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Starting and Stopping a Computer

One of the most fundamental operations performed by the Windows operating system is to provide the means of starting and stopping the computer.

STARTING THE COMPUTER

Of course one has to turn the power on to start the computer. But that is only the start of the process. Once the power is turned on, a special little program built into the computer hardware, called a boot (short for bootstrap program), is run. This boot program does nothing else than to load part of the Windows operating system into memory and start executing it. These first operations check out the various devices connected to the computer to make sure they are working okay and then create and display the computer desktop. This is what appears on the display unit when the computer is ready to use. An example desktop is shown below.


It is a desktop for a computer that has Windows XP installed on it. Notice the various icons on the desktop. These are little pictures on the left side which represent programs, files, folders and other computer entities. For example, an icon might represent a shortcut to the Internet Explorer web browsing program. If this icon is on the desktop (in the picture above it is the blue "e" icon), then double clicking on it would select it and then start the Internet Explorer program.

The desktop can be personalized to suit the individual user so the above view of one is not likely to be the same as the one you might have on your computer. Also, if your operating system is not Windows XP the desktop will look different. For example, the picture below shows the desktop for a computer using Windows 98.


Notice that no matter which version of Windows is on your computer there is a taskbar along the bottom of the desktop. This taskbar has a Start button on the left. While one can double click on an icon on the desktop to select and activate a program it is also possible to select and start up a program using this Start button. This is especially necessary if the program is not used very often and does not have a shortcut icon on the desktop. (See below.)

Also in the taskbar are buttons for each program that is currently running on the computer. In the Windows 98 desktop picture above one program is running. It is Internet Explorer, the web browser, and it is showing the Penticton and District Seniors' Centre web page. Normally when such a program is running it will have a window filling the display unit screen. However, this window can be shrunk down to be invisible except for its button in the taskbar so that other programs can be run and seen. To have the window for the program reappear all one has to do is to click on its button in the taskbar.

Other icons appear in the task bar. These are quick launch icons. Clicking on any one of them will cause that program to start.

The icons that show at the right of the taskbar are for programs that are currently running in the background. That is, they are running just to keep a check on what is happening or to know when they are needed. For example a very common icon here is a speaker. Clicking on it causes a small window to appear with a volume control that can be used to turn of the volume of any sound being played on the computer.

STARTING A PROGRAM

As mentioned above any program that has an icon on the desktop can be started by double clicking on the icon. (The first click selects the icon and the second click causes the program to start running.) If the program has a quick launch icon in the task bar it can be started simply by clicking on the icon.

However, there are programs that do not have an icon on the desktop nor in the taskbar. They can be started by using the Start button. When one clicks on the Start button a new window appears as shown below for Windows XP.


STOPPING THE COMPUTER

Although one can stop the computer simply by turning off its power this is not a good idea. This is because the computer may be in the middle of doing something like writing the information for a data file onto a disk and a sudden power loss could cause the file to become corrupted. Therefore there is a routine that should be used to stop the computer. It is as follows:

  1. Make sure that no application programs are currently running by shutting them down. (Most will have an Exit button that is used to exit the program otherwise you can click on the X in the top right corner of the window running the program to shut it down.)
  2. Click on the Start button at the bottom left of the window. For Windows 98 from the menu that is displayed click on Shut Down. For Windows XP just click on the Turn Off Computer icon at the bottom of the window.
  3. In Windows 98 a small window will appear. Select Shut Down and click on the OK button. In Windows XP ....

© 2004 Doug van Vianen