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Windows Vista Demos

Understanding the parts of your computer

If you're not familiar with computers, you're probably curious about the basic parts and how they work together. Computers come in different sizes and shapes. Laptop computers are small lightweight machines that can run on batteries, so you can take them anywhere. Desktop computers are larger machines designed for use at a desk or table. The parts of a typical desktop computer are the case, monitor, keyboard, mouse and speakers. Let's take a look at how these parts fit together to help you get your work done. The case or system unit is the main part. It contains the electronic brain of the computer which processes and sends information between all of the other parts. Most cases have a CD or DVD drive, so you can install software programs, listen to music and watch movies. Windows will automatically play most CD or DVD discs when you put one in the drive. Your monitor looks like a TV and it lets you see all of the programs, pictures and documents on your computer. Monitors come in different sizes, but they all do the same thing. Your mouse and keyboard make it possible to work with what you see on your monitor. With the mouse, you can click, select and move what you see on your screen. And you use the keyboard to type information into your computer. If you have a printer, you can make a paper copy of what displays on your monitor, like this picture for instance. Finally, to hear sounds from your computer, you need speakers. Speakers let you hear everything from e-mail arriving in your e-mail program, to music on your favorite CD. All the parts of your computer work together to help you get the most out of Windows.

Learning to use the mouse

The mouse is like an extension of your hand. It lets you select and interact with anything on your screen and makes getting around Windows as easy as pointing and clicking. The mouse sits on your desk or table and is designed to fit comfortably in the palm of your hand, with the index finger on the left button. When you move the mouse in different directions, the arrow on the screen follows the same movement. This arrow is called the pointer and it always follows the movement of the mouse. Keep in mind, you can lift the mouse and reposition it if you need to. Now let's see how to click. The left mouse button is used to click, but left-handed people can switch the mouse settings to reverse the buttons. By clicking the start button, you can open a document that needs some changes. When you quickly click two times or double-click the same word. Notice how the word becomes selected? This tells the computer that you want to do something with the selected text, like make it bold. What if you want to select more than just a single word? This entire paragraph for instance. At the top left of the paragraph, you click and hold down the left mouse button. And with the mouse buttons still pressed, drag down and to the right across the entire paragraph. After the paragraph is selected, you release the mouse button. See how the paragraph is now selected, like the word was earlier. After selecting the text, you're ready to do something with it. To move this paragraph to another location, you point the mouse over the selected paragraph. Click and hold down the left mouse button and then drag the paragraph. When it's where you want it, you release the mouse button. This is called dragging-and-dropping. If your mouse has a scroll wheel, you can use it to move around in a document. To scroll down, you roll the wheel toward you. To scroll up, you roll the wheel away from you. Now that you're comfortable with these basics, let's try right-clicking. Right-clicking means clicking the right mouse button. You can right-click just about anything in Windows, including text, pictures and icons. When you right-click an item, a menu like this one will display the things you can do with the item, such as opening it, copying it or deleting it. Remember, point and click. That's all you need to master the mouse. Give it a try!

Desktop basics

Windows Vista has four main areas that help you access and interact with your programs, files and folders. The Start menu, the taskbar, the desktop and Windows Sidebar. Let's look at how you can use each one. The start button is the best place to begin. You click it to open the start menu which gives you access to your programs, files and folders. This area shows programs you commonly use, you can click any program to open it. This area provides access to frequently used folders settings and features. Here you can get two files you've recently opened, and this is where you go to turn off or lock your computer. To see a complete list of all the programs installed on your computer, you click "All Programs". And to find programs and files, you can type a search term here. Let's search for WordPad, it's a basic word processing program. The search results appear above the search box, you click a result to open it. Notice how the program displays here on the desktop? This is called a window. You can have several programs running at once and each will display in its own window, so let's open another program. Notice how each program is represented by its own button on the taskbar? You can click these buttons to switch from one program to another. To make a program fill the entire screen, you click this button to maximize it. To restore the window to normal size, you click the button again. To hide a program while you work on something else, you click this button to minimize it. The program disappears from the desktop, but it's still running! Notice that it still has a button on the taskbar? To show the program again, you click its taskbar button. When you're done using a program, you click the close button in its window. Notice how the programs disappear from both the desktop and the taskbar? Windows Sidebar is a place that holds small programs called gadgets which put information and tools at your fingertips. A few gadgets appear on sidebar by default. You can change any gadget settings by pointing to it and then clicking this button. Let's change the appearance of the clock. You can also add new gadgets to sidebar. You click here to see the gadgets installed on your computer, then double-click the gadget you want to add, like this. If you want, you can drag a gadget to the desktop and use it there. Now you know the basics of using the start menu, desktop, taskbar and sidebar.

Working with programs

To get the most out of your software programs, you should know how to find, start, install and remove them from your computer. The start menu is the best way to find programs on your computer. Programs that you've used frequently are listed here, for quick access. To see a complete list of programs on your computer, you click "All Programs". The accessories folder contains many useful programs. To start a program, you click the one that you want to use. Notice how it opens in its own window? You can also start a program by double-clicking a file that uses that program. For example, double-clicking this document opens WordPad - a word processing program that comes with Windows. Most programs contain menus that you use to select commands. To open a menu, you click the menu's title. And to choose a command, you click it. Let's click "New" to create a new document. Toolbars are a convenient way to choose commands with one click. For example, we can save our new document by clicking the save button. We'll type a name for the document and then click "Save". The start menu makes it easy to find documents you've used recently. Here's the one we just saved. You can also use the start menu to search for programs, you type part of the programs name in the search box and then click a search result to open the program. We now have several programs running at once. See how all of them are shown here on the taskbar? To switch to any program that's running, you click its taskbar button, like this. And to hide a program or minimize it, you click here. It will stay minimized on the taskbar until you need it again. To close a program, you click the close button in the top corner of its window. Notice how its icon is removed from the taskbar? The programs we've used so far came installed on Windows, but you can install other programs too. Most programs you get will come on a CD or DVD or can be downloaded from the internet. If it's on a CD or DVD, you put the disc in the drive and follow the instructions that appear on your screen. After you install a program, it will show up here in the "All Programs" list that we saw earlier. And if you want to remove a program, you can uninstall it. In the control panel, you click uninstall a program, click the program you want to remove and then click "Uninstall". Windows removes the program from your computer. And those are the basics for working with the programs on your computer.

Working with files and folders

Just like a filing cabinet, your computer allows you to store the files you create in folders. Those folders can hold not only files, but also other folders. The start menu provides access to several folders that you can use to organize your files, including the documents, pictures and music folders. Let's open the pictures folder. Notice how the address bar identifies the folder we're in? The files contained in this folder are shown as icons here, in the file list. You can change the size of the icons using the views button. Let's make them a little bigger. When you select a file, you can see information about it in the details pane here. As your number of files increases, you might want to create new folders for your different projects. To create a new folder, click the "Organize" button, click "New Folder" and then type a name for the folder. To move a file to it, drag the file to the folder, open the folder by double-clicking it. You can click the back button to return to the previous folder. If you think you'll use a folder frequently, drag it to the favorite links area. These links let you open folders quickly, no matter which folder you're currently in. Now that you know how to work with folders, let's see how to save a file. When you create a file such as a report, you can save it by using the file menu. This program saves files in the documents folder, but you can pick another location if you prefer. Type a name for the file here and then click "Save". To see the file we've just saved, let's open the documents folder. Here it is! If you're having trouble finding a file, you can use this box to search the current folder. Type anything you can remember about the file such as part of its name. Notice how the search results appear as you type? These first three files have names that contain the search term. This last file appears as a result, because text inside the file matches the search term. If you don't know which folder to search, you can use the start menu to search instead. Type in the search box and then click a result to open it. Now you know the basics of working with files and folders.

Printing

Printers are devices that print text and graphics from your computer onto paper. Let's take a look at how you print documents and the settings you can use to get the best results. First, you should make sure that your printer is connected to your computer and turned on. Let's print a document now. You do it basically the same way in all Windows programs. The print command is usually on the file menu. So to print a document, you click the file menu and then click "Print". But before we print, let's look at some of our options. If your document has several pages, you can choose exactly which pages you want to print. Say you want to print only the first five pages. Here next two pages, you would type one dash five. If you wanted to print just the second and fourth pages, you would type 2 comma 4, like this. You can also print more than one copy at a time. Under number of copies, you type how many you want to print or you can click these small arrows to select a number. OK, let's go ahead and print. When your document is printing, this symbol will display here at the bottom of your screen. Another thing you might want to do is change how your document is positioned on the paper. In most programs, you can change the positioning which is called the orientation by clicking "Page Setup" on the file menu. You have two orientation options: Portrait and Landscape. Portrait orients the page for vertical viewing, like this. Landscape orients the page for horizontal viewing, like this. Let's go with landscape. Notice that you can change how why do you want the margins to be and other settings too? To confirm the new settings, you click OK. This document is ready to print, but let's preview what it will look like before we print. To see a preview, you click "Print Preview" on the file menu. Print preview shows exactly how the pages will print. If you like what you see, you can print from here. Now you know the basics of printing a document.

Using the web

The World Wide Web is part of the Internet - a network that links millions of computers around the world. The web contains a vast amount of information which you can access from your computer using a web browser. Here are a few tips for using the Internet Explorer web browser to get around the web. Like other Windows programs, you can start Internet Explorer from the start menu. There are millions of websites across the web and each one has a unique address or URL. You can visit a site by typing its address, here in the address bar, then you click this button. Notice how the website displays in the browser? This is the websites main page or home page, but most sites are made up of many pages. Pages are connected to each other with links which can be text or images. See how the pointer changes to a hand over this word? That means it's a link to another webpage. If you click it, you'll go to that page. To return to a page you've already looked at, you click the back button. And to return to the page that you see when you start your web browser, you click the home button. If you're looking for information, but don't know where to start, you can search the web. You type a few words or a phrase in the search box about a topic that interests you. Be as specific as you can, then click here. A list of search results appears. Note that you can change which search engine Internet Explorer uses to provide results. When you find a search result that seems relevant, click the link to go to the webpage shown in the result. When you discover a web page that you'd like to return to regularly, you can save it as a favorite, so you don't have to remember its address. You click this button and then click "Add to Favorites". After you click "Add", it's in your favorites list. To get to the favorites list, you click this button. Here's the page we just added. To open and quickly move between several web pages at once, you can use tabbed browsing. You click here to add a new tab, type the address for the page you want and then you can switch between your webpages just by clicking the tabs. A web browser is the only tool you need to explore the web and get quick access to your favorite sites.

Using Windows Mail

Windows Mail is a program that comes with Windows and gives you everything you need to send receive and manage e-mail. To get started, you'll first need an internet connection and an e-mail address. You can get both from most any Internet service provider often called an ISP. You can open Windows Mail from the start menu. The first time you start it, you'll need to enter the information you got from your ISP. After you've done that, you'll see your inbox. The inbox is where all of the e-mail messages that you receive are displayed. Before we look at the messages in your inbox, let's write and send an e-mail to someone. To start a new message, you click "Create Mail". Any message you send needs an e-mail address for the person you're sending it to. If you want to send your message to more than one person, you separate each e-mail address with a comma, like this. Here in the subject line, let's add a brief description of the message and then here in the message area. Let's type what we want to say. If you want to, you can also include files and pictures in your e-mail. To attach a document or picture to your message, you click the paperclip button and select the file or picture you want to add. How about this one? Notice how the name of the picture appears here? Once you've got everything you want in your message, you can go ahead and send it. If you want to make sure your message was sent, you can look here in your sent items folder. A copy of every message you send is saved here, just in case you need it later. Windows Mail automatically checks for and updates your inbox with new e-mail, but you can check for new messages yourself anytime by clicking this button. Looks like a new message has just arrived! See how it has the same subject line with the letters RE? That's how you can tell it's a reply to another message. And this paperclip let you know that there is a file or picture attached to the message. To open the message, you double-click it. To reply to it, you'd click here. Now let's take a look at the other messages in your inbox and how you can organize them. You can click any column heading, from, subject or received to sort your messages by that category. To see messages organized alphabetically by who sent them, you click the "From" button. To see your messages organized by the date you receive them, you click "Received". The newest messages are on top. Click "Received" again and they'll be sorted from oldest to newest. See how this arrow changed direction? Finally, to get rid of a message you no longer need, click the message and then click the "Delete" button. All of the messages you delete get moved to your deleted items folder. Messages stay in this folder until you permanently delete them. Now you know how to use Windows Mail to send receive and organize your messages.

Security basics

Windows gives you several ways to help protect your computer from internet threats such as hackers and viruses. To get to the security options for your computer, open the control panel and then click "Security". The best place to start is the Security Center. It's the quickest way to check your computer's security status and fix security problems. See how the lights for firewall, automatic updating and malware protection are either green, yellow or red? The colors indicate the security status of each area. First, there's the firewall which is built into Windows. Here we can see that it's already on which is the recommended setting. The firewall helps block potentially harmful programs that try to send or receive information on your computer. You can choose to allow programs you trust. Next, there's automatic updating which downloads important security updates to Windows when you're online. Here Security Center shows us that updates are not being installed automatically. To fix this, you click this arrow and then click "Turn on now". When updates are being downloaded or installed, this icon shows in the taskbar, you can click it for more information about the update. The malware protection area monitors the status of tools that help protect your computer from malicious software. The virus protection area shows whether your computer is running an anti-virus program, you can click this button to learn more about antivirus programs and to purchase one online. After you install an anti-virus program, its status appears here. Finally, there's the spyware protection area. Here we can see that Windows Defender is turned on. This tool automatically looks for and removes spyware and other potentially unwanted software. Notice how all of the lights are green now? This means all of these tools are on and helping to protect your computer. That's it! Now you know how to check a few security settings to help ensure the safety of your computer and your critical data.

Understanding user accounts

With Windows Vista, it's easy for several people to share a single computer. Each person can have a separate user account with customized settings and preferences. For example, each person can choose a unique desktop background and color theme. The type of user account you have determines your privileges on the computer. There are two main types of accounts: an administrator account is created when Windows is installed. It gives you full access to the computer. Here, notice how the administrator can access both her own files and those of other users? A standard user account let you perform common tasks and work with your own files, but you can't see other users files or change their settings. Now let's log on to an account. The welcome screen appears when you start Windows and it shows all of the accounts on the computer. Your password is the key to your account. Once you're logged on, the start menu displays your account name and picture. To manage your account settings, you go to the control panel, click "User Accounts" and family safety and then click "User Accounts". Here you can see that we're currently using a standard account and here's where you can change your account settings such as your password or picture. Let's change the picture. Notice that these tasks are marked with a shield? That means they require administrator privileges. For example, when we click "Manage Another Account", we're asked to provide the password for an administrator account. Let's do that now. From here, we can change any user's account settings or add new accounts to the computer. Let's create a new account now. You type a name for the account and then choose the account type. Most people should use a standard account. After you create the account, don't forget to set a password, that prevents others from accessing your user's files. When another person wants to use the computer, you'll need to switch to a different account. To switch accounts, you click here on the start menu and then click "Switch User". If you don't see this option, click "Log Off" instead. Back on the welcome screen, you can choose a different account. Here you can see the account we just created. Now you know the basics of working with user accounts.

Diagnosing problems and getting help

If you ever have a computer problem or a question about Windows, you'll need to know how to get the right help. The first place to go for help with a problem is Windows Help and Support which you can get to right here on the start menu. If you're connected to the Internet, make sure that Help and Support is set to search online content, that ensures you're getting the most current information available. The search box is a good place to start. First, type a few keywords about your problem, then click this button. The topics that match your keywords will appear here. To open a search result, click its title. You can click any section to expand it. To get back to the results list, click the back button. When you open some results, you'll see this blue compass. This means that a tool called "Guided Help" can automatically perform the steps needed to complete the task. And when you click here, Guided Help lead you through the steps one at a time. Notice how the green pointer and the green box show us exactly where to click? When we complete this step, Guided Help shows us the next step. It's a great way to learn how to accomplish a task. Now let's exit Guided Help and look at some of the other resources available on the Help and Support home page. You can always get there by clicking the home button on the toolbar. Note that the options you see on this page might vary depending on your computer's manufacturer. These categories on the home page are a good place to browse for answers. For example, you can go to the Windows online Help and Support website to see a broad range of information about using Windows and you can use the table of contents to browse help topics by subject. Let's do that now. In the table of contents, you click a category. Let's try "Security and Privacy". This category page shows a list of help topics and links to additional categories. If you've searched Windows Help and Support and didn't find what you were looking for, click the "Ask" button to see other support options. For example, Windows Remote Assistance let you invite a knowledgeable friend to connect to your computer remotely and you can visit Windows communities on the web to get help from other Windows users. Note that the options you see on this page might vary depending on your computer's manufacturer. Now you know about the different ways to get help quickly.