Regardless of what your long term goals are in using your computer, being able to control what's visible on your screen at any given moment is a critical basic skill. When you're in control of what's visible on your own screen, you're in control of your computer. For starters, you need to realize that every program that's currently open appears in a window on the Windows desktop. Each open program window also has a rectangular button in the taskbar, as illustrated in Figure 1.
Figure 1
If you think of each open program as a task in progress (that is, something you're currently working on), then you can think of the taskbar as the place where you can switch among those tasks. Right now, if there are any rectangular buttons in your taskbar, click it, wait a second, then click it again. Keep doing this while watching the screen to see how a program's taskbar button makes that window appear and disappear each time you click the button. Notice how the icon in the taskbar matches the icon in the upper left corner of the window that the button controls.
A minimized program window is one that takes up no space at all on the desktop -- only its taskbar button is visible. If you want to see what your Windows desktop looks like, right now, you can click on the Show Desktop button in the Quick Launch toolbar, or right-click the current time in the lower right corner of your screen and choose Show Desktop as shown in Figure 2. All Windows will be minimized so you can clearly see your entire Windows desktop. To bring any minimized window back into view, just click its rectangular taskbar button.
Figure 2
You may want to practice those skills for a while, because they really give you a lot of control over what is, and what is not, visible on your screen at any given moment.
Most program windows can be maximized, which is the opposite of being minimized. When a program window is maximized, it covers the entire desktop. That program window's title bar is stretched clear across the top of your screen. Its Maximize/Restore button will show two little squares, as in Figure 3. To unmaximize a window, just click on that Restore button. Or, double-click that window's title bar.
Figure 3
Once the window is no longer maximized, its Maximize/Restore button shows only a single large square as in Figure 4. Clicking that button would re-maximize the window.
Figure 4
Not all windows can me maximized -- some windows have a fixed size. If the particular window cannot be maximized, it may still show a Maximize/Restore button, just to be consistent with all title bars. But the Maximize/Restore button will be disabled (dimmed), as in Figure 5, to indicate that the button doesn't work in this particular window. No amount of clicking on a disabled button will make the button work.
Figure 5
Tip: To see an example of a program window with a disabled Maximize button, click your Start button and choose All Programs > Accessories > Calculator. You can move, but not size, the Calculator's program window.
In between the two extremes of being minimized or maximized, a program window can be any size you wish. As long as a program's window is neither minimized or maximized at the moment, you can move and size the window to your liking. This allows you to see multiple program windows on your screen all at the same time.
There are a couple of ways to get all the open program windows on your screen arranged in such a way that none of them are maximized. Note that when you try these, you're likely to temporarily lose this text you're reading. So you may want to just read for a while here, then actually try it when you get to the section titled "Try It Out" below.
One way to resize all the open program windows, so that you can see at least some portion of each, is to right-click the current time in the lower right corner of the screen and choose one of the Tile Windows... options. The result of your selection will depend on how many program windows are open at the moment. If only one program window is open, you end up with one large tile. If two programs are open, you end up with two tiles, each taking up half the screen. If three programs are open, each will be sized to about 1/3rd of the screen, and so forth. Figure 6 shows an example where there are five programs open. You can see the title bar for each open program window. Notice how they're laid out like tiles.
Figure 6
Another way to size all the open program windows on your desktop in one fell swoop is to cascade the windows. Cascading lays out the open windows like sheets of paper on the desktop, with only the title bar of most windows visible, as in Figure 7. This is the same five program windows shown in Figure 6, but laid out in a cascading, rather than tiled, format. To cascade all open windows, you right-click the current time in the lower right corner of the screen and choose Cascade Windows from the menu that appears.
Figure 7
When programs windows are tiled or cascaded, you can easily move them around by dragging their title bars. For example, if you're viewing this on the screen right now (as opposed to a printed copy), Figure 8 shows an animation of dragging a window around by its title bar. You should try doing that with one of the open program windows on your own desktop (the motion will be smooth on your own screen -- not "jerky" like the animation shown in the figure).
Figure 8
When a window is neither minimized nor maximized, you can also size it to your liking (except in the case of a window that has a fixed sized, which is relatively rare). To size a window, point to any edge or corner of that window until the mouse pointer turns to a two-headed arrow. Then hold down the left mouse button and drag that edge or corner in the direction you want to size the window. Figure 9 shows an animation of sizing a window (again, the motion on your screen would be smooth, not jerky like the animation).
Figure 9
Moving and sizing program windows lets you see more than one thing at a time on your screen. For example in Figure 10 you can see portions of the Windows desktop, a dialog box, and a Web page all at the same time.
Figure 10
If you make a program window narrower than the contents of that window, you'll see a horizontal scroll bar at the bottom of the window, which you can use the scroll left and right through any text that's currently out of view. But ideally you want to size a window so it's just wide enough to show its contents without displaying the horizontal scroll bar, but not so wide as to cover the entire Windows desktop.
