May 2002
Beginner
584 pages
18h 18m
English
Content preview from Windows XP Home Edition: The Missing ManualBecome an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
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Chapter 2. The Desktop and Start Menu
When you turn on a Windows XP computer for the first time, you may think that you’re simply seeing the traditional Windows startup process as redesigned by a West Coast graphic designer.
Yes, it starts up slightly faster—that’s one of the most heavily advertised new features of Windows XP—but otherwise, turning on a PC shows little more than a newfangled version of the progress bar you may know and love from earlier editions of Windows.
If it’s a new computer, you may also receive a big hello from the company that sold it to you.
Then, if you’ve just performed a clean installation of Windows XP (see Appendix A), or if it’s a brand-new PC, you may now be treated to a series of blue “Welcome to Microsoft Windows” setup screens. This Setup Wizard guides you through setting up an Internet account, activating your copy of Windows (Section A-3), setting up accounts for different people who will be sharing this computer (Chapter 16), and so on. Appendix A has a complete description of this process.
After that basic startup business is taken care of, however, you may be in for a series of surprises.
Logging On
What happens next depends on whether you’re the PC’s sole proprietor or share it with other people in an office, school, or household.
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