Welcome to the McGrath SeniorNet Learning Center Bulletin Board for the Exploring Windows 7 course. I'll post the answers to questions that we could not answer in class and tips and suggestions about using Windows 7. Don't hesitate to e-mail me with any questions or comments you have about the course—my e-mail address is jcb37310@yahoo.com.
Please put a tickler on your calendar to visit this bulletin board each week for answers to questions that were asked in class.
I encourage you to use the Open Lab on Wednesday afternoon from 3:00 to 5:00. Knowledgeable instructors will be there to answer any questions you have and the Learning Center computers are available for you to practice what has been discussed in class. There is no substitute for repetition. There is no substitute for repetition. The Open Lab is essentially two hours of extra instruction for free. Take advantage of it.
I maintain a list of Windows 7 reference links to web sites on the Internet for our Windows 7 workshop. You may find some of them useful to supplement the information in your manual. You can find the links here.
I promised today would be intense. I hope you weren't disappointed. :-) Much of our time today was spent with the different ways of copying and moving files. Here is a link that summarizes the different actions that occur depending on what and where you are "dragging". The linked page is for Vista but it also applies to Windows 7. I really looked hard on the Internet for a good, straight-forward summary of copying and moving files, but I couldn't find one. Maybe I'll write one later.
There were parts of Lesson 5 we did not cover today. We'll go back and pick those up next week before we move on to Lesson 6. One part we did not cover was using some of the menu commands in copying and pasting files or folders. We used the Edit menu (after we activated the Menu bar by using the Organize button on the toolbar and then selecting Layout and Menu bar, or by pressing the Alt key to temporarily activate the menu bar) commands Cut, Copy, and Paste after we selected a file(s) or folder(s) to copy or move. The Edit menu has two other commands that can be used after you select items to act on: Move to folder and Copy to folder. This is shown in Fig. 21 of Lesson 5 in your manual. Here is a link that gives more explanation and illustration of using this. Additionally, you may recall that when we copied the Student Files to your flash drive, we used the Send to command after we selected the entire Exploring Windows 7 Student Files folder to copy those files from the C: drive to your flash drive. That is another technique to organize your files into folders.
As I said in class today, it will benefit you to go through Lesson 5 again (and please make notes of any questions you have) and, of course, for next week read and do the exercises in Lesson 6. See you then.
We didn't have any questions that needed answering on the bulletin board this week. Lesson 5 is the heart of this course. I can't stress enough how beneficial it will be to go through the exercises at home this week. It will make the class much more meaningful to you. See you Tuesday.
Today, one of the features we covered was Aero Snap, which allows you to place two windows side-by-side by dragging each to one side of the screen. While illustrating this feature, I said that in Vista and XP you had to manually resize and drag windows to accomplish this. That turns out to be not exactly true. After class, Ralph Dale showed me a trick that has been available since XP, but that I was not aware of. The trick is still available with Windows 7. If you have two open windows that you want to place side-by-side, right click the taskbar and select Show Windows side by side from the popup menu. In XP, this same right click on the taskbar produces a menu that refers to this same action as Tile Windows Horizontally. These menu selections place the windows side-by-side in XP, Vista, and Win7. In all 3 operating systems, right clicking on the taskbar again pops up a menu on which one selection is Undo side by side (or Undo Tile in XP). Selecting this item takes you back where you started from.
If you want each window to occupy half the screen, you must have only those two windows open. If you have 3 or more windows open, it places them all side by side, which may or may not be what you want. The more windows involved, the narrower each is. Aero Snap in Win7 is more selective since it allows you to choose which windows you want place side by side.
For next week, go through the exercises in Lesson 4. Have a great week!
We didn't have a lot of questions that were not answered in class today. After we moved the taskbar to the left side of the screen, John asked if the Start Button could be moved to the bottom (i.e., in the lower left corner of the screen where it usually is). We tried and could not move it during class. I did a little research on the web and the posts from experts I found says it cannot be done.
After class, Bob asked about changing the icon that is displayed for an application. He has one that has gotten set to the wrong icon, e.g., the Microsoft Outlook program displays the icon for Quicken. I showed Bob how to change the icon and thought I'd discuss it here for the class's benefit.
The first step is to find the program file for the program with the wrong icon on your hard drive, in this case, outlook.exe. The correct icon for this program (and most programs) will be inside the executable (exe) file and you will need to copy its address (path) to use later in this process. Here is how to find the program and copy its address:
Now, to actually change the icon:
For next week, read Lesson 3 and try all the steps. See you then.
I hope you enjoyed the first class. As you read through Lesson 1 and do the exercises this week—you're going to do that, right?—here are a couple of areas of the manual to pay attention to:
Help and Support on page 17. We didn't go through this during class, so go through the steps and make sure you don't have any questions about how to search for things in help. If you do have questions, make a note of them to bring to class next week or send me an e-mail.
The various shutdown modes described on pages 20 and 21. You change the settings for these modes from the Power Options selection under Control Panel. The easiest way to find them is to click the Start Button and type "change sleep" in the Search box. Same note as above about questions.
One thing we talked about today (and I demonstrated) that is not in the manual is how to change the settings of the buttons on the right side of the Start Menu (Documents, Pictures, Music, etc.). The default (that is, the way Windows 7 is configured out of the box on a new computer) action of the buttons is to act as a link and open Windows Explorer to the appropriate folder. We changed this to act more as XP did: producing "fly out" menus. Here are the steps:
By the way, the Customize Start Menu dialog box is also where you turn on/turn off the Recent Items buttons on the right side of the Start Menu. This button gives you quick access to any file (document, picture, music, etc.) you have recently worked with.
John asked a question about the difference between 32-bit Windows and 64-bit Windows. Here's a link that sheds a little light on the question. John's question was specifically about his netbook and we'll try to answer that for him one on one.
There were several other questions about specific issues you have at home. We'll cover many of those as we go through the lessons. If we don't answer your question, bring it back up when we cover the material and lessons relevant to the topic. Or you can always e-mail me at the address at the bottom of the page.
Again, I encourage you to make use of the Open Lab time on Wednesday afternoons between 3 and 5.
See you next week. Oh, and don't forget to read Lesson 2 and try the steps before then.
The information below is from questions asked in previous Exploring Windows 7 classes (or perhaps from its predecessor course Exploring Vista).
In researching some questions about e-mail, I came across a web page that explains it thoroughly in simple terms. If you're interested in the technical details of what happens when you press Send, take a look at how e-mail works from HowStuffWorks.
This is the first time I've looked at the HowStuffWorks web site. It appears to have many good articles. For example, someone asked about "cloud" computing last week. There is a good article here about that.
I recommend that your day-to-day computing be done with a standard user account since the administrator account allows any "user" (who would include someone who successfully broke into your computer over the Internet connection or someone who broke into your house and accessed your computer) access to everything on the computer. When you first setup Windows, it requires you to create your user account. By default, this first account is an administrator account so that you can install programs. You may or may not have set a password to log on to this account. Most folks don't because it's a little bit of a hassle to type your password when you log on. But without a password, using this administrator account for day-to-day computing leaves your computer accessible to anyone in the house or a successful intruder from the Internet. If you're just surfing the web or using e-mail, this is probably not a big deal. But, if you have confidential information on your computer, such as bank account info, it is a big deal. At a minimum, you should set a password on the account that you use every day.
Now, back to using a standard user account for every day work. You must have at least one administrator account on Windows to allow you to install programs and make changes that require access to the operating system itself. I said I would post instructions for converting your default administrator account to a standard user account. I found on the Internet an article that explains this straightforwardly. Click here to read the article.
If you set up a new admin account as described in the article and convert your default admin account to a standard user account, you will still have all your files and settings in the converted standard user account. This is good. It may, however, mean that you have confidential information in there also. You don't want that. You want the confidential stuff to be in the admin account. The way to manage this is to log on to the new admin account (you'll be given the choice of account to log in to on the opening screen when you turn on your computer) and copy the files with confidential information from the standard user account folders to the new admin account folders. Each account has it own Documents, Pictures, etc., folders and you can access both through Windows Explorer because you are running as administrator. After you copy the files, restart the computer and choose to log in to the standard user account. You're ready to go.
We talked about running an older program using the compatibility settings that are found by right clicking on the program executable file name in Windows Explorer, clicking Properties on the popup context menu, and clicking the Compatibility tab along the top of the dialog box. This is covered on page 14 of Lesson 4 in your manual. That takes care of older programs. One of the issues created when you upgrade from an earlier version of Windows or buy a new computer with Windows 7 is that you may have an older printer or scanner and wonder if it is compatible with Windows 7. Microsoft has a wonderful web page to check this out. Click here to go to the Windows 7 compatibility center. Here you can click on your brand of printer or scanner or other peripheral equipment to see if it is compatible.
Ingrid asked about DVD formats, specifically she asked, "what are DVD+ and DVD-". As I said today, the + and - indicate different formats that specify how information is written to a DVD disc. The important thing is that the format on the DVD disc itself and the capability of your DVD drive to play that format must match. This is not an easy question to answer completely, because these are not the only two formats and it can get downright technical and confusing. If, however, you want to read more about it, click here.
Here is how you check what security protocol is being used on a wireless network, such as a home network. In the notification area on the right side of the taskbar, click the network connection symbol. For a wireless network, this will look like the signal-strength bars on your cell phone. Move your mouse pointer over the line for the network to which you are connected. A tool tip will popup and one of the lines of information will be the "Security Type" (encryption protocol) that is in effect for that connection.
Pat asked about turning on the hibernate option for shutting down the computer if it was not presented as an option on the shutdown menu. Your manual (beginning on page 19 of Lesson 1) gives a good summary of the different shutdown modes: shutdown, sleep, hibernate, and hybrid sleep. Your manual notes that hibernate is designed primarily for laptop/notebook computers and hybrid sleep for desktop computers. What I did not realize until I began to research the answer to Pat's question is that hibernate and hybrid sleep cannot be turned on together.
To add hibernate to the shutdown menu, do the following:
So that answers Pat's question about how to add Hibernate to the shutdown menu. Now that I understand that you must turn off Hybrid Sleep to accomplish this, I would recommend that for a desktop computer you leave the settings at their default values. For a desktop, hybrid sleep is more important to have than hibernate.
In an earlier class, we talked about the need to use the Safely Remove Hardware icon in the notification area of the desktop—the area on the far right of the taskbar—before removing a flash drive. I explained that you only need to use that icon if you have write caching enabled for your flash drive. Here is how you check or set the write caching feature:
More than likely, the Quick Removal policy will already be selected. If it is not, I recommend that you select it so you do not have to use the Safely Remove Hardware process.
We talked about text editors that could replace Notepad and provide a spelling checker. Here is a link to a comparison of text editors that are available for download. It is comprehensive so here is how you evaluate a potential editor:
If you use a text editor frequently, it is worthwhile to spend some time finding one that suits your needs.
Here's an interesting link I stumbled upon while searching for something else: articles by the Elder Geek. It's a collection of articles by a lady that writes for a website for seniors. Her advice is clear and straightforward. They are not necessarily about topics we're discussing, but you might find it useful.
Someone asked why the Calculator program window could not be "maximized" to fill the screen. I could not find any information about the reasons behind this on the Internet. I guess the Microsoft programmers just felt that the Calculator window was big enough!
This page is part of my web site jcby.com (home/toc). If you have any question about the class or using Windows 7, please e-mail me at jcb37310@yahoo.com.