Windows 2000 Pro: The Missing Manual

Chapter 4. Windows, Folders, and the Taskbar

Windows got its name from the rectangles on the screen—the windows—in which every computer activity takes place. You look at a Web page in a window, type short stories in a window, read email in a window, and look at the contents of a folder in a window—sometimes all at once.

This overlapping-windows scheme makes using a computer much easier than windowless operating systems like DOS. But it has a downside of its own, as any Windows veteran can tell you: As you create more files, stash them in more folders, and launch more programs, it's easy to wind up paralyzed before a screen awash with cluttered, overlapping rectangles.

Fortunately, Windows is crawling with icons, buttons, and other inventions to help you keep these windows under control.

Windows in Windows

There are two categories of windows in Windows: desktop windows (which open when you double-click a disk or folder icon) and application windows (which appear when you're working on a document or in a program, such as Word or Internet Explorer). Nonetheless, all of these windows have certain components in common. Figure 4-1 shows a representative example: the window that appears when you double-click the My Documents icon on your desktop.

• Title bar. This top strip displays the name of the window. It's also the "handle" that you drag when you want to move the window on the screen.

• Minimize button. Click this button to temporarily hide a window; it shrinks down into the form of a button ...