Quick Help for Getting Started
Windows Help is a great resource to
help you learn about Windows and how to work with your computer. To
open Help, press the F1 key.
If you’re new to Windows, the Get Started item in Help provides a quick overview of Windows features and concepts (see Figure 1).
Each short chunk of blue text is a link that
takes you to a help topic. Click any link to see that topic. In many of
the pages, you need to use the scroll bar to scroll up and down through
all the text. You can use the Back and Forward buttons, when enabled,
to scroll through pages you’ve already visited.
Tip
You’ll often see a little blue
button with a white question mark in program windows. That’s the Help
button. You can click it for information.
Logging Off, Shutting Down
Here’s a question a lot of people ask:
“Should I shut down my computer if I won’t be using it for a while, or
should I just leave it on?” Everybody has an opinion about this. So
here’s ours: It doesn’t matter. It’s fine to leave your computers
running. Many people shut down their computers only when they need to,
such as when installing certain types of hardware. Aside from that,
their computers are on, and online, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. With
today’s green PCs, turning off the computer every day isn’t as
important as it once was. Perhaps more important, leaving the computer
on means you can start working with it almost right away, rather than
waiting for it to boot.
Note
Windows 8 provides a much quicker
startup process than previous versions of Windows. In some cases, the
boot-up time is less than 8 seconds, which is substantially quicker
than Windows 7.
The Power button in Windows 8 is located in a
different location than previous Windows versions. Instead of being
located on the Start menu (which is no longer available, you find it in
the Settings screen by choosing Settings from the Charms Bar, shown in Figures 2 and 3.
Understand that turning off a PC isn’t quite the same as turning off a
TV or radio. You usually don’t want to just hit the main power switch
to shut down while you have things open and unsaved. You want to close
everything first. Then click the Power button and choose Shut Down.
Although shutdown is much faster in Windows 8
than previous versions, don’t expect the computer to turn off
immediately. It takes a few seconds for Windows to get everything
closed up and ready to shut down. On most computers, you don’t have to
do anything else. The computer will eventually shut itself down
completely.
