.

Notice the < icon. If you click this link, the System Tray will
expand to show you all of the services currently running on your
computer. These services include anti-virus scanners, network
Clicking this link usually sends one copy of the current file to connectivity status, and so on.
the printer with default settings.

The Start Menu Start Menu Contents

There are five different sections to the Windows Vista Start menu. Let’s see what each
section is designed to do:

Program Listing On the left is a listing of programs that have been recently used
on your computer. The default Internet browser and E-mail client
are displayed. Click the All Programs link to see the other
programs installed on your computer.
Search Bar If you type the name of a program or file, Windows Vista will
automatically look for the item based on the search criteria you
entered. Relevant results are displayed in the Program Listing.
Quick Links The Quick Links area displays your user name, as well as links
to your Documents, Pictures, Music, and Games.
Computer Control This section lets you perform specific actions with your
computer. Search provides a thorough search tool. Computer
lets you browse files, Network and Connect To show you active
network links and other external resources for your computer.
Power Options These controls are used to power down your computer or lock it
so no one else can use it while you are away. By default, the
Power button will make the computer go into a hibernation
(sleep) state where all items currently in memory are saved onto
the hard drive. Once items have been saved, then power is cut
to the computer. This means that turning on your computer will
not require you to log in; rather the computer will resume where
it was before hibernation. Clicking the Lock icon will lock the
computer. This will require you to enter your password to unlock
the computer. Finally, the right-facing arrow lists all power
options available for you to use.

© 2005 Velsoft Courseware Inc. All rights reserved. Call 1-800-730-7115 to order all of the Velsoft Quick Reference Guides
Files, Folders, and Storage Creating Files and Folders
All data on your computer is stored in files. Files are analogous to You can create files and folders on the desktop or in a disk drive. Right-click in an
pieces of paper. Some are very small, some can be very large. Files empty space, point to New, and choose the object you want to create:
all have the same format of [Link]. The ‘filename’ denotes the
name of the file and the ‘.xxx’ denoted the file type. This is also called
the file extension.

Folders can be used to store files or other folders. (These also work
just like paper folders!) Folders offer storage levels which are only
constricted to the size of the available free space on your computer.
That is, a folder is not limited to 10 megabytes of storage. Folders
work by creating a path on a device. For example, C:\myfolder is a
path. The ‘myfolder’ folder is located on the C: disk drive.

Finally, storage devices like internal and external hard disks, CD’s,
DVD’s, floppy disks and USB flash memory can hold files and folders.

You can examine the contents of your computer by clicking Start 

Computer. This will list all hard disks, optical drives (CD/DVD) and
other storage media on your computer. Double-click any item to view
its contents.

Compressing Files Adding a Printer

Windows Vista allows you to create compressed files and folders. This 1. Click Start and Control Panel
means that the data in a file or folder is put through an algorithm that 2. Click Hardware and Sound
decreases the file size. Do this by right-clicking a file or folder, pointing 3. Click Add a Printer
to Send To and clicking Compressed Folder: 4. Choose whether printer is local or network
5. Walkthrough remaining wizard steps

Some file types, like movies, music, and pictures, don’t compress very
well. However, large amounts of text or numerical data (spreadsheets)
will compress quite well.

Changing File Access Permissions File/Folder Properties

1. Right-click file or folder in question and click Properties. Use file/folder properties to view or modify information about the file itself.
2. Click Security tab. Right-click the file/folder icon and click Properties:
3. Click group or user to modify in upper part of dialogue.
4. Click Advanced.
5. Click Edit.
6. Select group or user.
7. Click Edit.
8. Use checkboxes to add or remove permissions.
9. Click OK to all open dialogues.

© 2005 Velsoft Courseware Inc. All rights reserved. Call 1-800-730-7115 to order all of the Velsoft Quick Reference Guides.