Quick Launch Toolbar
6. When you’re done, click and drag the “per- “per-forated” line at the right edge of the Quick
Launch Toolbar, resizing it to take as much (or as little) room as you like. Then right-click a blank part of the taskbar and select the Lock the Taskbar check box.
Judicious use of the Quick Launch Toolbar can save you gobs of time.
Click for more Quick Launch programs Start Internet Explorer
Start Outlook Start Word
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Believe it or not, Windows thrives on shortcuts. They’re everywhere, lurking just beneath the surface. For example, every single entry on the Start menu is a (cleverly disguised) shortcut. The icons in the Quick Launch Toolbar are all shortcuts. Most of Windows Explorer is based on shortcuts — although they’re hidden away where you can’t reach them. So don’t be afraid to experiment with shortcuts. In the worst-case scenario, you can always delete them. Doing so gets rid of the shortcut, but doesn’t touch the original file at all.
Here’s yet another way to create a shortcut. Say you want to put a shortcut to a network printer on your desktop. Try this:
1.Choose Start➪Control Panel and click Printers and Other Hardware.
2.Click View Installed Printers or Fax Printers.
3.Right-click the printer that you want to be shortcutted. (Uh, the printer you want the shortcut to go to? The shortcuttee? Somebody run and get me the Funk and Wagnalls.)
4.Click Create Shortcut.
Windows displays the dialog box shown in Figure 3-25. You’ll find that
“Create Shortcut” is a common option when right-clicking almost any-thing in Windows XP.
5.Click Yes, and the shortcut that you wanted appears on your desktop.
Recycling
When you delete a file, it doesn’t go to that Big Bit Bucket in the Sky. An intermediate step exists between deletion and the Big Bit Bucket. It’s called purgatory— oops. Wait a sec. Wrong book. (Existentialism For Dummies, any-body?) Let me try that again. Ahem.
The step between deletion and the Big Bit Bucket is called the Recycle Bin.
Figure 3-25:
The quick way to put a shortcut to a network printer on your desktop.
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When you delete a file or folder on your hard drive — whether by selecting the file or folder in Windows Explorer and pushing the Delete key, or by right-clicking and choosing Delete — Windows doesn’t actually delete any-thing. It marks the file or folder as being deleted but, other than that, doesn’t touch it at all.
Files and folders on floppy drives, and on network drives, really aredeleted when you delete them. The Recycle Bin doesn’t work on floppies or on drives attached to other computers on your network.
That’s a good news/bad news state of affairs.
The good news: If you ever accidentally delete a file or a folder, you can easily recover the “deleted” file from the Recycle Bin.
The bad news: All of those deleted files take up space on your hard drive.
The space won’t be reclaimed until you go through the steps necessary to empty the Recycle Bin — and thus truly delete the files.
To rummage around in the Recycle Bin, and possibly bring a file back to life, double-click the Recycle Bin icon on the Windows desktop. Windows Explorer takes you to the Recycle Bin, as shown in Figure 3-26.
To restore a file or folder (sometimes Windows calls it “undeleting”), click on the file or folder, and then click Restore This Item in the Recycle Bin Tasks box in the upper-left corner. You can select a bunch of files or folders by holding down the Ctrl key as you click.
Figure 3-26:
The Recycle Bin, where all good files go when they kick the bucket.
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To reclaim the space being used by the files and folders in the Recycle Bin, click Empty the Recycle Bin in the Recycle Bin Tasks box. Windows asks if you really, really want to get rid of those files permanently. If you say yes, they’re gone. Kaput. Curtains. You can never get them back again.
After you empty the Recycle Bin, the deleted files and folders are perma-nently gone. If you’ve been keeping backups, though, you might be able to resurrect an old file or folder. See the section on backup in Book I, Chapter 7.
Logoff
Last things last, I always say.
Windows XP/Home allows you to have more than one person logged on to a PC simultaneously. That’s very convenient if, say, you’re working on the family PC checking Billy’s homework when you hear the cat screaming bloody murder in the kitchen, and your wife wants to put digital pictures from the family vacation in the Shared Pictures folder while you run off to check the microwave.
The ability to have more than one user logged onto a PC simultaneously is called Fast User Switching,and it has advantages and disadvantages:
✦ On the plus side:Fast User Switching lets you keep all of your programs going while somebody else pops onto the machine for a quick jaunt on the keyboard. When they’re done, they can log off, and you can pick up precisely where you left off before you got bumped.
✦ On the minus side:All of the idle programs left sitting around by the inactive (“bumped”) user can bog things down for the active user. You can avoid the overhead by logging off before the new user logs on.
If you want to disable Fast User Switching, choose Start➪Control Panel and click User Accounts. In the lower-right corner, click the icon marked User Accounts. At the bottom of the Pick a Task list, click Change the Way Users Log On or Off. Then deselect the Use Fast User Switching check box.
You probably won’t be surprised to find that you have to click Start in order to log off or switch users. Simply choose Start➪Log Off, and then click Switch User or Log Off.
To further confuse matters, many computers — especially portables — can go into Hibernate or Standbymode (variously called Suspend, or Suspend to File, or any of a handful of out-to-lunch synonyms). The primary differences between the two modes are as follows:
✦ In Standbymode, the PC shuts off the monitor and hard drives but keeps everything in memory so it can “wake up” quickly.
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✦ In Hibernatemode, the PC shuts off the monitor and hard drives and shuffles a copy of everything in memory to the hard drive before going night-night. It takes longer to wake up from Hibernate mode because the contents of memory have to be pulled in from the hard drive.
If your portable runs out of power while in Standby mode, you’re up the creek without a paddle. If it’s in Hibernate mode (and Hibernate mode is working properly — not always a given!), running out of juice poses no prob-lem at all: Plug the PC back into the wall and it comes out of Hibernate mode, brings its memory back from the hard drive, and picks up where you left off.
Not all computers support Standby mode or Hibernate mode. Some older computers don’t handle either mode. Other computers can do both. If you have a choice, the guidelines are quite simple:
✦ If there’s any chance that your PC will run out of power while in Standby mode, don’t use it. Hibernate instead.
✦ If you have to bring your machine back up quickly (say, for a presenta-tion, or to take sporadic notes), use Standby mode.
To go into Standby or Hibernate mode, choose Start➪Turn Off Computer.
You see a dialog box with the recommended mode as your first option (see Figures 3-27 and 3-28).
Figure 3-28:
Or use Hibernate mode.
Figure 3-27:
Go into Standby mode.
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If your PC supports both Standby and Hibernate mode, hold down the Shift key while the Turn Off Computer dialog box is on the screen. Windows obliges by changing back and forth between Standby and Hibernate.
You should always turn your computer off the “official” way, by choosing Start➪Turn Off Computer➪Turn Off. If you just flip the power switch off, Windows can accidentally zap files and leave them unusable. Windows needs time to make sure that everything is in order before turning the lights off. Make sure it gets the time it needs by using the official method for shut-ting down.