| The Windows Desktop |
The Windows Desktop (Fig. 17) is the main screen that you see when you start Windows.
Fig 17
The Windows Desktop is like your personal desktop, where you put your favorite files and stuff. You can personalize it the way you want, so that it can fit your needs and represent your style. Some people like their Windows Desktop to be tidy, while others just leave the Windows default style. Some people have shortcuts to documents and other paper work on their desktop, while others have their desktop filled with shortcuts to games. So you can personalize your Windows desktop to represent yourself and your style! Now we will concentrate over the components of the Windows Desktop: Icons
|  | Icons (Fig. 18) are small pictures that represent files and/or folders on your hard disk. When you double click an icon with your mouse it will open the file of folder that it represents. Icons can be dragged and moved around the desktop, so that you can arrange them the way you want. You can drag icons over other folders, thus moving them to the selected folder. Different types of files have different type of icons. Pictures have other icons than text documents, and so on. Windows XP also includes a new feature that allows you to give a folder a unique icon. The My Computer icon (Fig. 19) is the way to a window that displays hard drives, other devices installed on your computer like scanners, cameras, etc and documents.
Fig. 18 |  | The My Documents icon represents the My Documents Folder which stores
our documents. You can put you pictures, videos, music and other files here. The Recycle Bean icon represents the Recycle Bean, a system folder that stores files you want to remove from your computer. Windows stores these files here, because you might want to restore them. After you delete files from the Recycle Bean you can not get them back. Changing folder icons To change a folder icon, you must first right click the folder, and then select proprieties (Fig. 20). Then, a propriety window will pop up (Fig. 21).
Fig 19 | Fig 20
|  | A list of default icons will appear (Fig 21). You will chose one you like from the list and then click OK. You can also choose another icon on your disk, by clicking browse, and giving the path to it. Then, from the propriety Window, you will click Apply, or OK to apply the settings.
Fig. 21 |  |