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Contents: Basic Windows II 95/98

File Management Copy a file to a floppy (Send To)  Move a file (Cut then Paste) Copy a file Create a shortcut Delete a file Rename a file Find Properties Creating Folders

Disk Management Formatting/Initializing disks Checking Disk Space Making a Backup Disk Finding a File Using Zip disks Keyboard Shortcuts Other Windows Sources Help Windows Sources

File Management
NOTE: We will use  the right mouse button shortcuts for the tasks below. There are other ways to perform these tasks.

Copy a file to a floppy (Send To)  Move a file Copy a file Create a shortcut

Delete a file Rename a file Find Properties Creating Folders

Send To: To copy a file to the floppy drive: (a) click on top of the file icon with the right mouse button and the Right Mouse Shortcut Menu will appear.  From the menu:  (b) choose Send To then  (c) 3 1/2 Floppy (A)

Cut: To remove a file from the current location and place a copy in a new location of your choice,  (a) click on top of the file icon with the right mouse button and the Right Mouse Shortcut Menu will appear.  From the menu:  (b) choose "Cut"  (c) go to the new location and click the right mouse button.  (d) choose  Paste from the Right Mouse menu   Copy: To place a copy of the file in another location, hard drive, Zip disk, etc., leaving the current file in place  (a) click on top of the file icon with the right mouse button and the Right Mouse Shortcut Menu will appear. From the menu:  (b) choose "Copy", just below "Cut"  (c) go to the new location and click the right mouse button.  (d) choose  Paste from the Right Mouse menu

Right Mouse Button

Create Shortcut:  To be able to open a file from more then one location(s) but maintain only one copy of the file (a) click on top of the file icon with the right mouse button and the Right Mouse Shortcut Menu will appear. From the menu:  (b) choose "Create Shortcut" and a new icon with a small arrow at the bottom left will appear in the window (c) you can then copy the shortcut icon, see copy above, and go to the new location and click the right mouse button and choose  Paste Shortcut from the the Right Mouse menu Note: a shortcut, also called an alias, is a pointer to a file.  It is not the file and an be renamed, deleted, or moved with out causing a problem

Shortcut icon

Delete: To remove a file from the disk, server, etc.  (a) click on top of the file icon with the right mouse button and the Right Mouse Shortcut Menu will appear.  From the menu:  (b) choose "Delete" and the Confirm File Delete Dialog Box will appear.  (c) click Yes in the dialog box.  NOTE: Zip, floppy and server files will be permanently erased.  NOTE: If you performed this on the hard drive of your computer you can completely delete the file by- (a) clicking the right mouse button on the "Recycle Bin" then choose "Empty recycle Bin" from the menu

Confirm File Delete Dialog Box Recycle Bin Menu

Rename: To change the name of a file  (a) click on top of the file icon with the right mouse button and the Right Mouse Shortcut Menu will appear.  From the menu:  (b) choose "Rename"  (c) the file name will be enclosed with a box and you can edit the name within the box  Note: You can also do this by clicking the file icon very slowly two times to edit the name

Editing a file name

Properties: To find the Type, Location, Size, MS-DOS name, Created (date), Modified (date), Accessed (date)  Attributes (read only, hidden, archive, system) are statistics (numbers of pages, paragraphs, lines, words, characters) (a) click on top of the file icon with the right mouse button and the Right Mouse Shortcut Menu will appear.  From the menu:  (b) choose "Properties"  (c) the Properties Window will appear with information on the file.  In our example  Type:   Microsoft Word Document  location:  A:\  (floppy drive)  Size:  23.5KB (24,064 bytes)  MS-DOS name: MISSY.DOC  Created:  Monday...  Modified:  monday...  Accessed:  Sunday...  Attributes:  only Archive checked (d) you could click the "Statistics" tab and find out how many pages, lines, words, etc. this document contains--we did not do this.  (e) click the OK button when you are through.

Creating Folders: If you have few files on a floppy it is easy to just have them as a "flat file" structure. If you have a lot of files you will need to create a folder organization and a "hierarchical files" structure to make them easy to find. (a) Click the right mouse button and  choose New and drag across to Folder (b) A new folder, , will appear on your disk. You can then name the new folder. (c) I created folders for the GS390 class and then moved all the files into the new folders. (d) You can create folders within folders for more organization. In the Tests folder I created a Lecture Quizzes, Lab Quizzes and Exam folders. NOTE: You can examine the hierarchical file structure of your hard drive by double clicking My Computer then the C  drive. NOTE: Creating file folders for each student in a class is a good way to keep their documents together

Flat File Structure Creating a new folder

(1) Formatting/Initializing a disk.  Most disks purchased are formatted but some older disks, Macintosh disks and corrupted disks require formatting.  To format a disk:    (a) Place the disk in the floppy drive  (b) Double click My Computer with the left mouse button and the My Computer  window will open.  (c) With the right mouse button, click once on 31/2 Floppy(A:) and the Right Mouse Shortcut Menu will open.     (d) Choose "Format" from the Right Mouse Shortcut Menu.  The Format Dialog Box will appear  (e) In the Format Dialog Box choose either:  -Quick (erase): erases the directory of the disk  -Full: completely formats the disk and checks for bad sectors.  This is the choice in the sample.  (f) Type  in a label--your name perhaps? I typed my name, JIM ROSS  (g) Click to "Display summary when finished" if you want a full report on your disk  (h) Click the Start button at the top right. You will see the graphic display at the bottom of the dialog box fill as your disk is formatted. The Format Results Dialog Box will open when formatting is complete if you choose "Display summary when finished"         (I) You can see how much disk space is available and the number of bad sectors on your disk.  You may want to toss the disk if there are many bad sectors.  (J) Click the Close  button on the Format Results Dialog Box when you have finished looking at the results.  (k) Click the Close  button on the Format Dialog Box

My Computer Window Right Mouse Shortcut Menu Format Dialog Box Format Results Dialog Box

(a) Place the disk in the floppy drive  (b) Double click My Computer (c) Click once with the right mouse button on the drive you want to check space  [31/2 Floppy(A:),  C drive, Zip (Removable Disk)] and the Right Mouse Shortcut Menu will appear.  From the menu:  (d) choose "Properties"  (c) the Properties Window will appear with all the information  Label  JIM ROSS  Used space 869,888 bytes  Free space 587,776 bytes  Capacity 1,457,664 bytes  NOTE: a bit more then 1/2 of the disk contains data (d) click the OK button when you are through.  NOTE: You can check a Zip or hard drive space by clicking the hard drive with the right mouse button

Warning Disks do go bad!!!!! You should always make a backup copy of important files.  One of the best ways to do this is by making a backup disk.  (a) place your master disk, the disk to be copied, in floppy drive A.  The steps below assume you are using a 1 floppy system since most newer PCs come with only one drive)  (b) double click My Computer (c) click 31/2 Floppy (A:) with the right mouse button and the Right Mouse Shortcut Menu will open  (d) on the menu click Copy Disk, a dialog box will open        (e) click the Start key on the dialog box and your disk contents will be copied to memory and you will then be instructed to change disks in the drive.              (f) you will then remove the master disk and place your destination disk in the floppy drive  (e) click the OK button on the dialog box and the copy process will be completed and the Copy Disk Dialog Box displayed  (f) click the "Close" button in the Copy Disk Dialog Box           NOTE: If you have a two drive system simply place the master copy in drive A and the backup disk in drive B

Right Mouse Shortcut Menu Copy Disk Dialog Box Copy Disk Dialog Box

(a) Click Start. move the mouse icon to Find and across to Files or Folders, see Start Find Menu------> The Find Dialog Box will open                  (b) Type the name of the file or folder in the "Named" input box of the Find Dialog Box.  NOTE: you just need unique consecutive characters that appear in the file name.  You do not need the complete file name.  (c) Choose where you want to search by clicking the arrow beside the "Look in:" box and then clicking the location you want to search  (d) Click Find now, top right of dialog box, to perform search                                  (e) The results of the search will appear at the bottom of the Find window.  You can double click to open or drag and drop to copy.

Start Find Menu Find Dialog Box Find Results

The quickest source for help is the built in help in windows.  For access to general help (a) click the Start button  (b) choose Help then click the tab:  Contents--to see a list of contents  Index--to see an indexed list of contents  Find--to search for specific information  NOTE: for a quick tour, a general outline of Windows operations try the "Tour: Ten minutes to using Windows":  (a) click Contents in Help (see above) (b) click Tour: Ten minutes to using Windows (c) usually you will have to insert the Microsoft Windows CD.  Sometimes computer labs place this file on the computer for beginning users.  The specific location may not be as discussed above. For access to specific help a window, dialog box, etc. will offer help by:  (a) click the ? button (NOTE: if there is no ? button. there is no context help available)  (b) click the item for which you need information (a data entry box, menu, etc.)  (c) windows will provide a brief description of the item

Web Sources:  (NEW W01) There are a number of sources of help available on the internet.  These are some of my favorites:

http://www.microsoft.com/ Microsoft's web site.  Much information but you will have to try and figure out where it is located at their site.

http://www.tipworld.com/ PC World magazines web site.  Offers lots of information but requires you traverse a lot of advertising to find what you want.

Microsoft Win98 FAQ

http://www.hardwarecentral.com/ For reports on hardware particularly useful are the tutorials

http://pcsupport.about.com/compute/pcsupport/

http://pcguide.com/ For tutorials on upgrading your hardware check Physical Installation

Google, You can also search  for help on Google or anothr search engine. For Mac help sites try your search at http://www.google.com/mac. Google also provides specific help for BSD Unix and Linux