Skip to Content
Windows XP Pro: The Missing Manual, Second Edition
book

Windows XP Pro: The Missing Manual, Second Edition

by David Pogue, Craig Zacker, L.J. Zacker
November 2004
Beginner
704 pages
22h 51m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from Windows XP Pro: The Missing Manual, Second Edition

Installing Software

Today, almost all new software comes to your PC from one of two sources: a CD or the Internet. The era of floppy-disk installers is over; you’d need a wheelbarrow to hold all the floppies required to install the average program these days.

Modern software usually comes with an installer program that’s designed to transfer the software files to the correct places on your hard drive. The installer also adds the new program’s name to the Start→All Programs menu, tells Windows about the kinds of files (file extensions) it can open, and makes certain changes to your registry (Appendix C).

Top left: The Advanced box lets you make even more decisions about each file type on your PC, including its auto-downloading behavior, double-click behavior, and (at top right) even its icon. Bottom left: In the top box, type the name for the new shortcut-menu command you want to create. Then click Browse to choose the program file for Photoshop itself. (Alternatively, you could type the path to the Photoshop program into the “Application used to perform action” text box.) Either way, add a space and then %1 to the end of the pathname shown in the lower box—a reference to the file being opened. Bottom right: A doctored shortcut menu at work.

Figure 5-12. Top left: The Advanced box lets you make even more decisions about each file type on your PC, including its auto-downloading behavior, double-click behavior, and (at top right) even its icon. Bottom left: In the top box, type the name for the new shortcut-menu command you want to create. Then click Browse to choose the program file for Photoshop itself. (Alternatively, you could type the path to the Photoshop program into the “Application used to perform action” text box.) Either way, add a space and then %1 to the end of the pathname shown in the lower box—a reference to the file being opened. Bottom right: A doctored shortcut menu at work.

The Pre-Installation Checklist

You can often get away with blindly installing some new program without heeding the checklist below. But ...

Become 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,
and much more.

Read now

Unlock full access

More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly

AirBnbBlueOriginElectronic ArtsHomeDepotNasdaqRakutenTata Consultancy Services

QuotationMarkO’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
QuotationMarkI wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
QuotationMarkI’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
QuotationMarkI'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Mark W.
Embedded Software Engineer

You might also like

Windows XP Professional: The Missing Manual

Windows XP Professional: The Missing Manual

David Pogue, Craig Zacker, L.J. Zacker

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 0596008988Catalog PageErrata