The purpose of this document is to serve as a general introduction to the Windows 95 environment and is targeted for the new user who needs to know Windows 95 basics, file management as well as uploading and downloading files using WS_FTP to get their work done on a PC. It is created with the intent that as users get a better understanding of how their computer works and can maneuver better within the Windows 95 environment, they will accomplish their tasks more efficiently and with less frustration.

When you first boot up your Windows 95 computer, you will be prompted for a password. Remember that your password is case sensitive. Note: there is NO SECURITY in Windows 95, i.e. if you press the Cancel or ESC button, you will still be allowed to access your Windows 95 computer. If you are on a local area network (LAN), you will need to enter a valid password for your network user account to gain access to network resources such as network printers.

You MUST shut down your Windows 95 computer before turning off the power. To shut down your Windows 95 computer, you select Start on the taskbar, then Shut Down. Make sure "Shut down the computer" is selected, then click on Yes. Your computer will ask you to "please wait " while Windows 95 does some housekeeping. You will be told that it is okay to turn off your computer (unless you have power management enabled).

The typical Windows 95 desktop includes the taskbar, objects for browsing local (My Computer) and networked computers (Network Neighborhood), the Recycle Bin, shortcuts for launching applications, documents, and folders.

The Taskbar is usually located on the bottom of the screen. It houses the Start button, clock, and a task button for each active program currently running and each open folder. If you place your cursor in the shaded area of the taskbar without any min imized icons, you can click and drag (see Mouse Techniques for details) the taskbar to any of the four sides of the desktop. You can also change the default settings of the Taskbar by right clicking (see Mouse Techniques) in the shaded are a of the taskbar without any minimized icons, selecting Properties and checking off the setting you want, e.g. auto hide which makes your Taskbar disappear until you move your mouse cursor over it.

You can launch most of your applications via the Start button and Start Menu. Most of your applications can be launched by selecting Start, Programs, then any program name, e.g. Microsoft Word. If an application is saved within a folder, you would launch it by selecting Start, Programs, folder name (e.g. Accessories), then program name (e.g. Wordpad).

You can switch between running applications by clicking on them in the Taskbar or holding down the Alt button, then depressing and releasing the Tab button. If you inadvertently launch multiple copies of the same program, you will find multiple minimi zed icons on the Taskbar. It's best to close duplicate copies of the same program to free up memory resources.

Some applications (e.g. Dr. Solomon's Antivirus Scheduler, Corel WordPerfect Suite) are automatically loaded into memory every time you start up Windows 95. You will usually find tiny icons for these applications near the lower right hand corner of th e Taskbar (if your Taskbar is on the bottom of your screen). You can unload or close these applications by right clicking on the minimized icon and selecting Close or Disable.

The right mouse button is a valuable tool in Windows 95. It's used to get more information about the selected item or to change some of the features (or Properties) of an item. For example, to find out how much hard disk space you are using and how much disk space is free, double click on My Computer, right click on the C: drive, and click on Properties.

Windows 95 comes with very good built-in helps. Click on the Start button, then Help. View topics of interest, or click on the Index tab and search the help index.

It is highly recommended that you take the 10-minute tour and review these helps to get a basic understanding of Windows 95. Click on the shortcut to Windows Tips or create a shortcut to c:\Windows\welcome.exe. Click on Windows Tour to view the Wind ows 95 on-line tutorial. See the section on shortcuts to learn more about creating shortcuts.

A drive is a device such as your computer's local hard drive (typically drive c:), the diskette drive (drive a: or b:), your CD-ROM drive (typically drive d: or e:) and networked drives (typically drive f: through z:).

The file structure of your computer is like an upside-down tree with the root being the highest level of your drive. Each drive has a root. The root contains folders or directories similar to drawers in a filing cabinet. Each folder may contain othe r folders or individual files.

The path is the location of a file denoted by the drive, folder, and subfolders. For example, the path "C:\Program Files\ws_ftp\ws_ftp95.exe" shows that the application ws_ftp95.exe is on the c: drive in the Program Files folder in the ws_f tp subfolder.

A shortcut is a pointer to another object such as an application, folder, document, or printer. You can create a shortcut on the desktop or in any folder. If you delete a shortcut, you are deleting the pointer to an object, not the object itself. If you delete a shortcut to a program, the program's executable file will still remain on the hard drive. You can identify a shortcut by the arrow in the lower left corner of the icon on the desktop. If you right click on a shortcut, select Properties, th en select the Shortcut tab, you can see the path that the shortcut is pointing to in the Target box.

To create a shortcut, right click on the desktop (or in any folder). Select New, then Shortcut.

Click on the Browse button to see the contents of your hard drive.

"Look in" shows the current drive or folder you are in. If you click on the yellow folder with the up-arrow, you will go one level above the current folder (closer to the root of the drive). The yellow folders represent directories on your hard drive. Other square icons represent files in the current folder.

If you want to see all file types, click on the down arrow in the "Files of type" box to select All Files.

Double click on a folder to see the contents of sub-folders and files within the folder. When you have located the file for which you want to create a shortcut, click on the file name, then click on Open.

To create the shortcut for WS_FTP, double click on the Program Files folder, double click on the Ws_ftp folder, click on WS_FTP95.exe, then click on Open.

The command line box is filled with the path "C:\Program Files\WS_FTP\WS_FTP95.exe" which is the location of the item for which the shortcut is being created.

Click on Next, fill in the name you want to call your shortcut, then click on Finish to complete creating the shortcut

Double click on the My Computer icon. Click on the 3 ½ Floppy (A:) icon. Insert a diskette into the diskette drive. Click on File, then Format.

Format options: Quick format erases the files on a previously formatted disk without checking the media. Quick format is faster but it can't be used for brand new unformatted diskettes. Windows checks for bad sectors on the diskette if you specify f ull format. Select Copy System Files Only to make a previously formatted diskette bootable.

Insert the source diskette into drive a:. Double click on the My Computer icon. Click on the 3 ½ Floppy (A:) icon. Select File, Copy Disk. Make sure that the source and destination are correct, then click Start to begin the disk copy.

Windows Explorer replaces Windows 3.x's File Manager. To run Windows Explorer, click on the Start button, click on Programs, then click on Windows Explorer. You can also create a shortcut to "C:\Windows\explorer.exe".

The left pane of Windows Explorer shows the drives and folders. The right pane shows the folders and files in the selected folder.

In the left pane, click on the plus sign to expand the folders to see all the folders within that folder. Click on the minus sign to collapse the folders. Double click on the drives or folders in the left pane to expand them (or collapse them if they are already expanded) and to switch the right pane to the selected folder.

In the left pane of Windows Explorer, click on the drive or folder in which you want the new folder created. In the right pane, right click on an open area, and select New, Folder. A new folder is created with "New Folder" as its default na me. Enter the name you want to call the new folder, and press the Enter key.

In the right pane, click on the file you wish to copy. Right click on the selected file, and drag it to the left pane over the folder in which you want to copy the file. Release the right mouse button. Select Copy Here, Move Here, or Create Shortcut Here from the pop-up menu. If you create a copy of a file in the same folder, Windows gives the copy a default name such as "Copy of readme.doc."

In the right pane, click on the file you wish to copy. Hold down the Shift key, and click on the file at the end of the range you wish to copy. Release the Shift key. Right click on the highlighted range of file names, and drag it over to the left pane over the folder you want to copy the files to. The destination folder should become highlighted, then release the mouse button. Select Copy Here or Move Here from the pop-up menu.

To copy (move) files in a non-contiguous range, do the same as above except hold down the CONTROL key, and click on each file that you wish to copy (move) to the same destination.

There are several ways to do this. The easiest way is to right click on the object. Select Rename from the pop-up menu.

Another way is to click on the name of the object. A box will appear around the highlighted file (or folder) name. Type in the new file name, and press the Enter key.

Click on the object. Press the Delete key. The object goes to the Recycle Bin and stays there until you empty the Recycle Bin. Right click on the Recycle Bin, and select Empty Recycle Bin to permanently delete the object. Note: objects deleted fro m a diskette are not saved in the Recycle Bin.

To retrieve a deleted file or folder from the Recycle Bin, right click on the Recycle Bin, select Explore, click on the file you wish to retrieve, and drag it to the desktop (or other desired location).

There are alternative methods for manipulating files within Windows Explorer. For example, you can click on the C: drive, and click on File, New, Folder to create a folder. You can click on a file name, then click on File, Rename to rename a file. You can right click on a file, select Send To and (A:) to copy a file to diskette. You should find out which method works best for you.

Check the Taskbar for the programs that are currently running on your computer. If you load Microsoft Word more than once, there will be multiple instances of it on your Taskbar. You can bring up a minimized application by clicking on its box on the Taskbar. You should close (click on the X at the upper right) all duplicate instances of the same program to free up memory.

If your application should "hang" (keyboard or mouse does not respond), hold down the CONTROL and ALT keys, then depress and release the DELETE key. You will get a menu of the tasks currently loaded in memory. Highlight the application that hung (usually the one that is marked "not responding"), and click on End Task. You can usually unload the application gracefully without having to reboot your computer.

Files deleted from your local hard drive will be saved in the Recycle Bin until you empty the Recycle Bin. To empty the Recycle Bin, right click on Recycle Bin, and select Empty Recycle Bin. If you need to recover deleted files from the Recycle Bin, right click on Recycle Bin, and select Explore. You should move the file from the Recycle Bin to another folder on the hard drive (for example, click and drag the file in Recycle Bin, Explore to the desktop).

It's best to empty the Recycle Bin from time to time as deleted files saved in the Recycle Bin actually take up more hard disk space than if they were in a regular folder. But remember, once the Recycle Bin is emptied, you can NOT recover the deleted files. Also, files deleted from diskettes are not saved in the Recycle Bin.

If the document was created recently on your computer, launch the application you used to create it, and select File. Windows remembers the last 15 documents you opened.

If you remember the file name or part of the file name but not its location, click on the START button, Find, and Files or Folders. In the Look In box, select (C:) and check Include subfolders. In the Named: box, enter the file name, and click Find N ow. Windows will list all instances of the file if it finds any matches. If you know part of the file name, you can enter * for wildcard, e.g. win*.* for all files starting with the characters "win".

In Microsoft Word, the default location to save your document is the My Documents folder. To save your document in a different folder, click on the yellow folder with the up-arrow to browse one level up, click on the yellow folder with the * to get to your Favorites folders, and click on the third yellow folder to create a new folder. The Save In: box shows the current folder.

Note: if you use Corel WordPerfect, your default folder for saving documents is My Files. You may use either folder but it's best to create a folder for each project and save your documents in their corresponding project folder.

WS_FTP is a shareware program used to upload and download files using file transfer protocol (FTP) between two computers connected to a common network.

Double click on the WS_FTP shortcut or select Start, Programs, and WS_FTP.

Enter the Profile Name, Host Name or IP Address, and User ID in the appropriate boxes, and click OK. You will be prompted for your password for your user ID. After you have successfully connected to your host system, you should have a window similar to the one below.

The left pane shows the drives, folders, and files on the local system or PC. The right pane shows the drives, folders, and files on the remote system, e.g. uhunix.

The top box in each pane shows the current folder or directory. The larger box below shows the drives (drive letter in brackets), directories (yellow folders), and files in the current directory or folder.

To go up one level in the directory structure, double click on the green up arrow. Click on the appropriate drive or folder to switch.

In the right pane, select the destination folder. Select the appropriate file type, either ASCII for text files (no formatting) or Binary for non-text files, that you will be uploading to the remote system. Locate the file on the local system or PC that you wish to upload by selecting the appropriate drive or folder. In the left pane, double click on the file name. A copy of the file should appear in the right pane.

In the left pane, select the destination folder. Select the appropriate file type, either ASCII for text files (no formatting) or Binary for non-text files, that you will be downloading to the PC. Locate the file on the remote system (e.g. uhunix) that you wish to download by selecting the folder. In the right pane, double click on the file name. A copy of the file should appear in the left pane.

If you have any errors, the messages should appear in the box above the Close button.

Click on Close to close the connection to the remote system. Click on Exit to exit WS_FTP.

For the Beginner

For the Beginner and Intermediate Level

For the Advanced