When you first start using your computer, you'll need to become familiar with its
operating system, or OS.
Most computers use the Windows operating system, and in this video we're going to be focusing
on Windows 7.
If you're using Windows XP or Vista, it may look a little bit different, but for the most
part they work the same.
The screen that you see when your computer has finished starting up is called the desktop,
and this includes the desktop background, and also the taskbar at the bottom of the screen.
Here you'll find shortcuts to commonly-used programs, and also settings such as your internet
settings and the sound volume.
But the most important part of the taskbar is on the far left, and this is called the
Start button.
This opens up the Start menu, which is where you'll go to open a program.
When you open a program, it will appear on the taskbar, and this is really useful if you
have several different programs open because you can easily switch between them by just clicking.
Now if you're just starting out with computers, it's really important to know the difference
between a file and a folder.
Files can be documents, pictures, songs, movies, and more.
Folders are used to organize all of the files on your computer, and they'll have an icon
that looks like an actual folder.
To open a folder, you can double-click it.
The window you see here is a specialized program called Windows Explorer, which you can use
to navigate to any folder on your computer.
You can also open this by clicking the Windows Explorer icon on the taskbar.
If you want to navigate to a different folder, you can select a different location on the
left side of the window, and once you find the file that you want, you can double-click
it, and it will open in the default program for that file type.
In this case, it opened in Windows Photo Viewer.
If you want to delete a file, then you can select it and press the Delete key.
When you do this, it won't permanently delete the file, it will just move it to the Recycle Bin.
So if you change your mind, you can still recover the file, but if you're sure that
you want to permanently delete it, then you'll need to Empty the Recycle Bin.
Finally, let's go back to the Start menu.
If you're ever not sure where something is on your computer, there's a good chance that
you can find it in the Start menu.
For example, you can go to the Control Panel to adjust any of the settings for your computer.
You can view Windows Help.
Or, if you're finished using your computer, you can shut it down.
If you don't want to completely turn it off, you can just Log off or put your computer to sleep.
So these are just the very basics of using Windows, and all of these things will become
second nature to you as you get more practice.