Desktop
Your life on the computer will be much easier if you do a couple of little tricks. 1. Make sure you have your Quick Launch activated. As I recall when I first configured my new laptop there was no Quick Launch ... was I unhappy. Well the problem is fairly easy to fix. Right click any empty area on your taskbar near your start button. A little window will pop open ... go to toolbar's and slide over to the little arrow and another window will fly open put a check mark by Quick Launch and voila there it will be ready to save you hours of mouse click time in the future.
You will now have a handy icon that you can click right at hand. I always move my most used programs to this handy spot.
Along with Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, PhotoShop, Word and WSFTP I always move Windows Explorer to my Quick Launch taskbar. If you are new to the computer or have lots of experience this is the most handy tool in windows. Learn to use it ... you will not be sorry.
First lets create a shortcut for this handy tool on your quick launch. This operation can be followed for any of the other programs you want to place on the quick launch. Keep in mind there are many ways to do things in windows. I have adopted this method simply because most new computer people have not mastered the mouse moving process and tend to drag and drop things never to be found again. The methods I pass on here are more or less failsafe.
You are going to go to start ... programs ... accessories ... windows explorer
Place your cursor (pointer) over the windows explorer and it will highlight. Hold down your RIGHT mouse key and drag to any empty part of your desktop. You will see it faintly appear when you reach the desktop. Then simply drop it there.
When it is dropped your fly out windows will disappear and a tiny window will open wanting to know what you want to do now. You are going to click copy ... why copy? Because if you choose move at this point it will take the shortcut from your start programs and you want that shortcut to remain there as a backup.
Now you will see your little windows explorer on your desktop as a shortcut ... why not just leave it here? Well you could but I get my desktop cluttered enough with stuff that I like to keep this one where I am inches away from it at all times ... in fact I ALWAYS have a windows explorer window or 2 open and minimized at ALL times.
Now we are going to MOVE this shortcut from our desk to our Quick Launch ... why move? Well no point in having a copy on the desktop as well as on the Quick Launch with a back up on start programs. So we accomplish this little task by placing our cursor (pointer) over our little windows explorer icon holding down our RIGHT mouse key and dragging it to the Quick Launch bar until a dark "I" appears. You then release your mouse and the little window will pop up asking what you want to do ... this time click MOVE.
You will now have this very handy little tool on your Quick Launch and ready to use at any time you need it.
Normally your icon will look like the little folder with a magnifying glass in front of it ... I happen to be running window blinds so my icons and desktop are a bit different than most.
So there ya go ... now you can move a shortcut to your Quick Launch and hopefully you will continue to use your windows explorer. Your drive system (which is accessed best this way) is the heart of your computer and you need to know what goes where so you can find it later.
