How to use a windows pc? Begineers series part 2.

How to use a Windows pc.
Many computers and laptops are running Microsoft Windows as their operating system. So, learning how to use it is important. One day or another, it doesn't matter what job you're in, you will be requiring a computer someday. So, learning the basics of how to operate windows can save you the learning time and boost your productivity.

In the first part, we ventured around the Windows operating system a bit, now in this article, we will go into a little more depth. So let's get started. I'll list the important points as I go through.


So. before getting deep down, just let some concepts sink deep into you. they are really going to be helpful to you. I'll try to explain in a simpler manner as possible. So, let's start:

Ram: RAM stands for random access memory, it a very important part of a computer and I thought that I should tell you about it. Everything that happens on your computer happens inside the RAM, it is like the place where all the interesting things like computation are performed(CPU does the computation.). A little bit more about it in the following articles.  PC's have RAM storage about 4GB, 8GB and 16 GB. How do I know mine? while keep reading, I'll tell you about it in the later section.

Software: The set of instructions given for the working of a computer system is called software.

System software: system software is made up of instructions used for the management of devices. It is needed to make the hardware active.

Application software: Is that of software that is used for a certain activity such as for word processing, image processing. Eg: Ms word, Adobe Photoshop.

Drivers: A device driver or hardware drivers are software that enables the hardware devices to communicate with the operating system. Without a driver, the operating system would not be able to share and receive information with the hardware device. For eg. if you buy a printer then you will get a cd with it, the cd contains software which enables the operating system to recognize the printer.

While operating with any computer you will commonly be sharing and receiving or modifying files. So, let's know what are they? Any type of document or application which records information is called a file. Files live inside folders.

Folders: That type of container that contains a file, documents, applications is called a folder. There are two types of folders:

1. System folders: The type of folders which is automatically loaded when an operating system is to be loaded is called system folder. Ex: Like in C: drive you might have seen there are many folders which are never made by you, they are system folders other like my computer etc.
2. User-defined folders(UDF):  That type of folders which the user creates to store files or folders are called user-defined folders.

I"ll try to explain pointwise.

1. Practise: Practise your learning, yes that's right! you need to open your computer and start typing or do whatever you want to do. See, working with computers is not very hard, with a little bit of practise anyone can do it, moreover, it's something practical that you're doing physically with your hands. As your brain recognizes the pattern in the way things work it will start running smoothly for you.

2. Preinstalled applications: Microsoft Windows comes with preinstalled software for basic image viewing and editing texts, painting, viewing videos. So, let's get familiar with them:

• MS Paint: Paint is an application which Microsoft has been providing since it's early XP days. It's famous too. Mostly among graphics designers. You remember when we were kids our teacher used to open it for us and told us to draw, that is how I was introduced to it. It does not provide much functionality but it also has some good uses too. In Windows 10 it is slowly being replaced with Paint 3D. The flow chart(hardware one) I did it in the paint application.
• WordPad: Wordpad is a light word processing tool it is not much used but if your teaching little kids to use word processing tool then the application is just fine.
• Notepad: Notepad is a very simple looking text editor. You can use it for normal editing. It is also very famous among website developers who are beginners. At the same time, it is very powerful also. You can read more about it in -http://simmienweb.blogspot.com/2014/10/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-notepad.html.
• Windows media player: Windows media player is Microsoft's media player it plays smoothly. Though it cannot play some other files like mkv, flv. I hope they find an update to that.

Much of you use smartphone nowadays, u might be familiar with apps right. Well when Microsoft intoduced Windows 8, they inroduced Microsoft Store too, where you could run apps on your pc. So, When Microsoft introduced Windows 10 they improved much on this and released a lot of apps which are very useful like action games and apps like messenger, Instagram, Netflix, etc and as the years are passing by their services are getting better and better. After 5 years from now win 10 will be really something to watch. Let's get back on topic. 

• Windows 10 comes with preloaded apps also, to name a few like Microsoft groove music, if you are using win 10 then this is your default media player. Second, is the movies app, this is the default app for videos. (I'll also teach you how to open a file through different applications of your choice in later sections). 
• If you have been on and off in the computer world I mean like u used windows like 7 years ago and you started using windows recently(2019) or if you don't pay that much attention to your apps, then I want to tell you that Microsoft has changed a lots of it applications and shifted to apps. For eg: In Windows 7 when you open an image then it would open with Windows photo viewer but in windows 10 it will by default open with Photos app.

I guess for a starter If you sink this much information in then you're on the right track. You should remember that no matter how many articles you read if you don't explore and use the features most probably you'll forget them but knowing the concepts is an important thing too.


Now let's learn the basics. If you know them, feel free to skip. You will see as the levels rise it'll start to become easier.

1. How to create a new folder.: It's simple all you have to do is right click and choose New and then you'll see many options, click on the first one Folder option. You'll see a new folder just made fresh. Type the name that you want and press enter and your folder is created. This process is the same everywhere, I did this on my desktop, but if you opened the file explorer( file explorer is the application or program through which you see the files on your computer) when I open my computer(THIS PC IN WIN 10)  you open any drive suppose D: drive then you can follow the same process. Right-click and choose new and choose New folder and you are done.

FILE EXPLORER

2. Renaming files: Modifying files is a crucial part of using a computer, the way you rename files and folders is the same. Just right click on the file or folder then select rename. It's easy you'll get the hang of it once you get used to it. You can repeat this procedure for all software and videos and anything that has a name. ( Alert: This does not apply to all names as you cannot have two files with the same name in the same folder. secondly, you can not name your file with some reserved words.) for eg: go to your desktop and make a new folder try to name it as 'con' and then see the magic.

3. Deleting your files: This is done the same way too. You see while learning computers is that once you know a particular concept then learning the next one get pretty simple. So, you right click and click delete, if a window prompts you for confirmation then press ok.

Selection: Selection is a very important tool. Suppose if want to select 1 file you can simply delete it, by doing the method mentioned above or you do it with the keyboard by clicking the file and pressing delete(short form 'del') on the keyboard. So, if you want to delete like 10 files then if you do it one by one it will become tedious so what you do is you select it, how? well, you first click the left mouse button and keep pressing it at the same time, you drag mouse till you get to hit the desired amount and perform the desired task.

I know the article is getting too long, pls bear with me I'm doing my best to explain things in a simple way, btw I'm not a pro too, I'm just like any guy like you who was going to articles like these to learn and guess what I'm helping someone too, please hold on. Things might be appearing simple to you but I do have the meaty information. 

4. Selection tricks and shortcuts:
1. Ctrl+A (stands for the control key on the keyboard press A while holding the ctrl key): It selects everything in the windows you are in.
2. Ctrl+left arrow(selectes char and files on the left of the selected file)
3. Ctrl+right arrow(selectes char and files on the right of the selected file)
4. Ctrl+up, Ctrl+down: You can experiment and figure out on your own.

Sometimes we make mistakes and sometimes we can't correct them, but to our relief in the computer world, we can undo and redo our mistakes if we want to. Suppose if you renamed a file incorrectly and you want the previous name to come again then what you need to do is click on a free area in the window or any free space on the desktop and you will see an option which says undo(---------) change, so press that button and the previous name will re-appear or you could press Ctrl+z also. The same thing goes for the redo.

5. Another most important method is copying and pasting files.

The procedure is just the same you right-click on the desired file or software and then you click copy and you go the desired place where you want to paste it and right click and then you choose paste.

Alert: copy and cut are two different things if you choose cut then the file, it will be replaced totally from the original place but if you choose copy then the file gets copied but it stays at its original place.


6. Properties window: Properties is a very useful tool in Microsoft Windows it allows you to examine what the file type and what is the size( Yes the size! It's an important part as you continue learning you will find that knowing size of a file is important)  of the file. If you see the last image you'll see properties as the last option(most of the time it will be listed last). Click on it.

As you can see it shows you the size and a lot more info but we are not going to talk about them today. You can check properties of any file or application in windows, know about its info and do a lot more with it.

Very Imp:

File type: Before you move up higher you have to learn this. It is also known as file format it is a standard way in which information is encoded for storage in a computer file. You can know what a file is by knowing their type. Some type examples are:

JPEG (or JPG) - Joint Photographic Experts Group.
PNG - Portable Network Graphics.
GIF - Graphics Interchange Format.
TIFF - Tagged Image File.
PSD - Photoshop Document.
PDF - Portable Document Format.
AI - Adobe Illustrator Document.

If you want to check the type of a file it is simple you just have to open the properties and there you will see the type of the file like in the picture below.

External storage devices.

External storage devices are the devices that you externally plug into your pc for extra storage for copying files etc.

Flash drives: Flash drives they are commonly known as USB(Universal serial bus) too. The way you use it is first you plug it into your USB port. (most of you what I'm talking about, for some people don't worry you find out soon yourself). They are of typically 4GB, 8GB, 16GB and 32 GB it can be higher. for eg:

  As you can see my USB is of 4GB you can use this like any storage device to copy and paste files into it like your documents and videos etc.

Knowing about the general information about your computer like your RAM, CPU type 

What company and whether your windows is activated or not then follow the steps. Right click on my computer(THIS PC in win 10) and click properties. or right click and select properties in the windows as seen in the above image when you open THIS PC. You will get something like this: 

So, you have learnt a lot in this journey, let the information sink deep, practice and let me know if you have any troubles, more advanced articles are ahead so stay tuned. Thanks for your patience.