BEGINNER TIP: DOUBLE-CLOCK ALTERNATIVE If you have trouble using the double-click mouse function to open a program, then an alternative is to right-click the file/folder/drive and select Open. This method gives you the same result.
BEGINNER TIP: MAXIMIZING EXPLORER If you're using Windows Me Explorer and desire more space on the screen, hold down the Ctrl button and click the maximize button. This will put Explorer into full-screen mode. To restore it, right-click the title bar of the window (or hold down the Alt key and press the space bar) and select Restore.
BEGINNER TIP: THE REGISTRY The registry is a series of very technical controls deep inside the heart of your Windows operating system. There are literally thousands of different commands, classes, and keys that can all be modified. If you're a novice Windows user (or even somewhat experienced), unless you know exactly what you're doing -- and know how to recover from any damage that you may cause -- the best advice I can give is this: Leave the registry alone! If you accidentally change your registry in some way that is detrimental, you can potentially crash your entire system and/or lose data. If you're really interested in learning more about your registry, there are several detailed books on the topic. If you're just the casual Windows user, then this is not a topic that is worth your time.
BEGINNER TIP: SAFE MODE Safe Mode is a special startup mode in which Windows will boot whenever it encounters a problem that it cannot solve itself. Safe Mode boots the system with the bare bones essentials that are needed to make your computer work, but really does nothing more than troubleshoot. It also won't load third-party drivers, since they may be the problem's source. Safe Mode also does not load anything from the Registry. This is helpful if a program (or perhaps YOU!) changed something that caused Windows to have problems. (Note, too, that the video mode looks really odd. Why? Because only the most basic driver is loaded that supports a 640X480 and 16-color mode.)
BEGINNER TIP: PLAY YOUR OWN SOUNDS! Are you tired of the typical Windows sounds that seem to belch from your system at the weirdest times? Would you rather have your child's laughter emanate from your speakers when you're shutting down or starting Windows? Well, now you can! If you've ever recorded or downloaded a WAV file, then you have what you need to begin. First, create a directory anywhere you like and call it something like WAV_FILES so that you know what it contains. Save your files here. Now, within the Control Panel, select Sounds and Multimedia or Sounds depending on which version of Windows you're using. Scan down the list and find something you want to play with. Then, use the Browse button and find your file. Click on the WAV file you want to use. You can test the sound with the button that looks like the Play button on a VCR. If you like it, then click Apply. Just remember not to choose long files for frequently occurring sounds. What may sound neat once or twice might get really annoying after the thirtieth time.
BEGINNER TIP: ADDING YOUR OWN SCREEN SAVER If you've ever wanted to nab one of those neat screen savers off the Web, but were not sure how to actually implement it, this tip is for you. It's really easy! Download the screen saver to your Hard Drive or a disk. (If you already have it on disk, then that's fine, too.) Save the file in the C:\Windows\System directory. If your Windows system is not on drive C, then substitute the proper drive letter. After saving the file, right-click on the desktop and select the Screen Saver tab. Scroll down through the list of screen saver names and the one you saved should be there. Click on the name and apply any settings (if applicable) and do a preview to see what it will look like. Then click Apply and you are done! There are two things to note: Make sure the Screen Saver you download is for your operating system (for example, Windows 2000, NT, 98, 95, Me) and always do a virus scan on any downloaded file.
TENDING THE ADDRESS BAR If the Address Bar is not displayed in your Internet Explorer window, click View, Toolbars, Address Bar to enable it. If it is sharing space with another toolbar, you can expand or contract it by clicking and dragging the selection handle to the right of the respective toolbar. You can also drag it upward to share space with another toolbar.
AVOIDING ATTACHMENT PROBLEMS Unfortunately, not all mail systems are fully compatible. AOL, for example, uses a proprietary mail system that can prevent recipients from opening file attachments. If you have trouble sending file attachments to certain people, you can avoid these problems in a couple of ways. When you compose a message you can select Format, Plain Text from the message editor menu to send the message in a format that should work for most recipients. Alternatively, you can use a utility such as WinZip to compress the file before you attach it to the message. In most cases, recipients should be able to receive files compressed with WinZip, and it may take far less time to send the message as well.
BAR TALK You can display the Search, Favorites, and History Bars by using the keyboard shortcuts: Hold down the Ctrl key and then press the E key. Poof! The Search Bar appears. Do the same with Ctrl+I, and Ctrl+H, and you'll get the Favorites and History Bars, respectively. By default, the Internet Explorer toolbar also has icons that will display those bars; just click on the globe, the folder, or the sundial.
QUICK BASIC MATH WITH CALCULATOR Do you have numbers to crunch, and you can't remember where you put your calculator? Both Windows 2000 and Windows NT offer several calculator functions built right in. First, start Calculator by clicking Start, Programs, Accessories, Calculator. Now, take a look at performing a simple calculation:
It's that quick and easy!
MATH MADE EASY WITH THE CALCULATOR FUNCTION Do you have numbers to crunch, and you can't remember where you put your calculator? Both Windows 2000 and Windows NT offer several calculator functions built right in. First, start Calculator by clicking Start, Programs, Accessories, Calculator. Now, take a look at performing a simple calculation:
It's that quick and easy!
BLIND CARBON COPY MESSAGES Bcc: means blind carbon copy. The recipient of a Bcc: message receives a copy of the message, but they do not see the other addressees of the message. This avoids a long block of addresses in your e-mail message, which consequently makes it look less like bulk e-mail. Equally important in some circumstances, the recipients of Bcc: messages are not visible to other recipients of your message. You can add a Bcc: field in the New Message window of Outlook Express. Click View, All Headers to enable the Bcc: field.
CALL WAITING ANNOYANCES! Have you ever been online and suddenly, without warning, you find yourself kicked off the Web site that you had waited forever to finally finish loading? That, ladies and gentlemen, is annoying to say the least! However, as with regular phone calls, you can now disable your call waiting with a special code. You'll need to check with your phone company to find your particular code, but it's usually something that starts with either an * or # followed by two numbers. Let's say it's #70 for this example. To disable call waiting, have your Internet dialup begin with #70 then the phone number: #70555-1234. Now you can safely surf the net knowing that all those telemarketers are being thwarted as you surf!
CREATING CALLING CARDS FROM THE DEFAULT LIST There are two types of calling cards in Windows 2000: those that you can select from a list, and those that you must create yourself. Windows 2000 offers nearly 25 preset calling card entries, complete with access numbers for long-distance and international calls, and preset dialing sequences to automate the entire dialing sequence. Here's how to set up a new calling card that appears in Windows 2000's default list:
When you dial an outside line, your modem uses the credit card information to conduct long-distance calls.
PERFORMING A STATISTICAL CALCULATION To perform a statistical calculation:
CREATING A BUSINESS CARD A business card is your contact information from the Address Book in vCard format, which can be used with a wide variety of digital devices and operating systems. To create a business card:
You must have your contact information in the Address Book before you can create a business card.
USING BUSINESS CARDS A business card is your contact information from the Address Book in vCard format, which can be used with a wide variety of digital devices and operating systems. Once you have created your business card, you can import it, insert it in all messages, or add it to an individual message. Here's how. To import your business card:
To insert your business card in all messages:
To add your business card or signature to an individual message:
To insert your business card, you must first create a contact in your Address Book for yourself. You can include the business card of any contact in your Address Book in a message.
STARTING THE CD PLAYER With CD Player, you can play an audio CD in the CD-ROM drive on your computer. To start the CD player:
CD Player looks very much like an actual CD Player with its play, stop, and pause buttons. CD Player also has buttons for advancing and moving back through a song or skipping tracks.
WINDOWS 2000 TAKES CHARGE It's not very likely that you'll ever need to use the Windows 2000 Task Manager to end a nonresponding task. Because Windows 2000 monitors your programs far more closely than Windows 98, you are more likely to see a message from Windows 2000 telling you that a program is not responding and will be shut down. Although this may seem a little drastic, it makes it possible for you to continue working without restarting your computer. In fact, you will seldom need to restart your system simply because a program stopped working.
GETTING RID OF THE DOUBLE-CLICK Everyone who uses Windows is used to the venerable convention of single-clicking an item to select it and double-clicking to open it. Everyone who uses the World Wide Web is used to the convention of pointing at an object to select it and clicking once to open it. With the interface changes added to Windows 2000, you can adopt the point-to-select, click-once-to-open convention -- and you don't have to use the Active Desktop. Just follow these steps:
MAKE SURE IT'S COMPATIBLE Although most hardware that works with Windows 98 will also work with Windows 2000, not all equipment is Windows 2000-compatible. The reason for this is usually that the hardware manufacturer has not supplied the proper type of drivers for Windows 2000. You cannot use virtual device drivers -- VxDs -- with Windows 2000 because they can allow peripherals to cause damage to your hardware or data. Although Windows 98 allows VxDs to be used, Windows 2000 protects your system from potential damage by preventing VxDs from operating. When in doubt, contact the manufacturer and ask if Windows 2000 is specifically supported -- before you buy.
ALIGNING TEXT IN COLUMNS AND ROWS The easiest way to align text in the columns or cells of Word 2000 is to rely on the Align Left, Center, Align Right, and Justify buttons on the Standard toolbar. Select a cell, a column, or columns and click one of those buttons to align the text in a column the same way. However, if you want to get really fancy, you can align text by clicking an Align button on the Tables and Borders toolbar. Select the cells that need aligning, click the down arrow beside the Align button, and click one of the nine buttons to align text in a new way:
SEEING WHAT'S CONNECTED TO YOUR COMPUTER The absolute fastest way to see what's connected to your computer is to head for the Desktop and double-click on the Network Neighborhood icon. (In Windows 2000 Professional, double-click on the My Network Places icon.) A window pops open showing a bunch of computers -- including yours. (In Windows 2000 Professional, a couple of icons will appear -- including one labeled Entire Network and one labeled Add Network Place. To connect to other places on the network, double-click Add Network Place.) Double-clicking on the Entire Network icon shows a list of all the little "subnetworks" of computers on the network. The computers listed in the Network Neighborhood window are the ones you're allowed to peek inside. Double-click on one of them, and you can see whatever folders are available for browsing. (In Windows 2000 Professional, if you see other icons in the My Network Places window, it means that some kind of person (perhaps the Network Administrator) already set up shortcuts to other places on the network.) Networks being what they are, it's hard to predict what you'll see because just about everybody's network is set up differently. But there's absolutely no rule against looking around.
CUTTING AND PASTING THE SMALL STUFF Cutting and pasting works well for the big stuff, like sticking big charts into memos. But don't overlook if for the small stuff, too. For example, copying someone's name and address from your address book program is quicker than typing it by hand at the top of your letter. Or, to avoid typographical errors, you can copy an Internet address into Internet Explorer, which is especially important if you want to go to the Web site for a certain famous Welsh village: llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerycwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.co.uk.
WORKING WITH TWO-DIGIT DATES Like Windows 98 -- but unlike Windows 95 -- you can control how Windows 2000 interprets two-digit dates. There is a movable 100-year window that Windows 2000 uses for any two-digit date it sees. By default, any two-digit year is assumed to fall between 1930 and 2029. When Windows 2000 sees the date 12/7/41, it assumes the "41" to be the year 1941. You can move this window forward or backward, so that if you are still using Windows 2000 in the year 2025, you can move the window forward to compensate for the interpretation.
CHANGING YOUR DESKTOP COLOR TO SUIT YOUR MOOD A number of predefined color schemes come with Windows 2000 and can be selected from the Schemes drop-down list box. In addition to the Windows Standard, there are high-contrast schemes, large font schemes, and some mood-setting schemes like Desert, Eggplant, Lilac, and Rainy Day. If you don't like any of the schemes, you can create your own. There are 18 individual screen elements that can be customized. Choose one of the individual screen elements from the drop-down list, such as Desktop, and then apply your own color scheme using the steps in the following exercise:
ADDING WEB CONTENT TO THE DESKTOP IN WINDOWS 2000 You can add Web content, such as regularly updated weather maps, stock tickers, news wires, and sports scores, to your Windows 2000 desktop. However, you need an Internet connection that is either constantly active or at least fairly frequently connected. To add Web content, follow these steps:
The Web content you can add to your desktop tends to change often. Most content providers are still experimenting with their offerings, so you may discover that content disappears and reappears in a new format fairly quickly.
WANNA WEBBY WINDOWS 2000 DESKTOP? Want your Desktop to look like a page from the World Wide Web? Easy enough. Just right-click on a blank spot on the Desktop and select Active Desktop and then Show Web Content.
You can play around with this stuff endlessly - except when that report is due in an hour, and your boss is pacing in the hallway.
DESIGNATED DISK DRIVER Nearly every PC has three different types of disk drives.
ORGANIZING DOCUMENT FILES Although most Windows 2000 application programs default to saving your document files in the My Documents folder, it's a good idea to create subfolders within My Documents to organize your work. You may, for example, wish to create new folders for each new project and then save all document files relating to that project in the individual project folders. That way, it's easy to locate every document for each of your projects without hunting through hundreds of files in the My Documents folder.
MY DOCUMENTS DESKTOP FOLDER My Documents is a new folder on the Desktop (and My Pictures hides inside). Many Windows 2000 programs try to save files in the My Documents folder. Pictures from a digital camera and graphics that you create or download from the Internet go to the My Pictures folder by default. So if you misplace a document or picture, try these two folders first -- before launching a full-fledged search.
ADJUSTING YOUR DESKTOP ICONS If your Desktop icons look gigantic (or puny), here's a trick to adjust their size to suit your tastes. Follow these steps:
If the problem is that your Desktop icons are too big and the Use Large Icons checkbox is checked, uncheck it and your icons magically shrink as soon as you apply the new settings. On the other hand, if the problem is that your Desktop icons are too small, check the Use Large Icons checkbox and you'll find your screen easier to read as soon as you apply the new settings.
CHANGING THE LOOK OF DESKTOP ITEMS To give your desktop a new look:
HIDE MY DOCUMENTS If you'd prefer not to have the My Documents folder cluttering up your Desktop, you can hide it. Double-click the My Computer icon. Click the Tools menu and select Folder Options. Click the View tab and scroll down to the bottom of the Advanced Settings window. There you can remove the check from in front of Show My Documents On The Desktop. To get the My Documents folder back onto your Desktop, just come back to this spot and reinstate the check mark.
F1 TO THE RESCUE When you're confused in Windows NT or Windows 2000, press the F1 key at the top of your keyboard. That key always stands for "Help!" Most of the time, Windows checks to see what program you're using (Word, Excel, whatever) and fetches some helpful information about that particular program or your current situation.
IT'S A FAMILY AFFAIR The Microsoft Windows 2000 product family consists of three members:
OPENING THE FAX SERVICE MANAGER IN WINDOWS 2000 PROFESSIONAL To use the fax service that's part of Windows 2000, all you need is Windows 2000 and a fax device, usually a fax modem. To open the Fax Service Manager and check out the Windows 2000 fax service, follow these steps:
In the right-hand window, you can see how the fax is set up. The most important entries are Send, which tells you whether your fax device is set up to send faxes; Receive, which tells you whether you're set up to receive faxes; and the Device Status, which gives the availability of the device. (You may have to drag the scroll bar at the bottom of the window to see the entries off to the right.) If the Send and Receive settings are okay with you and the Device Status is "Available," then you can just close this window (click on the X box in the upper-right corner) and get on with your life.
CHANGING A FILE OR FOLDER NAME One of the best features of Windows is that it enables you to give files meaningful names. No more XYZFODO.DOC like in the days of DOS, an operating system that could only tolerate 8 characters (plus three for the extension) in a filename. Now you can call the file what it is -- "My Million Dollar Proposal." And if you don't like that name, change it. Here's how to change the name of a file or folder:
Note: You can be creative with filenames as long as you don't use characters like these: \ (backward slash) / (forward slash) * (asterisk) ? (question mark) " (quotation mark) < > (greater and less than symbols) | (pipe or bar).
OPENING A REGISTERED FILE WITH A DIFFERENT PROGRAM Many programs register the file extensions they use for their files. Microsoft Word, for example, registers .DOC as the default file extension for Word files. When you double-click a file with a .DOC extension, the file automatically opens in Word. Sometimes, however, you want to open the file in a program other than the one it's registered to. You can do this quickly by selecting the file in Windows Explorer, then pressing and holding the Shift key while you right-click the file. Select Open With from the context menu and choose the program you want.
SAVE THAT FILE Thanks to Microsoft's snapping leather whips, all Windows-based programs use the same Save command, no matter what company wrote them. Press and release the Alt, F, and S keys in any Windows program, in that order, and the computer saves your work. If you prefer using the mouse to save files, click File from the toolbar that appears at the top of the program. Choose Save from the drop-down menu.
SAVE THAT FILE Save means to send the work you just created on your computer to a disk for safekeeping. Unless you specifically save you work, your computer thinks you've just been fiddling around for the past four hours. You need to specifically tell the computer to save your work before it will store the work on a disk. All Windows-based programs use the same Save command, no matter what company wrote them. Press and release the Alt, F, and S keys in any Windows program, in that order, and the computer saves your work. If you prefer using the mouse to save files, click File from the toolbar that appears at the top of the program and choose Save from the drop-down menu.
SAVING FILE SEARCH RESULTS If you find yourself searching for the same files or types of files again and again, you can save the search results:
After you double-click the search results icon, you can restart the search or update the search results by clicking Find Now. Note: This tip applies to Windows 2000 and Windows NT Workstation 4.
ENCRYPTED FILE SYSTEM Windows 2000 Professional offers more heightened security than Windows 95 and Windows NT Workstation 4.0. If users store sensitive information on a mobile computer, they can encrypt those files and folders. If the laptop is stolen, the Encrypted File System (EFS) protects its files and folders, even if the thief reinstalls Windows 2000 Professional. Only users with a special decryption key can access the file. EFS provides only local encryption. If the file is sent over a network, for example, encryption must be handled differently, such as through a network security technology.
WHERE'S THAT FILE? Sometimes Windows 2000 snoozes and doesn't keep track of what's really on the disk. Oh, it does pretty well with the hard disk, and it works pretty well if you are running just Windows 2000 programs. But Windows 2000 can't tell when you've just inserted a new floppy disk. Also, if you create a file from within a DOS program, Windows 2000 may not know that the new file is there. If you think Windows Explorer or My Computer is holding out on you, tell it to refresh, or take a second look at what's on the floppy or hard disk. You can choose View, Refresh from the menu bar, but a quicker way to refresh is to press F5. Either way, the programs take a second to look at what they're supposed to be showing and update their lists if necessary.
HANDLING FILES WITHIN PROGRAMS Nothing like a few keyboard shortcuts to save your hands and wrists from overuse. Try these handy hints the next time you work with files:
VIEWING A FILE'S PROPERTIES Each file has "properties," which consist of information such as the date and time the file was created, when the file was last accessed or changed, and other information. You can change attributes of a file (for example, you can make a file a read-only file). To view a file's properties:
The General tab displays the file's name, type, location, and size. You'll also see the MS-DOS name and the date that the file was created, modified, or accessed last. The tab also lists four attributes that you can modify for the file: Read-Only, Hidden, Archive, and System. Other tabs that display in this dialog box vary from file to file. For example, if you're viewing the properties of a program file, you view the Version tab. If you're viewing the properties of a graphics file, such as a bitmap file, you need the Image tab. Each type of file that you view the properties for may render different tabs.
MOVING FILES AROUND Both Explorer and My Computer do some dumb things that confuse people. For instance, when you drag a file from one folder to another on the same drive, you move the file. When you drag a file from one folder to another on a different drive, you copy that file. It gets more complicated: You can sometimes click on the file and hold down Ctrl or Shift to reverse the rules. Confusing, right? Use this list to remember what's what:
SELECTING MULTIPLE FILES Want to open a bunch of files at the same time? Perhaps you need to print several documents that you just got from your boss. You can select multiple files at the same time by holding down the Ctrl button while doing the selecting. If you accidentally select an extra file, you can get easily unselect it: While (still) holding down the Ctrl key, click the unwanted file again. To deselect all of the files, release the Ctrl button and click on a blank area of Explorer.
FINDING A FILE OR FOLDER One way to find a file or folder under Windows NT Workstation is to use the Find command on the Start menu:
FLOPPY DISK SPACE Floppy disks you buy at computer stores are usually formatted. You may want to later format a disk to erase the information it contains and prepare the disk for storing new information. How can you tell how much information a floppy disk can store?
USING THE CUSTOMIZE THIS FOLDER WIZARD Click View, Customize this Folder to launch the Customize this Folder Wizard. The Wizard walks you through the process of adding tweaks to the folder you've selected. The first screen prompts you to activate checkbox controls to perform customizations. The checkbox controls are as follows:
Once you tell the Customize this Folder Wizard what you want to do, it guides you through the process of creating your own folder settings.
ACCESSING FOLDERS ON THE NETWORK You can use My Network Places to see a list of the folders shared by your computer and other computers on the network.
VIEWING FOLDERS Windows offers a slew of options for how to display folders' contents and much more. To open the Folder Options and examine what it offers, follow these steps:
THE FUSS ABOUT FONTS In the first few versions of Windows, the "fonts," or sets of letters, numbers, and other characters produced individual letters and numbers that looked kind of jagged. The capital letter A, for example, didn't have smooth, diagonal lines. Instead, the sides had rough ridges that stuck out. They usually looked fine on the printer but pretty awful on-screen, especially if the letters were large. A few years later, Windows introduced a font technology called TrueType fonts to eliminate the jaggies and make the screen match more closely what comes out of the printer. In 1995, the TrueType fonts were modified into TrueType Open fonts, which are even sharper and clearer. The technology is still around in Windows 2000. Click Start and then choose Settings, Control Panel, Fonts to see what fonts come with Windows 2000, to install additional fonts, or to delete ugly ones you don't like. Double-click on any of the font icons and you see what that particular font looks like.
WHAT TO DO WHEN YOUR COMPUTER FREEZES UP SLID Every once in a while, Windows just drops the ball and wanders off somewhere to sit under a tree. You're left looking at a computer that just looks back. Panicked clicks don't do anything. Pressing every key on the keyboard doesn't do anything - or worse yet, the computer starts to beep at every key press. When nothing on-screen moves except the mouse pointer, the computer is frozen up solid. Try the following approaches, in the following order, to correct the problem:
GAMES YOU CAN PLAY Windows 2000 doesn't just do work -- it can play games, too. When you install Windows 2000 it automatically installs the following games:
(Unfortunately, FreeCell isn't automatically installed on all computers running Windows NT. To correct this oversight, use the Control Panel's Add/Remove Programs icon. And while you're there, look for the cool Pinball game, too.) If you still can't find it, then it quite likely wasn't installed. To start a game:
AVAILABLE HARD-DISK SPACE This tip applies to Windows NT Workstation 4 and Windows 2000 Professional. To check out how much room is available on your hard disk, do the following:
To keep a wary eye on the amount of room left on a hard disk, click My Computer, View, Status Bar. My Computer starts displaying the currently selected disk's capacity and amount of free space along the bottom of the window.
MIGRATING HELP If you've spent some time in Windows NT 4 or in Windows 98, you've already invested precious time in figuring out where things are -- and now in Windows 2000, you have to start all over. Not quite. The folks who did all the moving also left a trail of breadcrumbs to where things are now located:
QUICK HELP IN WINDOWS 2000 PRO Windows 2000 Professional comes with its own set of helpful hints built right in. You can pop them up on-screen and leave them there for easy access. Here are some quick ways to get answers to your problems in Windows 2000 Professional.
STARTING HYPERTERMINAL You can use HyperTerminal and a modem to connect to a remote computer, even if it isn't running Windows. You can also use HyperTerminal to send and receive files or connect to computer bulletin boards and other information programs. To start HyperTerminal:
IMAGING PROGRAM Windows comes with a very nice little utility called 'Imaging' that was originally created by Wang Software. The program core that drives this program is the same one that's used by Kodak (Kodak bought Wang) in some of their software. Imaging can be used to open just about any kind of image file. To start the imaging program, go to Programs and then to Accessories. If you do not have Imaging, add it in the Control Panel in the Add/Remove Programs under Accessories.
SAVE SOME INK Many Web pages use colored backgrounds or background images for decorations. Printing one of these images can use up a lot of ink or toner and they might not be as readable on paper as they are onscreen. To avoid this problem, kill the background before you print:
AUTO INSERT Have you ever noticed that when you stick a CD into the CD drive that it automatically starts playing, or tries to begin the installation process? This is all well and good, but if you've already installed the program or don't want it to run right then, this feature can become a nuisance. You can turn off this auto insert feature in two ways:
You'll need to reboot for the changes to become active.
VIEWING YESTERDAY'S SITES IN INTERNET EXPLORER HISTORY In the Internet Explorer History, if you know you visited the same Web site yesterday, click View, By Date, and then click the page that represents yesterday. The folder will expand to show all the sites you visited that day, arranged in alphabetical order. (Domain names do not include the www. in a Web address.) Click the link to see a list of all the pages in the site that you visited. Then, simply click the link to the page to return to the site.
KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS The way you interact with your PC can be a very personal process. Some people love using the mouse while others prefer the keyboard. If you prefer to keep your fingers on the keys as much as possible, try your hand at these keyboard shortcuts:
USING THE KEYBOARD Windows 2000 offers almost a dozen ways for you to perform the simplest tasks. For example, if you're a speedy typist and don't like to remove your fingers from the keys, you can take advantage of keyboard shortcuts to all the menus in Windows 2000 Professional. The secret weapon is hiding behind the Alt key. Press (and release) the Alt key and keep an eye on the row of words in the menu bar. All the words suddenly have a letter underlined and the first word, File, looks like a button that's been depressed. No, it's not unhappy; you've selected it, just as if you'd clicked on it with the mouse. Now, look a few steps to the right on the menu bar -- see how the letter V in View is underlined? Press V on the keyboard, and the pull-down menu hidden below View falls down, like a mushroom off a pizza. That's the secret underlined-letter trick! And pressing Alt and V is often faster than plowing through a truckload of mouse menus -- especially if you think that the whole mouse concept is rather frivolous anyway.
DISCOVERING THE LINKS BAR The Links bar lives right next to the Address bar in your taskbar and is a convenient place to add links to a few Web pages that you visit frequently. You just click the link to display the Web page. You can add a page to the Links bar in a variety of ways:
To make the Links bar appear, follow these steps:
ADDING A WEB PAGE TO THE LINKS BAR The Internet Explorer Links bar lives right next to the Address bar and is a convenient place to add links to a few Web pages that you use frequently. Just click the link to display the page. You can add a page to the Links bar in a number of ways:
If the Links bar doesn't appear on your toolbar, try this: Click View, Toolbars, Links.
LOCK UP YOUR COMPUTER If you're leaving your desk for a bit, lock your computer so others can't peek at your work (or Solitaire game):
LOGGING OFF FOR LUNCH You don't have to turn off your computer when you're done computing. In fact, because some people share computers at the office, you'll annoy your coworkers if you do shut down the computer. But you must log off when you're done using the computer -- before leaving the keyboard and going to lunch, for example -- be sure to follow these steps:
Windows NT then "logs you off" the computer and leaves the computer sitting there with a blank look on its face, waiting for somebody else to log on. In Windows 2000 Professional, press Ctrl+Alt+Delete and click the Log Off button. Or use the Start menu Advanced options to add the logoff option to your Start menu.
DISABLE LOGON PROCEDURE If you're the only person who is going to be using your Windows 2000 computer and you are not connected to a network, you can disable the logon procedures. Click Start, Settings, Control Panel. Click the Users and Passwords icon. Clear the selection named: Users enter a user name and password to use this computer
AVOIDING MACRO VIRUSES If you suspect that a Word document is infected with a macro virus, you can safely open that document in WordPad. Because WordPad does not execute macros, any macro viruses contained in the document will not be able to run when the document is open in WordPad. To be completely safe, you can copy the text from WordPad to the Clipboard, start a new WordPad document, and paste the text in to the new document. When you save your new document, it will be completely virus-free and safe to open in Word.
LOGIN SECURITY MEASURE Whenever you logon to Windows 2000, always press Ctrl+Alt+Delete before you type your password -- even if you see a message already displayed that asks you to enter your password. The Ctrl+Alt+Delete sequence ensures the security of your system. (Confused about what to press with Ctrl+Alt+Delete? Just hold down the Ctrl and Alt keys at the same time and then hit the Delete key.)
THE MEDIA PLAYER This tip applies to Windows NT Workstation 4 and Windows 2000 Professional. Media Player enables you to play different types of media files, such as music from a CD, audio from a sound file, or video from a video file. The Media player is intuitive to use because its buttons represent the buttons of a tape recorder. To open and play a media file,
To stop playing the media file, click Stop.
ADDING SKINS TO MEDIA PLAYER Today's generation wants to play with its toys. So, Microsoft added a whimsical feature to Media Player. The program normally rests on your desktop like a big wet towel, covering everything in its path. Through skin technology, users can change that ugly wet towel into something much more hip. Skins are new interfaces for Media Player that make it less imposing and more friendly. Here's how to put new clothes on Media Player:
Choose the Miniplayer skin when listening to music and still working on the computer. A nice small player, it fits into the background nicely. (Miniplayer won't play videos, though.)
REALIZING VIRTUAL MEMORY Hard disk performance really comes into play when Windows 2000 goes to virtual memory. Virtual memory is space on your disk that Windows uses to supplement its system RAM. When more programs and files are open than RAM can store, Windows uses the disk as an extension to RAM, swapping data in and out as needed. The problem is that even the fastest hard disk is orders of magnitude slower than RAM. So if virtual memory swapping is bogging down your Windows 2000 system, the answer isn't getting a faster disk; it's adding more RAM. You should have at least 128MB of RAM to ensure smooth performance when multitasking applications.
SPIFF UP THE LOOK OF A MENU Menus abound in all versions of Windows, but Windows 2000 gives you the option of fiddling with their looks -- at least some of them. Want your menus to fade in and out or scroll out like the credits in a movie from the 1950s? Right-click on a blank spot on the Desktop and select Properties from the pop-up menu. Click the Effects tab. In the Visual Effects section, check the option labeled Use Transition Effects For Menus And Tooltips. Choose Fade Effect or Scroll Effect. Click OK. Another option that's turned on by default is the "personalized" menu. This just means that Windows 2000 takes notes on how often you use different entries on your Start menu and the Favorites menu in Internet Explorer. You can see all the entries by either keeping the mouse still until the bottom of the menu spills out (a matter of a few seconds) or by clicking the double arrowheads at the bottom of the menu. Personalized menus have their advantages (especially when you have long, long menus) because they can save time. But if you absolutely hate 'em, you can disable the feature by taking the following steps:
FANCY MENUS Use the following steps if you want your menus to fade in and out or scroll like the credits in a movie from the '50s:
WINDOWS' MANIACAL MENUS If your keystrokes don't appear in your work but instead make a bunch of menus shoot out from the top of the window, you're stuck in Menu Land. Somehow, you've pressed and released Alt, an innocent-looking key that's easy to hit accidentally. When you press and release Alt, Windows 2000 turns its attention away from your work and toward the menus along the top of the window. To get back to work, press and release Alt one more time. Alternatively, press Esc. One or the other is your ticket out of Menu Land.
PERSONALIZED MENUS Windows 2000 takes notes on how often you use different entries on your Start menu and the Favorites menu in Internet Explorer. Personalized menus show just the most recently used entries. You can see all the entries by either keeping the mouse still until the bottom of the menu spills out (a matter of just a few seconds) or by clicking the double arrowheads at the bottom of the menu. Personalized menus have their advantages -- especially when you have long, long menus -- because they save time. But if you absolutely hate 'em, you can disable the feature by taking the following steps:
PERSONALIZED MENUS One way to reduce menu clutter is new in Windows 2000: Personalized Menus. Windows 2000 keeps track of how often you use a particular menu shortcut. Those that you use infrequently are hidden from view, while those that you use frequently will gravitate toward the top of the menu. Hidden items can be displayed by clicking the chevron emblem (two down arrows) on the bottom of any menu. Personalized Menus won't instantaneously appear; Windows 2000 needs to first learn your habits. If you decide that Personalized Menus are an insufferable infringement of your liberty, you can disable them. To turn off Personalized Menus:
THE EASY WAY TO ADDRESS A MESSAGE IN WINDOWS MESSAGING You can address a message by typing the names of recipients directly in the To and Cc boxes in the New Message form. Separate multiple names with a semicolon (;). An even quicker way to enter a name is to type part of the name and click the Check Names button in the toolbar. If the text you type matches an entry in the address bar, Windows Messaging automatically enters that name. If what you type matches multiple names, then the Address Book dialog box appears, displaying all names that match your entry. You can select the correct person from that dialog box.
ASSIGNING IMPORTANCE TO A MESSAGE When you send a new e-mail message or reply to a message, you can assign the message a priority so that the recipient knows to either look at it right away (High Priority) or read it when time permits (Low Priority).
To change the priority of an outgoing mail message, do either of the following:
CHECKING SPELLING IN A MESSAGE To check the spelling in messages, open the New Message window and do one of the following:
Outlook Express uses the spell-checker that installs with Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint 95/97. Spell checking is not available unless you have one of these programs installed. You can customize the way your spell-checker works. Click Tools, Options and select the Spelling tab.
SPELL CHECK YOUR E-MAIL MESSAGES If Microsoft Office is installed on your computer, you can use the Office spell checker. Click Tools, Options, Spelling to check your spelling before you send your message. You also can let the spell checker suggest replacement spellings, as well as to ignore uppercase words, Internet addresses, and words with numbers. If Microsoft Office isn't installed on your computer, visit CompuBridge [ http://www.spellchecker.com ], for information about their shareware Speller for Microsoft Internet Products, which works with a variety of e-mail programs.
UNCOVERING POSTED REPLIES TO YOUR MESSAGES Here's a tip that you'll probably use almost every time you cruise the newsgroups. If you post a question to a newsgroup, it may be difficult to find the replies buried under 300 other new messages. To read only messages that are posted in reply to your messages, set your view for Hide Read Messages. If you want to trace a thread backward, or look for something you saw earlier, switch to Show All Messages
SENDING MESSAGES ON STATIONERY With Outlook Express stationery, you can really invite attention by sending attractive messages for both e-mail and newsgroups. Stationery can include a background image, unique text font colors, and custom margins. To apply stationery to all your outgoing messages:
To apply stationery to an individual message: Choose Message, New Message Using, and then select the stationery. To apply or change stationery after you start a message: Choose Format, Apply Stationery, and then select the stationery.
SAVE TIME WHEN TYPING MESSAGES E-mail is the life-blood of many, many companies. It's essential for communication with clients, customers, suppliers and co-workers. However, typing lengthy messages can be time-consuming. Therefore, to save time, the following abbreviations are commonly used when typing messages:
CONFIGURING YOUR MODEM If you purchased an internal Plug and Play modem for an NT computer, you may have had to manually configure it by setting jumpers or DIP switches on the modem card. If you then move this modem to a Windows 2000 computer, the changed configuration may prevent Windows 2000 from automatically recognizing it. You will have to change its settings back to the default so that the Windows 2000 Plug and Play manager will recognize it.
MOUSE-BUTTON SECRETS In Windows 2000, pointing your mouse at something and clicking the right button often brings up a secret hidden menu with extra options. For example, right-click on a blank portion of your Desktop and a menu pops up, enabling you to organize your Desktop's icons or change the way your display looks. Just about every option that right-clicking offers can be accomplished in other ways, too, but once you experience the joys of taking this shortcut, you may use the right button as often as the left.
THE CASE OF THE MISBEHAVING MOUSE If your mouse pointer moves erratically, the cause may be dirt or a worn-out mouse pad. A small opening is probably on the bottom of your mouse that enables you to remove the mouse ball for cleaning. Once you have removed the ball, you can rinse it off in clean water and then dry it thoroughly. Then check the inside of the mouse for lint or dirt. Don't apply any liquids to the inside of the mouse, but you may want to blow out any dust before you replace the ball. Be sure that the door that holds the ball in place is turned to the proper position before you turn the mouse upright so you don't lose the ball.
A CLEAN MOUSE IS A HAPPY MOUSE If your mouse is acting strangely -- the cursor skips around on your screen, for example -- then the mouse may need some cleaning. Most mice have a ball inside that you can get to by removing the small cover (usually a rotating disk) on the bottom of the mouse. Clean the ball with a soft cloth, cotton swab, or tissue. Remove gunk (dust, crumbs) from inside the housing. Replace the ball and cover, and it's back to smooth sailing.
WHAT'S WITH ALL THESE MOUSE POINTERS? To add even more visual interest to your pointer, you can choose from different pointers to use onscreen. Windows 2000 comes with a number of different pointer schemes, including 3D White, 3D Bronze, Conductor (musical-themed pointers), Dinosaur (at least there are no purple ones), Old Fashioned, and others. Many of these are animated pointers. More important than dinosaurs, if you are working on a laptop with a dim screen, you might want to try the large or extra large pointer schemes, especially if you are having problems seeing the pointer on the screen. Or, if you are working on a laptop and have trouble finding your pointer, enable the mouse pointer trails option. All the different pointers are stored in their own folder -- C:\Winnt\Cursors -- beneath the Windows 2000 folder. Each pointer is actually a file; static pointers use the extension .cur, and animated pointers use the extension .ani.
MOUSE REPAIRS If you have a mouse that is lacking the right mouse button or if the button is on the blink, then you can hold down the Ctrl and Shift keys at the same time while dragging and dropping with the left mouse button.
CHANGING YOUR DEFAULT LOCATION You can specify any given folder to be the one in which Word saves or opens documents. By default, Word uses the My Documents folder in Windows. To change this, choose Tools, Options and then click the File Locations tab. Select Documents, and then click Modify to select a new folder.
KEEPING A LOG WITH NOTEPAD If you're the type who likes to keep a journal of daily activities, then Notepad is for you. You can track your time, thoughts, and/or events of the day. To keep a log using Notepad:
Every time you open this file, Notepad appends the current time and date to the end of the file.
NOTEPAD'S LIMITATIONS Notepad may be a speedy word processor, but that speed comes at a price. It stores only words and numbers. Notepad doesn't store any special formatting, such as italicized letters, and you can't paste any pictures into it, as you can with WordPad. Notepad can also toss you into instant confusion: All the sentences head right off the edge of the screen. To turn those single-line, runaway sentences into normal paragraphs, turn on the "word wrap" feature by choosing Edit, Word Wrap. Notepad doesn't print exactly what you see on-screen. Instead, it prints according to the margins you set in File, Page Setup. This quirk can lead to unpredictable results.
OUTLOOK 2000 or OUTLOOK EXPRESS? You might be wondering what the difference is between Outlook Express (which comes as part of Windows 2000) and Outlook 2000 (which can be purchased separately as part of Microsoft Office 2000 or on its own). Microsoft positions Outlook Express as a lightweight (and free) version of these programs. But don't be fooled. As an e-mail client and newsreader, Outlook Express can stand toe-to-toe with either of these flagship programs. The real difference is in the extended functionality you get with Outlook 98 and 2000. Both programs include advanced group-oriented features such as calendaring, group address books, and personal information manager (PIM) features. If you need to share schedules and contacts among the members of a group, or are looking for a one-stop shop to track, schedule, and manage events and people, then Outlook 2000 is your best bet.
ADDING CONTACTS FROM OUTLOOK EXPRESS When you receive e-mail, you can quickly add the sender's name and e-mail address to your Outlook Express address book with a click of the mouse:
Outlook Express can automatically add to your Address Book the addresses of people whose messages you reply to. Click Tools, Options, Send, and then click Automatically Put People I Reply to in My Address Book.
OUTLOOK EXPRESS - DRAFTS If you begin composing a message in Outlook Express but you know you are not quite ready to send the message, click File, Save to save the message in your Drafts folder. When you want to work on the message again, select the Drafts folder, and then double-click the header to open the message.
MOVING MESSAGES IN OUTLOOK EXPRESS When you first start using Outlook Express, you may be content to keep all the messages that you receive in your Inbox folder. Chances are, however, that as time goes on you will want to organize your messages by separating them into folders. To move a message or other item to a folder:
In Windows NT Workstation 4, to move a message or other item to an entirely new folder, follow step 3 in the preceding steps, except you click the set of folders where you want to create the new folder (for example, click Personal Folders) and then click the New Folder button. Type the name of the new folder and then click OK. If the item is closed, just drag it to the new folder. In Windows 2000 Professional, you can also move a message by selecting it in the source folder's message list and dragging it to a new folder.
THE PAINT ACCESSORY You can create, edit, or view pictures by using Paint. You can paste a Paint picture into another document that you create or use it as your desktop background. You can even use Paint to view and edit scanned photos. To open a file in Paint,
PASSING OUT PASSWORDS Windows 2000 administrators have three choices when it comes to giving users passwords:
All three choices have their pros and cons, and every company will have a reason for choosing one option over the other.
PSST! WHAT'S THE PASSWORD?
PASSING OUT PASSWORDS Windows 2000 administrators have three choices when it comes to giving users passwords:
All three choices have their pros and cons, and every company will have a reason for choosing one option over the other. WHAT IS A PATH? In some software documentation, the user is required to enter a path. Thinking metaphorically, a path is something upon which you walk to get to a specific place. Similarly, the path of a computer program explains to the computer how to "walk" to the program and find -- or write -- what you want. Simply put, a path is the hierarchy of file folders created to organize file locations. DOS used this method, and Windows Me still requires it. An example: Many times during an install, a program may prompt you that it needs somewhere to store the brand new game you just bought and gives you something that looks like this:
This is the path. This states that within your Games folder is another folder called Big_Bad_Dudes. Within this folder is another called Phlegm_Phiter. Inside this folder are all of the program files. The GUI (Graphic User Interface) representation of path navigation is Windows Explorer. Now, say that five times fast!
ADDING A NUMBER TO SPEED DIAL You can store a list of phone numbers you use frequently and dial the number quickly from your computer.
In addition to Phone Dialer, you may need some equipment to make your telephonic dreams come true. A sound card is pretty much the minimum ante for voice calls. If you wish to speak your piece during an Internet voice call or in a conference situation, you'll need a microphone. And if you wish to see and be seen during a video conference, you'll need a camera too, so tell your boss to start saving that supply budget.
DIALING A NUMBER WITH PHONE DIALER You can use Phone Dialer to place telephone calls from your computer by using a modem or another Windows telephony device. To use Phone Dialer:
USING A PICTURE AS THE DESKTOP BACKGROUND Anything you create in paint you can turn into wallpaper and use as a backdrop for your Desktop. To access Paint, open the Start menu, choose Programs, choose Accessories, and click on the Paint icon. Paint away! Just save your fun new file, open the File menu and then select the Set as Wallpaper (Tiled) or Set as Wallpaper (Centered) options. (Choosing Set as Wallpaper (Tiled) will cover your screen with repetitions of your picture.)
CHILD'S PLAY Comic Sans, a Western text font, is similar to hand printing; yet it is surprisingly useful. Despite what you might expect, it makes a very friendly-looking choice for the font to be used in the title bar and menus of applications. (To change the font in these and other areas, right-click the Desktop, click Properties, and then select the Appearance tab and choose the fonts you want.) Comic Sans is also used on some Web sites as a more informal choice than the serious typefaces used on most sites. It is installed automatically with Internet Explorer 4 and higher; so many Windows users already have it.
POWER MANAGEMENT Power management on a mobile PC reduces power consumption, based on predefined rules. No standard power management is built into Windows NT 4.0, but Windows 2000 Professional makes it possible for IT departments and individuals to take an industrial-strength operating system on the road. Compatible notebooks running Windows 2000 can shut down on specified intervals, blank their screens, idle the hard disks, and go into hibernation. The result is prolonged battery life. Hibernation mode can actually increase power consumption if used improperly. That's because a lot of disk activity occurs when the current state of your system is saved or restored. If you plan to be away from your PC for a short period -- say, 5 or 10 minutes -- you're better off just putting the notebook into Standby mode.
POWER=SAVING INFO FOR YOUR NOTEBOOK Windows 2000's power management features can help increase battery life, but they won't solve all your woes. Fortunately, you can take a number of steps to prolong the life of your beleaguered battery. Here are a few:
CHECKING THE PRINTER QUEUE When you click on the Print button in a Windows 2000 Professional program or use the menu to send something to the printer, a little picture of a printer appears in the bar that runs along the edge of your screen. Double-click on the picture of the printer, and you can see a list (known as a queue) of all the files waiting to be printed. (The longer the list, the longer you have to wait for your own file.) (In Windows NT Workstation 4, double-click on the taskbar's little printer icon, and you see the print program in all its glory.)
TESTING YOUR PRINTER To print a test page to your printer:
WHEN YOU HAVE PRINTERS GALORE . . . If no printer is directly plugged into your computer, you can easily find out what printers you can use:
A window appears listing one or more printers, plus the Add Printer icon. That's it! The printers listed in the window are the ones that your computer can send information to. If the printers all have dumb, incomprehensible names, right-click on them in turn, choosing Properties each time. You see a little information about the type of printer and its location.
CANCELING THE PRINTING OF A DOCUMENT You can stop the printing of all documents on a printer that is attached to your computer. If you're using a network printer, however, you can cancel only your own documents, unless you have been granted rights to control a printer. To cancel the printing of a document, follow these steps:
You can cancel the printing of more than one document by holding down the Ctrl key and selecting each document you want to cancel.
PRINTING A SINGLE FRAME IN INTERNET EXPLORER 5 If you are viewing a framed page in Internet Explorer 5, and you want to print just one of the frames, right-click the frame, and choose Print from the shortcut menu. This will open the print dialog box. Click the Options tab. You can choose to print only the selected frame, all the frames individually, or to print the page as it is laid out on the screen. You can access this dialog box by clicking File, Print, but at the risk of not being sure which is your selected frame.
PROGRAM HOPPING If you're like me, you often have several applications open at once and are hopping back and forth among various applications all the time. Application hopping is unavoidable when you're working on a presentation that will feature a spreadsheet for figures, a document for the outline of your presentation, and a Web site or two with research information. It gets hectic after a while if you must minimize, then maximize, then go to the task bar and click on the application's icon. A faster way (at least for me) is to hold down the Alt key and press the Tab key. Let go of the Tab key while still holding down Alt, then press the Tab key to scroll through each application. When the box surrounds the application you want, let go of the Alt key and boom, there you are!
MAKING THINGS EASIER TO READ While many people are interested in seeing how they can get more information onto the screen, there are others who, due to poor eyesight, want to make things easier to read. You might want to try the following:
MAKE THE RECYCLE BIN BIGGER You can control how long the Recycle Bin holds on to your deleted files. Click on the Recycle Bin with your right mouse button and choose Properties from its menu. Normally, the Recycle Bin waits until your deleted files consume 10 percent of your hard disk before it begins purging your oldest deleted files. If you want the Recycle Bin to hang on to more deleted files, increase the percentage. If you're a sure-fingered clicker who never makes mistakes, decrease the percentage. Just remember that if you increase the size of your Recycle Bin, the hard disk will have less room for other files or programs you may want to add later.
RESTORING A DELETED FILE FROM THE RECYCLE BIN The Recycle Bin stores all the files you have deleted. How can you tell if the Recycle Bin contains deleted files? The appearance of the Recycle Bin will indicate whether or not the bin contains deleted files (an image of pieces of paper) or appears empty. If the bin still contains deleted files, you can easily restore any of them. To restore a deleted file:
Note: You can restore folders the same way you restore files. When you restore a folder, all the files in the folder are also restored.
TELLING IT TO REFRESH Sometimes Windows 2000 snoozes and doesn't keep track of what's really on the disk. Oh, it does pretty well with the hard disk, and it works pretty well if you're just running Windows 2000 programs. But Windows 2000 can't tell when you've just inserted a new floppy disk. Also, if you create a file from within a DOS program, Windows 2000 may not know that the new file is there. If you think the Windows 2000 Explorer or My Computer window is holding out on you, tell it to refresh, or take a second look at what's on the floppy disk or hard disk. You can click on View from the menu bar and choose Refresh from the pull-down menu, but a quicker way is to press the F5 key. (It's a function key along the top or left side of the keyboard.) Either way, the programs take a second look at what they're supposed to be showing and update their lists if necessary.
PERMANENT RESIDENT After installing a program to your hard disk, don't move the program or the program's folders around. An installation program often wedges a program into Windows 2000 or Windows NT pretty securely; if you move the program, it may not work anymore.
WINDOWS 2000 RESOURCE KIT The Windows 2000 Resource Kit contains a collection of management tools, support utilities, and documents that can help you manage and configure your Windows 2000 computer. It is not installed during the default Windows 2000 installation, so you need to install it separately after you have Windows 2000 up and running. Among other things, the Resource Kit contains DiskProbe and Setup Manager (which eases the task of unattended Windows 2000 installations). The general tool groups in the Resource Kit are Deployment, Diagnostic, Computer Management, Network Management, and Storage Management. The easiest way to install the Resource Kit is as follows:
TOGGLING BETWEEN SCREEN VIEWS Do you find it hard to actually click your mouse on the darned little icons in the upper-right corner of a program window? You can toggle between full and partial screen view for a particular program by double-clicking the program's title bar. It is much easier to access this way because it extends all the way across the top of the program's window.
NO TIME TO SEARCH? For files and folders you've used recently, there's no faster way to find them than in the Open dialog box. Start a Windows 2000 program (a program that comes with Windows 2000 or was updated especially for Windows 2000). Click the File menu and then Open. This opens the dialog box. Click the History icon on the left side of the box to see a list of all the places you've visited recently. This list includes folders you've opened, files you've used, and Web sites you've visited on the Internet. The My Documents icon opens the My Documents folder. Double-click any filename to open it.
QUICK SEARCHES IN WINDOWS 2000 PRO For files and folders you've used recently in Windows 2000 Professional, there's no faster way to find them than in the Open dialog box. Start a Windows 2000 program (a program that comes with Windows 2000 or was updated especially for Windows 2000). Click the File menu and then Open. Click the History icon on the left side of the box to see a list of all the places you've visited recently. This list includes folders you've opened, files you've used, and Web sites you've visited on the Internet. The My Documents icon opens the My Documents folder. Double-click any filename to open it.
SECURITY UPGRADE? Are you checking Microsoft's Web page to see if there are any recent updates? Windows will automatically check for you, unless you turn off the feature. If you have not recently checked this site, you definitely should as soon as possible. Microsoft Operating Systems and applications are frequent targets of virus programmers who routinely gear their products to look for holes into which they can infiltrate their programs. Some viruses are little more than annoyances, and others can literally cripple an organization. Why do people write these viruses? I have no idea; but write them they do -- and in huge numbers. Fortunately, laws are becoming tougher on these cyber-criminals. Viruses are no longer simply a prank; an infestation could affect a company's ability to do business. Check the next tip for steps to take if you're currently not protected from viruses. Click here to access Microsoft's update page. http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/
THE SENT ITEMS FOLDER Even if you use e-mail on only a moderate basis, your Sent Items folder can become quite large over time. To see where this information is kept, right-click the Sent Items folder in your folder list and choose Properties from the context menu. It should show that the name of the file in which all your sent e-mail is stored is named Sent Items.dbx. Its folder location will depend on whether you moved your message store. Periodically, you may wish to delete the older messages in your Sent Items folder, to keep its size under control.
MEMBER SERVERS A member server is a computer running Windows 2000 Server that's not a controller. A machine like that probably holds big databases or other files that a lot of people have to be able to get at -- and get at quickly. A member server is good for that because it doesn't have to do any of the controller work and can dedicate itself to serving up files (or whatever its main role in life is). Here are a few things to note about member servers:
PROXY SERVERS Most individual Windows 2000 users won't have to worry about setting up proxy servers. Most company network administrators will configure your Desktop system to connect to any proxy server set up on the network. Still, you may find it helpful to know what these servers do. In essence, proxy servers act as gatekeepers to the network. They sit between individual client systems on a network and the outside world, where they can filter packets, serve up data, secure resources, and streamline transactions. Network administrators can focus resources on specific tasks by configuring proxy servers to a specific type of transaction. So do you need to configure Windows 2000 to communicate through proxy servers? You should hope not -- your network administrator should have already done that for you. But just so you know -- if you access the Internet through a shared connection over a LAN or your company needs to shield external traffic from your internal network, then a proxy server is likely involved.
REMOVE SHORTCUT IDENTIFIERS All shortcuts have that little curved arrow and the words: 'Shortcut to' along with the icon to whatever program you want to run. You can remove the arrow and the words using Microsoft's TweakUI. If you don't have a copy of TweakUI, you can download it from Microsoft's Web site (link below). Click on the Explorer tab and uncheck the 'Prefix Shortcut to' option, and select 'None' for the arrow. This is a global change, so your computer will hum and whir for a moment while it makes the changes. This can be found under TWEAKUI
SHORTCUTS ARE SUPER SLEUTHS Windows 2000 Professional's shortcuts are a veritable Sherlock Holmes when it comes to keeping track of moving files. If you create a shortcut to a file or program and then move the file or program to a different spot on your hard disk, the shortcut follows the file or folder to its new location. If your network is running the new Windows 2000 Active Directory, the original can even have a new name and be on a different computer and the shortcut still works.
SHUTTING DOWN WINDOWS Although the big argument used to be about saturated and unsaturated fats, today's generation has found a new source of disagreement: Should a computer be left on all the time or turned off at the end of the day? Both camps have decent arguments, and there's no real answer (except that you should always turn off your monitor when you won't be using it for a half hour or so). However, if you decide to turn off your computer, don't just head for the off switch. First, you need to tell Windows about your plans. To do that, click the Shut Down command from the Start menu and then click the Shut Down button from the box that appears. Finally, click the Yes button; that click tells Windows to put away all your programs and to make sure that you've saved all your important files. After Windows has prepared the computer to be turned off, a message on the screen says that it's okay to reach for the Big Switch. The Windows Shut Down menu offers several options now, as you can see by the following list:
The Hibernate command takes all of your currently open information and writes it to the hard drive in one big chunk. Then, to re-create your desktop, it reads that big chunk and places it back on your desktop. It's not as safe as shutting down your computer. Don't ever turn off your computer unless you've first used the Shut Down command from the Start button. Windows needs to prepare itself for the shutdown, or it may accidentally eat some of your important information.
SAFE SHUTDOWNS When your computer stops responding to your actions and you're stuck (i.e., clicking a button yields no response, your mouse pointer won't move, or a program stubbornly refuses to close), suppress the impulse to reach for the reset button on your PC. The ongoing health of your Windows installation depends in part on clean shutdowns (where you choose Start, Shutdown, Shutdown -- and wait for the "It's now safe to turn off your computer" message) at the end of each Windows session. Too many incomplete shutdowns and abrupt reboots can damage system files and adversely impact the performance of Windows. Try this instead: press Ctrl+Alt+Del. The Close Program dialog box opens, listing all of the programs running on your PC at the moment. Look for the program with "(not responding)" at the end of its listing. Select it and click End Task. If it can, Windows will close this wayward program, freeing you up to save the work in your other programs, so you can then do a proper shutdown or reboot.
PUTTING WINDOWS 2000 TO SLEEP By default, the Windows 2000 Hibernate feature is not activated. The reason is because putting your PC into Hibernation requires tens of megabytes of disk space to store your active state. The Hibernate tab enables you to assess your disk space situation before you enable this feature. Just check the numbers in the Disk space for hibernation area. If you feel you have enough space available to support this feature, go ahead and click the Enable hibernate support. The Power Options Properties dialog box will show you the amount of free disk space and the amount of disk space required to hibernate. Now, when you shut down Windows, a Hibernate option appears. Click this, and the PC takes a while to save the active state to disk. Next time you hit the power button, the system wakes right up where you left off.
SOUND ACCESSIBILITY OPTIONS The SoundSentry option displays visual warnings when your computer makes a sound. With SoundSentry, you are aware of the audible alerts that Windows sounds, even if you can't hear them. Obviously, SoundSentry is designed to assist users with hearing difficulties. It is also useful, however, if you have system sounds muted to avoid disturbing others, such as when you're using a laptop on a late-night airline flight. To activate SoundSentry,
The other sound option, ShowSounds, instructs programs to display visible captions for the sounds and speech that the programs generate, assuming that the program has such captions available. To activate the option, click the ShowSounds checkbox on the Sound tab of the Accessibility options dialog box.
STAND BY TO HIBERNATE When you're ready to shut down Windows 2000, you click Start, Shut Down. Then you select the type of shut down you want. Two of the choices are Standby and Hibernate:
The Standby and Hibernate features rely on the ability of your computer to support the power management scheme of Windows 2000, which is called Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI).
SENDING MESSAGES ON STATIONERY With Outlook Express stationery, you can really get attention by sending attractive messages for both e-mail and newsgroups. Stationery can include a background image, unique text-font colors, and custom margins. To apply stationery to all your outgoing messages:
To apply stationery to an individual message: Choose Message, New Message Using, and then select the stationery. To apply or change stationery after you start a message: Choose Format, Apply Stationery, and then select the stationery.
'N SYNC Synchronize, a Windows 2000 Professional "applet" (a mini program or mini application) synchronizes (updates) online and offline data, including shared folders on another computer and offline Web pages. To use the Synchronize applet, follow these steps:
On most networks, you're always connected to the files you're using, in which case Synchronize isn't used. But if you're not connected all the time -- like when you dial in from the field or you connect to certain files over a WAN (wide-area network) -- you want to use Synchronize to match up the files you've been working on to the files at the other location.
SCHEDULING A TASK If there's a task you'd like to have Windows 2000 do for you automatically, such as clean up your hard disk or open Outlook Express, that's no sweat. Just follow these steps:
Supply the information the wizard asks you for and your task is automated -- automatically. After you add the scheduled task, you see an icon for that task in the Scheduled Tasks window.
ORGANIZING THE DESKTOP MISHMASH WITH THE TASKBAR Put a second or third window onto the Windows 2000 Professional Desktop, and you'll immediately see the Big Problem: Windows and programs tend to cover each other up, making them difficult to locate. The solution is the taskbar, that little bar running along the bottom edge of your screen. The taskbar keeps track of all the open folders and currently running programs by listing their names. And, luckily, the taskbar is almost always visible, no matter how cluttered your Desktop becomes.
Want to drag and drop a file onto a program or folder that's resting lazily along the screen's taskbar? Here's the secret: Drag the file until it hovers over the program or folder, but don't let go of the mouse button. After a few moments, the taskbar kickstarts the folder or program into action, making it jump into a window on the screen. Then, you can drag and drop your file onto the window to put it inside the program or folder.
HIDING THE TASKBAR The Taskbar lives at the very bottom of your screen, although you can move it to another position. The Taskbar holds the Start button and buttons for any applications that are running. To hide the Taskbar:
Note: When hiding the Taskbar, make sure that the Always on top check box is checked. This way, the Taskbar pops up over a maximized application rather than behind the application.
TECHNICAL TERM: PEER-TO-PEER NETWORK Peer-to-peer is a type of network that doesn't have controllers. Every machine in the network is equal. It seems very democratic, but someone still has to administer the network, even if it's not a very big job. Otherwise, people give different names to printers and hard disks, and soon your office starts looking like the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, with people standing around yelling at each other.
QUICK CLEANUP BY TILING To quickly organize the windows on the Desktop, right-click on the taskbar's clock (weird, huh?). When a menu appears, click on one of the tile options, and all your open windows will be neatly tiled across your screen.
THUMBNAIL VIEW If you have a folder containing graphics files, right-click the photo and select Properties. On the Properties page, click the box next to Enable thumbnail view. Click OK. Now open the folder and click the View menu and select Thumbnails. In the Thumbnail view, your graphics files show up as little pictures.
TOOLBAR Most every application within Windows comes with some kind of toolbar. The toolbars allow GUI (pronounced gooey) control to perform an action so that you don't need to navigate through menus. GUI stands for Graphic User Interface, which is a fancy way of saying that you can see pictures and click on things. You can usually control the number of visible toolbars by clicking the View option, selecting the Toolbar, and then adding/removing toolbars to save space or to add easily controlled GUI functionality. Why have this GUI interface? If you've worked on a Mainframe or with DOS, then you'll remember that the only way to perform work on those systems was to type long commands. But the GUI interface allows a single-button click to activate tons of behind-the-scenes code to perform that same function--it's much easier, trust me!
PLANTING A TREE If you're going to use a PC or LAN to store your files and folders, it's wise for you to design the structure you plan to use before beginning a project. It's just too easy to lose track of your information when it ends up scattered all over the LAN or PC. Organize your file folders during the initial phase of a project by sitting down with a product such as Vizio and mapping out your design structure -- before you create that first folder. Otherwise, you'll have folders upon folders and have no idea where your documents are stored. Once you design a basic skeleton of your tree, create it on the PC/LAN in Explorer by clicking File, then New, then Folder when the secondary menu pops up. Once your tree is created, maintain it faithfully, and document how to traverse the tree; include a procedure on how to create new folders so that future additions will not "ruin" your tree.
TWEAKUI TweakUI [ http://download.cnet.com/downloads/0-1461985-100-2830963.html?tag=st.dl.10001-103-1.lst-7-1.2830963 ] is a tool from Microsoft that allows you to achieve greater customization over you user interface. It also provides a repair tool that you can use to fix some specific problems that may crop up. When TweakUI is first installed, it installs an applet in the Control Panel from which you can access its many features. To open TweakUI, just click Start, Control Panel, and click the TweakUI icon. Here are some of the things you can do with TweakUI:
Of course, Microsoft doesn't tell you how to install TweakUI after you download it. So here's how: Unzip the archive and place the four files in the same location (your Desktop is fine). Then right-click on the TWEAKUI.INF files and choose Install from the popup menu. Voila! TweakUI is installed and accessible from the Control Panel.
HOW DO I UNDO WHAT I DID? Windows 2000 offers a zillion different ways for you to do the same thing. Here are three ways to access the Undo option, which unspills the milk you've just spilled:
Don't feel like you have to know all three methods. For example, if you can remember the Ctrl+Z key combination, you can forget about the menu method and the Alt key method.
UNDOING THE DAMAGE Windows 2000 lets you undo more than just your last action. It keeps a stack -- or list -- of changes. You can undo your changes in the reverse order in which they were executed by repeatedly clicking Undo. If you right-click the right pane, you will see Undo, along with your last action, as a choice on the context menu. For example, if you have just renamed a file, then you will see Undo Rename on the menu.
UPGRADE CAUTION If you're upgrading from Windows 3.x, there is one crucial difference in icons from Windows 2000: In Windows 3.x, deleting an icon for a program did not delete the program itself; you still had to delete the program file or files. In Windows 2000, however, if the icon is not a shortcut, deleting the icon also deletes the underlying program or document.
UPGRADE OR CLEAN INSTALL? Decisions, decisions, decisions. Among the more important considerations when it comes to your operating system: Do you want to perform an upgrade of your existing operating system or perform a new (clean) installation? In general, you should perform an upgrade if you answer yes to EACH of the following three questions:
URL SHORTCUTS IN WINDOWS 2000 When using Windows 2000's Internet Explorer, you don't have to type the http:// portion of the URL to connect. Just type the rest of the address, such as www.markpettersen.com. If you're accessing a non-Web address such as an FTP server, you will have to supply the beginning portion of the address, such as ftp://ftp.microsoft.com. If you're typing an address in Internet Explorer's Address Bar, leave out the http://www. and the .com parts of the address. For example, just type markpettersen. Next, hold down the Ctrl key as you press the Enter key. Doing so will automatically add the http://www. part of the URL to the beginning of the address and the .com part to the end of the address. Cool, huh?
WAIT A MINUTE The most important setting for screensavers is Wait Time, which is how long your system will wait before the screensaver kicks in. After a screensaver has started, just move the mouse to turn it off and restore your screen. For extra security when you are away from your computer, you can have your screensaver password-protected so that you have to type in your password to turn it off. To add this protection, right-click an empty spot on your desktop and choose Properties. Next, click the Screen Saver tab and check the Password Protected box. Click OK. To indicate a wait time, right-click an empty spot on your desktop and choose Properties. Next, click the Screen Saver tab and click on the up or down arrow on the Wait box. Click OK.
ADDING WALLPAPER TO YOUR DESKTOP Adding a background -- or wallpaper -- image to your Windows 2000 desktop instantly adds a unique touch that can change your desktop from boring to splashy. This is one of the easiest appearance changes you can make to Windows 2000 and is also one that can have the most immediate visual impact. To add wallpaper to your desktop, follow these steps:
Choose Center to display the image in its original size and centered in the middle of your desktop. Choose Tile to display multiple copies of the image that cover your entire desktop. Choose Stretch to expand the image both horizontally and vertically to cover the entire desktop.
WEB BROWSING As you surf the Internet, the Back button (or the timesaver Alt+Left arrow key) can come in handy when you're trying to retrace your steps. Instead of clicking the Back button one or more times to get to a previously viewed site, try this:
After you backtrack, you can quickly jump forward by repeating these steps but with the Forward button instead. Your browser jumps instantly to the site you select. Once you hit the end of the Back or Forward button lists, the button grays out and becomes inactive. (Note: This technique works only for addresses that you typed into the Address bar. The drop-down lists don't show URLs that you accessed via links or your Favorites list.). Alternatively, you can click View, Go To. A fly-out menu displays a list of sites you've visited during your session. Click any of these to jump directly to the selected site.
SAVING WEB PAGES -- GRAPHICS AND ALL A new feature in Internet Explorer 5 is its ability to save not only a Web page, but also all the graphics files displayed on the page. In previous versions of Internet Explorer, if you saved a page, only the text would be saved. To save the complete Web page by default, use the File, Save As command. The text itself will be saved in the folder you specify in the Save Web Page dialog box. All of the graphics files from the page will be saved in a subfolder beneath the Save location. The subfolder will have the same name as the file you save, and the file and folder will remain linked. If you delete the saved Web page, the subfolder will also be deleted. If you delete the folder, the file goes, too.
CHECKING WEB SITE LOGS If you're using Windows 2000 as a Web server, you can check logs of Web site activity to see who contacts your site, when they visited, what pages they viewed, and what errors -- if any -- were returned. Logs are automatically saved in the \System32\LogFiles\W3SVC1 folder (how intuitive is that?) of your Windows 2000 Professional directory. Each file is named using the year, month, and day, so a file created today is named 020219.log. To open the file, just double-click it.
ARE YOU WHO YOU SAY YOU ARE? A computer running Windows 2000 Professional goes through an authentication process to make sure that you are who you say you are. After a user logs on to an account on a computer running Windows 2000 Professional, the computer tries to match your username with your password against a list of authorized users. After a user logs on to an account on a Windows 2000 Professional Server domain, any server of that domain may perform the authentication. (A domain is a collection of computers that share a common account database and security policy. Each domain has a unique name.)
SWITCHING FROM WINDOW TO WINDOW Sometimes switching from window to window is easy. If you can see any part of the window you want -- a corner, a bar, or a piece of dust -- just click on it. You can also just click on that window's button on the taskbar along the bottom of your screen. A fun trick, however, is to hold down the Alt key and press the Tab key. A most welcome box pops up in the center of the screen, naming all the programs currently loaded into your computer's memory. If the program you're after has a little box around it, rejoice! And remove your finger from the Alt key. The window named in that box leaps to the screen. If you're looking for a different program, keep your finger on the Alt key and press the Tab key once again. At each press of Tab, Windows NT moves its little box around the name of another open program. When the box reaches the program that you want, release the Alt key and then hoot and holler. The program leaps to the screen, ready for your working pleasure.
WINDOWS OFF THE SCREEN If you want to pull down any window control menu, you can either right-click at the very top of the window where the window's title is located, or you can hold down the Alt key and press the space bar.
WINDOWS 2000 PRO NOT HAPPY WITH INTELLIPOINT 2.2 Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional has been known to hang after the installation of MS IntelliPoint 2.2. Even Ctrl-Alt-Delete does not work. Microsoft recommends reinstalling Windows 2000 Pro to correct the problem.
SOME PROGRAMS ARE NOT WINDOWS 2000-COMPATIBLE Although most Windows 98-compatible programs will work just fine in Windows 2000, some will not. One example of this -- programs that use virtual device drivers, VxDs, -- will not run in Windows 2000. Windows NT 4 had the same restriction on VxDs, so if a program is listed as Windows NT 4-compatible, it does not use VxDs and should be Windows 2000-compatible.
WORDPAD BULLETS WordPad is a word processor for short documents. You can format documents in WordPad with various fonts and styles, including bullets. To create a WordPad document that includes bullets,
CHANGING TEXT WRAP IN WORDPAD Can't see all your text? To change the way text wraps on your screen:
After you turn on a Word wrap option, what you see is not what you get when you print the document. The Word wrapping options only affect how text appears on your screen. The printed document reflects the margin settings specified in the Page Setup dialog box.
HIGHLIGHTING TEXT IN WORDPAD When you're working in WordPad or NotePad in Windows 2000, you can highlight text quickly with these pointers:
WORKGROUPS A "workgroup" is a collection of Windows computers that are grouped together because they're all doing the same kind of work or they're all in the same department. Within the workgroup, all the computers are "peers," and the users themselves decide what is shared with the other members of the group. Workgroups can be part of an actual client/server network. If you're assigned to a workgroup, you either log onto the workgroup or you log onto the domain (a collection of computers on a network) you're part of. |