Windows XP Pro: The Missing Manual, Second Edition

Window Toolbars

On the day it’s born, every Windows XP desktop window has a standard toolbar across the top (see Figure 2-9). A toolbar is simply a strip of one-click buttons like Back, Forward, Search, and so on.

But by choosing View→Toolbars, or right-clicking a blank spot on a toolbar and pointing to Toolbars on the shortcut menu, you can add or hide whichever toolbars you like, on a window-by-window basis. Three different toolbars are availabel from the View menu: Standard Buttons, Address Bar, and Links.

Tip

As anyone in the U.S. Justice Department could probably tell you, the Internet Explorer Web browser is deeply embedded in Windows itself. These window toolbars are perfect examples: They appear not only in desktop windows but also in Internet Explorer when you’re browsing the Web. In fact, you’ll probably find them even more useful when you’re browsing the Web than when browsing your desktop folders.

The Standard Buttons Toolbar

This toolbar helps you navigate your desktop (or the Web). The desktop version contains buttons like these:

• Back, Forward. On the Web, these buttons let you return to Web pages you’ve just seen. At the desktop, they display the contents of a disk or folder you’ve just seen. If you’re using one-window-at-a-time mode (see “Uni-Window vs. Multi-Window” in Section 2.2.3), these buttons are your sole means of getting around as you burrow through your folders.

Tip

In both Internet Explorer and at the desktop, you can click the tiny down-pointing black triangle ...