Using the Computer & Managing Files

This module is about demonstrating your knowledge and competence in using the common
functions of a personal computer and its operating system. Tasks in this workbook will help
you to work through all syllabus requirements for this module, equipping you for the test.

1. If you have an application that is not responding to the keyboard or mouse, you cannot
close down the program in the normal way. Do the following to end a task:

• Press the Ctrl+Alt+Del keys at the same time.

• This will display a dialog box, you should then select the ‘Task Manager’
• Select the program that is no longer responding
• Click on the ‘End Process’ button

Try opening Microsoft Word, then ending the program as described above.

2. It is possible to view the computer’s basic information, including the operating system
installed, it’s version number and the amount of RAM that the computer has (Random
Access Memory).

Do the following to view this information:

• Select ‘Start’ from the taskbar.

• Select ‘Control Panel’
• Select ‘System’ from the window
• Select the ‘General’ tab

In the window that appears

you will be able to identify
the following information:

Operating System installed

Version number

Amount of RAM

Note: Be sure you read the other information displayed in this window, so that you are
sure where to look if you were asked a different question.

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3. There are many settings that you might want to change on your computer, including the
date and time, volume or desktop display options (colour settings, screen resolution,
screen saver).

Do the following to change the date and time:

• Select ‘Start’ from the taskbar

• Select ‘Control Panel’
• Select the ‘Date and Time’ icon

The date and time properties will be displayed.

You can change the settings by selecting the information you

wish to change and clicking apply.

Do the following to change the volume:

• Select ‘Start’ from the taskbar

• Select ‘Control Panel’
• Select ‘Sounds and Audio Devices’
• Select the ‘Volume’ tab from the sounds and audio devices properties window
• Select ‘Advanced…’ under Device Volume

• You can then adjust the volume in the volume control window, or choose mute.

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Do the following to change the desktop display options:

• Select ‘Start’ from the taskbar

• Select ‘Control Panel’
• Select ‘Display’

To change the desktop image / colour, choose the ‘Desktop’

tab.

Select the options of you want, followed by clicking on Apply.

Experiment with a few different options.

To change the screen resolution of the display, select the

‘Settings’ tab.

Change the resolution by moving the arrow along the slide bar

Experiment with different resolutions, clicking Apply after

each change.

To change the screen saver that is displayed when you

have not used the computer for a set period of time:

Choose the ‘Screen Saver’ tab.

You can change the wait time before the screen saver starts

You can also change what is displayed as the screen saver

Experiment with different screen savers and settings – click

‘Preview’ when you have made changes, to view the screen
saver – this saves having to wait for the screen saver to begin!!

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4. To change the keyboard language:

• Select ‘Start’
• Select ‘Control Panel’
• Select ‘Keyboard’
• Under keyboard layout you can choose the keyboard that you are currently using
• The input language is where you specify the language that you want to use

You can select ‘Add’ to add a new language. This will

open a new window.

Do not change the language but experiment to see

how you would change it.

5. You need to know how to format a disk. You would need to format a disk to prepare it for
data being written to it.

To do this you should follow these steps:

• Select ‘Start’
• Select ‘My Computer’
• Right click on the disk you wish to format
• From the options, select ‘Format…’

• The following window will be

displayed

• You would select ‘Quick Format’

WARNING: If you format a disk containing valuable data

you will loose that data for good! - BE WARNED!

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6. You need to be aware of how to use the help facility that the operating system (Windows)
offers. To get the ‘Help’ facility, do the following:

• Select ‘Start’
• Select ‘Help and Support’
• In the Help window you
can then enter text to
search for
• Or, select a topic from the list
• Experiment with the help facility
7. When you use a Microsoft application (such as Word, PowerPoint, Excel), by default when
you save a file it will be saved in the My Documents folder.

In the exam it is likely that you will be asked to save a file to a specific place. You must
always make sure that you are saving your work to the correct drive (e.g. C:\) and folder.

When you are saving a file the following

window will be displayed.

You need to select the drop-down list,

followed by the drive that you require
(e.g. A: - floppy disk / C: - hard disk).

All folders within that drive will then be

displayed, where you can select the one
you require.

You can then give your file a name.

8. You need to recognize desktop icons.

The icons below represent a drive e.g. floppy disk, hard disk (local).

By now you should all know what a folder is. As a reminder, they are always represented
by a yellow folder icon. Sometimes a folder is referred to as a directory.

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 If you are still struggling to understand the difference between drives, folders and files,
imagine that a drive is your bookshelf.

On your bookshelf you have lots of folders that all contain work. You have one folder for
each subject. In every folder there are dividers that separate your folder into topics. The
topics would be the sub-folders. Within all folders/sub-folders there are lots of files. Each
file is a piece of work that you have done.

The purpose of folders is to organize your work.

We call the organization of our files a hierarchical structure.

9. When you delete any of your work (a file or a folder), it does not delete it totally from
your computer. Instead, it sends it to the recycle bin.

The recycle bin can be emptied at any point, or files can actually be restored from it. So
if you delete a file/folder by accident, you can look for it in the recycle bin and restore it.
The recycle bin is usually visible on your desktop.

To empty the recycle bin:

• Open the recycle bin, by double-clicking on the desktop icon

• Select ‘File’
• Select ‘Empty Recycle Bin’

To restore a file/folder that is in the recycle bin, but you want to use it again:

• Make sure the recycle bin is open

• Select the file/folder that you want to restore
• Right-click on it
• Select ‘Restore’
• Go to back to ‘My Documents’ and check that your file has been restored

10. Moving icons on the desktop:

To move icons around on the desktop, select the icon, press and hold the left mouse
button and drag the icon to the position you want it to be in.

11. Open a file / folder /application from the desktop, by selecting it and then double-
clicking it.

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12. Sometimes it might be necessary for you to create a new shortcut on the desktop. This
might be because you only want to save something temporarily and you can find it easily,
or you may use the file / folder / application regularly and want to be able to open it
easily and quickly.

To create a new desktop icon:

• Find the file / folder / application using ‘My Computer’

• Select it and holding the left mouse button down, drag it onto the desktop.

• Alternatively, right-click on the desktop

• Select ‘New’
• Choose ‘Shortcut’
• You will then need to click on the ‘Browse…’
button to search for the file / folder /
application that you want to create a shortcut to.

• Try creating a desktop shortcut to something in your documents

• Use both methods, so that you have two different shortcuts

NOTE: You will notice that files / folders / applications that you have created shortcuts to
will be displayed with an arrow in the bottom left corner of the icon:

13. The different parts of a window have names. You need to know what each part of the
window is called.

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14. You need to do other actions with windows, including: collapsing, expanding, resizing,
moving and closing.
To COLLAPSE the window, To EXPAND the window, click
click the minimize icon the maximize icon

To MOVE a window,
To CLOSE the window,
hover over the title
click the close icon
bar, until you see a
four-ended arrow.
You can then click
the left mouse
To RESIZE a window,
button and drag
hover the mouse
the window to the
over the edges of the
position you want.
window see a
double-ended arrow.
You then need to
click the left mouse
button and drag the
window to the right
size.
Try each of these actions out!

15. If you have windows open, but they are minimized, you can restore them quickly and
easily. All you need to do is click on the window that you want to open, displayed in the
taskbar.

If you want to switch between two open windows i.e. if you have one open but want to
view another that is minimized, simply click on the window you want to display – again
this is done at the bottom of the screen in the taskbar.

Try this out! If you only have one window open, open a few more.

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16. The appearance of the Windows Explorer contents window can be customized to display
files and folders in four different views.

The different views can be selected by doing the following:

• Open a folder in C drive (any will do)

• Select ‘View’

Now display the window in ‘Detail’ view:

• Select ‘Details’ to display file names, their sizes and location

• Experiment with the other views to see how the information is displayed

17. Recognize common file types: word-processing files, spreadsheet files, database files,
presentation files, image files, audio files, video files, compressed files, temporary files.

Different types of file will have different file name extensions, and will be displayed with
different icons. You should be able to recognise common file types including:

• Word Processing files - .doc

• Presentation files - .ppt
• Spreadsheet files - .xls
• Database files - .db
• Image files - .gif / .jpg / .bmp
• Audio files - .mid / .mp3 / .wav
• Video files - .avi / .mpg / .mov
• Temporary files - .tmp
• Compressed files - .zip

Identify each of file types below:

18. Normally files are read/write. This means that we can edit them and re-save them
repeatedly. It is possible to make file read-only. This means that they cannot be modified.
For example, the files that are saved in shared areas/folders at school are read-only,
because we do not want students being able to change the work that is saved in there.

It is very easy to change the status of a file/folder.

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 • Select a file Under the attributes title
• Right-click on the file there is an option to set
• Select ‘Properties’ the file to read-only.

Set the file that you have

selected to read-only.

Close the window.

Change file status to
Now try to open this file.
It should tell you that the
file is read-only and you
cannot make any changes.

Make sure that you change the attribute of this file back to read/write, by clicking on the
read-only box to remove the tick.

19. Sometimes you may want to view the files that you have saved in a different order. For
example, sorted by name, size, type of file, date modified.

To do this, open a folder which contains files:

• Set the view of the window to ‘Details’ as you

have done in a previous question.
• Select ‘View’
• Select ‘Arrange Icons By’
• Choose from name, size, type or modified
(this means the date that you modified a file)
• Experiment with each of the different
arrangements.

20. At times you may need to see how many files/folders are in a drive or a selected folder.

To do this:

• Open a folder which contains files

• With the folder selected, right-click
• From the menu, select ‘Properties’
• You will see sub-heading that is called ‘Contains’.
Next to this is details how many files this folder
contains and how many folders.

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21. An extremely helpful feature that is used to find to locate a file/folder is search.
It is possible to search by file content, date modified, date created, file size and
wildcard.

To search:

• Select ‘Search’ from the Start menu

• Select ‘All files and folders’ from the list
• The option list then changes, as you can
see below:

Enter the filename you wish to search for.

If you do not know the full name you can enter
an * which is called a wildcard.

This represents all the characters that are not entered.

For example, if I knew that my answer sheet began with an “a”, I could type a*. This
would search for all files that start with the letter a.

You can also choose from the modified, size and other options.

Just select the arrows, and then the options offered.

Search for files that you have created using all of the different
options available to you.

22. You can view a list of your recently used files.

• Click on the Start menu

• From the menu displayed, select ‘My Recent Documents’
• You will see all the files that you have worked on recently.
• You can select them from the list and they will open.

23. File compression allows you to compress files so that the file size becomes smaller. This
allows you to save disk space. It is particularly useful when sending files over the Internet
(especially when you have a slow connection).

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 To compress a file or folder:

• Select the file/folder that you want to compress

• Right-click on the folder
• Select ‘Send to’ from the list
• Select ‘compressed (zipped) folder’ from the sub-menu
• A new folder will appear that is zipped.

To see the effects of compressing (zipping) a file/folder:

• Right click on a file
• Select ‘Properties’
• You will be able to easily pick out the size of this folder
• Now do the same with the compressed folder
• You should see that the size of it is considerably smaller
than the un-compressed file

Note: The same procedure is carried out to compress a file, as

we have done here with a folder.

24. As well as needing to know how to compress files/folders, we need to know how to
extract compressed files/folders.

• You would right click on a compressed file then select ‘Extract All’
• Select ‘Next>’
• Then choose the location where you want the folder to be saved by clicking on
Browse - In this case just select ‘My Documents’, followed by OK
• Select ‘Next>’
• Select ‘Finish’

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VIRUSES

25. Viruses are infectious programs that enter your computer without your consent and can
cause damage to your data.

Ways in which viruses can enter your computer are:

• Sharing disks
• Sharing files on a network
• Downloading files from the Web
• Opening files attached to emails

26. Virus checking software can check your computer memory and all drives attached to the
computer. A very popular virus checking program is Norton AntiVirus, another is Sophos.

Virus scanning programs operate in the background and should remain active at all times.
In this way they are able to alert you to say a downloaded file that contains a virus.

If a virus scanning program finds a virus, it can often remove the virus, without damaging
your file.

Most anti-virus programs allow you to use the Internet to update the program on a regular
basis. It is extremely important to regularly update the program because new viruses are
being introduced continuously. Your program will not be able to deal with all new viruses
until it has been updated.

PRINT MANAGEMENT

27. Your computer is set up so that it prints to a default printer. The default printer is
marked with a tick.

When you are trying to print, you can

choose from other printers that are set
up in your list.

To view the printers that are set up on

your computer:

• Select ‘Start’
• Select ‘Printers and Faxes’

28. You can view the progress of print jobs by using the printer manager.

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To open the print manager, double-click on the printer icon of the printer that you want
to view the progress of. You will see a list of all of the jobs that are waiting to print.

From the printer manager it is possible to pause the printer, re-start the printer and
delete a particular job.

To do this, with the printer manager open, select ‘Printer’. Here you can see how to
pause the printing and cancel all documents. If you select ‘pause printer’, then the option
will change to restart the printer. To delete a particular job, select it and press delete.

Take a look at how to carry out each of these actions.

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