13. WINDOWS 7 DESKTOP - 1

In this Windows 7 Desktop Lesson I want to give you a brief description of what a desktop is. You can arrange the icons on the electronic desktop just as you can arrange real objects on a real desktop -- moving them around, putting one on top of another, reshuffling them, and throwing them away. Many users put files and shortcuts to programs on their desktop so they can find them easily. I would like to show you some fun features of the Windows desktop.

 

By right clicking anywhere on the desk top you can access the features menu. These features allow you to move, change the view, and sort icons on your desktop. It will also open windows for you to make changes to the appearance of your desktop.

Put your mouse over View. This will bring up another menu you can use to change the size of your icons by selecting, Large Icons, Medium Icons, or Small Icons. You can also automatically arrange your icons with Auto Arrange. This feature if checked will automatically organize your icons on your desktop when new items are deleted. Align icons to grid will keep all icons in a line and won't let you place them out of line on your desktop. 

Show desktop icons if checked will show all icons placed on your desktop. If unchecked no icons will show up on your desktop. Gadgets put information and fun things on your desktop. The Show desktop gadgets option in the view menu will either display or hide any selected gadgets.

Another desktop tool in this menu is Sort By. Right click again anywhere on your desktop and put your mouse over Sort By to make a sub Menu appear.

When you are adding and deleting icons on your desktop they tend to get placed anywhere and occasionally need to be sorted. The sort by option will sort your icons by name, size, item type, or date modified. The Name option will alphabetize the icons. Size will sort by the size of the file. Item type will group all excel icons, .pdf files, folders, etc. Date modified will organized them according to the date they were placed on your desktop.

The Refresh option in the menu will refresh any gadgets on the desktop along with the icons that might change.

The Paste and Paste shortcut options will be grayed out until you have copied something you would like to place on the desktop.

Undo Copy is used to undo copying a file to the desktop. In Windows XP if a file was copied from the C drive to the desktop and you realized that you copied the wrong file you would have manually moved it back. In Windows 7 you can use the Undo Copy button to make that change.

Right clicking on the desktop and selecting New will bring up a sub menu with options to create new folders, files or short cuts on your desktop. This list will change from computer to computer based on the programs you have installed. If you select Folder a new folder will be place on your desktop with the folder name highlighted for you to change. The Shortcut option will open a window for you to browse to the file you would like to create the shortcut to. Once you have selected the file click Ok and you will return to the desktop with the shortcut created. Any other selection will place a file associated with the selected program on your desktop for you to name.