What Is This? Windows Basics

5.1. Operating Systems cont.

Operating systems allow you to customize almost everything you see on your screen.  You may choose to hide or move taskbars and icons, change backgrounds and colours or make many other viewing adjustments.  This course will try to use examples that are close to the standard or default modes.  You may need to look around a bit on your computer if you or someone else has made customizations to the layout.

For this course, you will be working with the Microsoft Windows® OS, with screenshot examples from Windows 8.1®.  Other browsers will have a similar look but menus and icons may be located in different places.

Windows 8.1® is designed to work with the new touchscreens and it is possible to "swipe" various areas of the screen to bring up programs and navigation bars.  In this course, we will provide instructions for mouse users as touchscreens are not yet in wide use.