Your Desktop

• Press the power button to turn the computer on.
• Once the computer has started up and you have closed the Welcome window, you will see the Microsoft® Windows® 95 desktop on your screen. The desktop is the green area that the icons sit on.

The icons on the screen allow you to manage your files. For example, the Recycle Bin lets you throw your files away (and sometimes get them back).

Some icons will have an arrow in the bottom left hand corner, as shown below.

These icons are called shortcuts. They allow you to start a program or display a document without going through the Start button. You double click the shortcut to run the program or display the document.

A shortcut is a pointer to a computer file (a program or a document). You can create shortcuts for programs and/or documents that you use often.

The grey bar at the bottom of the screen is called the taskbar. On it are the Start button, any programs you are currently running, the Notification Area and the Clock.

The Start button allows you to run your programs, open documents, find files and shut down the computer.

Any programs you are running will appear as buttons on the taskbar. On the bar above, you can see that the program Microsoft Word is running.

The notification area tells you about what is happening on your computer system. If you were printing, a printer icon would appear here. The example above shows the anti-virus software is running in the background of the computer system.

The clock shows the current time.

• Rest your mouse pointer on the clock to see the current date. You can set the time on the clock to whatever you wish.