MIS AND COMPUTER APPLICATIONS - I

1. Brief History of Development of Computers

COMPUTER SYSTEM CONCEPTS

What is Computer?

Computer is an electronic device which is capable of receiving information (data) in a particular

form and of performing a sequence of operations in accordance with a predetermined but
variable set of procedural instructions (program) to produce a result in the form of information or
signals. In other words, it is an an electronic device, operating under the control of instructions
stored in its own memory unit, that can accept data (input), manipulate the data according to
specified rules (process), produce information (output) from the processing, and store the
results for future use.

The Characteristics of Computers

Speed, accuracy, diligence, storage capability and versatility are some of the key characteristics
of a computer. A brief overview of these characteristics (capabilities) is—

 Speed The computer can process data very fast, at the rate of millions of instructions
per second. Some calculations that would have taken hours and days to complete
otherwise, can be completed in a few seconds using the computer.

 Accuracy Computer provides a high degree of accuracy. For example, the computer
can accurately give the result of division of any two numbers up to 10 decimal places.

 Diligence When used for a longer period of time, the computer does not get tired or
fatigued. It can perform long and complex calculations with the same speed and
accuracy from the start till the end.

 Storage Capability Large volumes of data and information can be stored in the
computer and also retrieved whenever required. A limited amount of data can be stored,

1
 temporarily, in the primary memory. Secondary storage devices like floppy disk and
compact disk can store a large amount of data permanently.

 Versatility Computer is versatile in nature. It can perform different types of tasks with
the same ease. At one moment one can use the computer to prepare a letter document
and in the next moment you may play music or print a document.

 Reliability Computer provides very high speed accompanied by an equality high level
for reliability. Thus computers never make mistakes of their own accord.

 No IQ A computer is a magical device. It can only perform tasks that a human being
can. The difference is that its performs these with high speed and accuracy as compared
to human being

Limitations of computers

Despite its various features, a computer does have the following limitations:
a. No Self Intelligence
Computer does not have any intelligence of its own. It works according to the instruction only.
b. No Decision-Making power
Computer cannot take any decision of its own. It does only those tasks which are already
instructed to it.
c. No learning power

Computer has no learning power. Without proper instruction, it can not perform anything by itself

d. No Correcting Mechanisms

Computers are unable to correct wrong instructions. The computer is always going to depend on
your instructions, so you have to correct your mistake if you want the right result

Application of Computers

Computers have proliferated into various areas of our lives. For a user, computer is a tool that
provides the desired information, whenever needed. You may use computer to get information
about the reservation of tickets (railways, airplanes and cinema halls), books in a library,

2
medical history of a person, a place in a map, or the dictionary meaning of a word. The
information may be presented to you in the form of text, images, video clips, etc.

 Education Computers are extensively used, as a tool and as an aid, for imparting
education. Educators use computers to prepare notes and presentations of their
lectures. Computers are used to develop computer-based training packages, to provide
distance education using the e-learning software, and to conduct online examinations.
Researchers use computers to get easy access to conference and journal details and to
get global access to the research material.

 Entertainment Computers have had a major impact on the entertainment industry. The
user can download and view movies, play games, chat, book tickets for cinema halls,
use multimedia for making movies, incorporate visual and sound effects using
computers, etc. The users can also listen to music, download and share music, create
music using computers, etc.

 Sports A computer can be used to watch a game, view the scores, improve the game,
play games (like chess, etc.) and create games. They are also used for the purposes of
training players.

 Advertising Computer is a powerful advertising media. Advertisement can be

displayed on different websites, electronic-mails can be sent and reviews of a product by
different customers can be posted. Computers are also used to create an advertisement
using the visual and the sound effects. For the advertisers, computer is a medium via
which the advertisements can be viewed globally. Web advertising has become a
significant factor in the marketing plans of almost all companies. In fact, the business
model of Google is mainly dependent on web advertising for generating revenues.

 Medicine Medical researchers and practitioners use computers to access information

about the advances in medical research or to take opinion of doctors globally. The
medical history of patients is stored in the computers. Computers are also an integral
part of various kinds of sophisticated medical equipments like ultrasound machine, CAT
scan machine, MRI scan machine, etc. Computers also provide assistance to the
medical surgeons during critical surgery operations like laparoscopic operations, etc.

3
  Science and Engineering Scientists and engineers use computers for performing
complex scientific calculations, for designing and making drawings (CAD/CAM
applications) and also for simulating and testing the designs. Computers are used for
storing the complex data, performing complex calculations and for visualizing 3-
dimensional objects. Complex scientific applications like the launch of the rockets, space
exploration, etc., are not possible without the computers.

 Government The government uses computers to manage its own operations and also
for e-governance. The websites of the different government departments provide
information to the users. Computers are used for the filing of income tax return, paying
taxes, online submission of water and electricity bills, for the access of land record
details, etc. The police department uses computers to search for criminals using
fingerprint matching, etc.

 Home Computers have now become an integral part of home equipment. At home,
people use computers to play games, to maintain the home accounts, for communicating
with friends and relatives via Internet, for paying bills, for education and learning, etc.
Microprocessors are embedded in house hold utilities like, washing machines, TVs, food
processors, home theatres, security devices, etc.

The list of applications of computers is so long that it is not possible to discuss all of them here.
In addition to the applications of the computers discussed above, computers have also
proliferated into areas like banks, investments, stock trading, accounting, ticket reservation,
military operations, meteorological predictions, social networking, business organizations, police
department, video conferencing, tele presence, book publishing, web newspapers, and
information sharing.

TYPES OF COMPUTER

Computers can be broadly classified by their speed, computing power and storage capacity.

PC (Personal Computer)

A PC can be defined as a small, relatively inexpensive computer designed for an individual

user. PCs are based on the microprocessor technology that enables manufacturers to put an
entire CPU on one chip. Businesses use personal computers for word processing, accounting,
4
desktop publishing, and for running spreadsheet and database management applications. At
home, the most popular use for personal computers is for playing games and surfing the
Internet.

Although personal computers are designed as single-user systems, these systems are normally
linked together to form a network. In terms of power, nowadays high-end models of the
Macintosh and PC offer the same computing power and graphics capability as low-end
workstations by Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard, and DELL.

WorkStation

Workstation is a computer used for engineering applications (CAD/CAM), desktop publishing,

software development, and other such types of applications, which require a moderate amount
of computing power and relatively high quality graphics capabilities. Workstations generally
come with a large, high-resolution graphics screen, large amount of RAM, inbuilt network
support, and a graphical user interface. Most workstations also have a mass storage device
such as a disk drive, but a special type of workstation, called a diskless workstation, comes
without a disk drive. Common operating systems for workstations are UNIX and Windows NT.
Like PC, Workstations are also single-user computers. However, workstations are typically
linked together to form a local-area network, although they can also be used as stand-alone
systems.

Minicomputer

It is a midsize computer. A minicomputer is a multi-processing system capable of supporting

from up to 250 users simultaneously.

Mainframe
Mainframe is a very large in size and an expensive computer capable of supporting hundreds,
or even thousands, of users simultaneously. Mainframe executes many programs concurrently.
Mainframes support many simultaneous programs execution.

Supercomputer

Supercomputers are one of the fastest computers currently available. Supercomputers are very
expensive and are employed for specialized applications that require immense amounts of
5
mathematical calculations (number crunching). For example, weather forecasting, scientific
simulations, (animated) graphics, fluid dynamic calculations, nuclear energy research, electronic
design, and analysis of geological data (e.g. in petrochemical prospecting).

Sr.
Type Specifications
No.
Single user computer system. Moderately
1 PC (Personal Computer)
powerful microprocessor.
Single user computer system. Similar to
2 WorkStation Personal Computer but have more powerful
microprocessor.
Multi-user computer system. Capable of
3 Mini Computer
supporting hundreds of users simultaneously.
Multi-user computer system. Capable of
supporting hundreds of users simultaneously.
4 Main Frame
Software technology is different from
minicomputer.
An extremely fast computer, which can
5 Supercomputer perform hundreds of millions of instructions
per second.

GENERATIONS OF COMPUTER

Computers are such an integral part of our everyday life now most people take them and what
they have added to life totally for granted. The father of computer is Charles Babbage. Even
more so the generation who have grown from infancy within the global desktop and laptop
revolution since the 1980s. The history of the computer goes back several decades however
and there are five definable generations of computers. Each generation is defined by a
significant technological development that changes fundamentally how computers operate –
leading to more compact, less expensive, but more powerful, efficient and robust machines.

1940 – 1956: First Generation – Vacuum Tubes

These early computers used vacuum tubes as circuitry and magnetic drums for memory. As a
result they were enormous, literally taking up entire rooms and costing a fortune to run. These
were inefficient materials which generated a lot of heat, sucked huge electricity and
subsequently generated a lot of heat which caused ongoing breakdowns.

6
 These first generation computers relied on ‗machine language‘ (which is the most basic
programming language that can be understood by computers). These computers were limited to
solving one problem at a time. Input was based on punched cards and paper tape. Output came
out on print-outs.

The main features of First Generation are:

 Vacuum tube technology and Unreliable

 Supported Machine language only and Very costly

 Generate lot of heat and Slow Input/Output device

 Huge size and Need of A.C.

 Non-portable and Consumed lot of electricity

 Some computers of this generation were:

 ENIAC, EDVAC, UNIVAC, IBM-701 and IBM-650

1956 – 1963: Second Generation – Transistors

The replacement of vacuum tubes by transistors saw the advent of the second generation of
computing. Although first invented in 1947, transistors weren‘t used significantly in computers
until the end of the 1950s. About the same time high level programming languages were being
developed (early versions of COBOL and FORTRAN). Transistor-driven machines were the first
computers to store instructions into their memories – moving from magnetic drum to magnetic
core ‗technology‘. The early versions of these machines were developed for the atomic energy
industry.

The main features of Second Generation are:

 Use of transistors and Reliable as compared to First generation computers

 Smaller size as compared to First generation computers

 Generate less heat as compared to First generation computers

7
 Consumed less electricity as compared to First generation computers

 Faster than first generation computers and Still very costly

 A.C. needed and Support machine and assembly languages

Some computers of this generation were:

 IBM 1620, IBM 7094, CDC 1604, CDC 3600 and UNIVAC 1108

1964 – 1971: Third Generation – Integrated Circuits

By this phase, transistors were now being miniaturized and put on silicon chips (called
semiconductors). This led to a massive increase in speed and efficiency of these machines.
These were the first computers where users interacted using keyboards and monitors which
interfaced with an operating system, a significant leap up from the punch cards and printouts.
This enabled these machines to run several applications at once using a central program which
functioned to monitor memory.

As a result of these advances which again made machines cheaper and smaller, a new mass
market of users emerged during the ‗60s.

The main features of Third Generation are:

 IC used and More reliable

 Smaller size and Generate less heat

 Faster and Lesser maintenance

 Still costly and A.C. needed

 Consumed lesser electricity and Support high-level language

Some computers of this generation were:

 IBM-360 series, Honeywell-6000 series, PDP(Personal Data Processor), IBM-370/168

and TDC-316

8
 1972 – 2010: Fourth Generation – Microprocessors

This revolution can be summed in one word: Intel. The chip-maker developed the Intel 4004
chip in 1971, which positioned all computer components (CPU, memory, input/output controls)
onto a single chip. What filled a room in the 1940s now fit in the palm of the hand. The Intel chip
housed thousands of integrated circuits. The year 1981 saw the first ever computer (IBM)
specifically designed for home use and 1984 saw the Macintosh introduced by Apple.
Microprocessors even moved beyond the realm of computers and into an increasing number of
everyday products. The increased power of these small computers meant they could be linked,
creating networks. Which ultimately led to the development, birth and rapid evolution of the
Internet? Other major advances during this period have been the Graphical user interface (GUI),
the mouse and more recently the astounding advances in lap-top capability and hand-held
devices.

The main features of Fourth Generation are:

 VLSI technology used and Very cheap

 Portable and reliable

 Use of PC's and Very small size

 Pipeline processing and No A.C. needed

 Concept of internet was introduced and Great developments in the fields of networks

 Computers became easily available

Some computers of this generation were:

 DEC 10, STAR 1000, PDP 11, CRAY-1 (Super Computer) and CRAY-X-MP (Super
Computer)

2010 Fifth Generation – Artificial Intelligence

Computer devices with artificial intelligence are still in development, but some of these
technologies are beginning to emerge and be used such as voice recognition. AI is a reality
made possible by using parallel processing and superconductors. Leaning to the future,
computers will be radically transformed again by quantum computation, molecular and nano
technology. The essence of fifth generation will be using these technologies to ultimately create

9
 machines which can process and respond to natural language, and have capability to learn and
organize themselves.

The main features of Fifth Generation are:

 ULSI technology and Development of true artificial intelligence

 Development of Natural language processing and Advancement in Parallel Processing

 Advancement in Superconductor technology and More user friendly interfaces with

multimedia features

 Availability of very powerful and compact computers at cheaper rates

Some computers types of this generation are:

 Desktop, Laptop, Notebook, Ultra Book and Chrome Book

COMPUTER SECURITY SYSTEM

Computer security covers a lot of territory: locking your computer room and your machine,
protecting your login accounts with passwords, using file protection to keep your data from
being destroyed, encrypting network communications lines, and using special shields to keep
electromagnetic emanations from leaking out of your computer. But when people talk about
computer security, we call computer system security.

What Makes a System Secure?

In the most basic sense, computer system security ensures that your computer does what it's
supposed to do–even if its users don't do what they're supposed to do. It protects the
information stored in it from being lost, changed either maliciously or accidentally, or read or
modified by those not authorized to access it.

How does computer system security provide protection? There are four primary methods:

System Access Controls.

Ensuring that unauthorized users don't get into the system, by encouraging (and sometimes
forcing) authorized users to be security-conscious–for example, by changing their passwords on
a regular basis. The system also protects password data and keeps track of who's doing what in

10
the system, especially if what they're doing is security-related (e.g., logging in, trying to open a
file, using special privileges).

Data Access Controls.

Monitoring who can access what data, and for what purpose. Your system might support
discretionary access controls; with these, you determine whether other people can read or
change your data. Your system might also support mandatory access controls; with these, the
system determines access rules based on the security levels of the people, the files, and the
other objects in your system.
System and Security Administration
Performing the offline procedures that make or break a secure system–by clearly delineating
system administrator responsibilities, by training users appropriately, and by monitoring users to
make sure that security policies are observed. This category also involves more global security
management; for example, figuring out what security threats faces your system and what it will
cost to protect against them.
System Design
Taking advantage of basic hardware and software security characteristics; for example, using a
system architecture that's able to segment memory, thus isolating privileged processes from
non privileged processes.

The first way in which a system provides computer security is by controlling access to that
system: Who's allowed to log in? How does the system decide whether a user is legitimate?
How does the system keep track of who's doing what in the system?

What's really going on when you try to log into a system? It's a kind of challenge. You tell the
system who you are, and the system proves that you are (or you aren't) who you claim to be. In
security terms, this two-step process is called identification and authentication.

Identification is the way you tell the system who you are. Authentication is the ways you prove to
the system that you are who you say you are. In just about any multi-user system, you must
identify yourself, and the system must authenticate your identity, before you can use the
system. Passwords are still, far and away, the authentication tool of choice. Even when

11
authentication devices like tokens and biometric devices are used, they're usually supplements
to, not replacements for, conventional login IDs and passwords. Biometrics and key cards
typically act only as a first line of defense against intruders, not as the only defense.

COMPUTER PROGRAMMING

What is computer programming?

Writing computer programs means writing instructions that will make the computer follow and
run a program based on those instructions. It is the process of developing and implementing
various sets of instructions to enable a computer to do a certain task. These instructions help
the computer to operate smoothly. It involves activities such as analysis, understanding, and
generically solving such problems resulting in an algorithm, verification of requirements of the
algorithm including its correctness and its resource consumption, implementation (or coding) of
the algorithm in a target programming language, testing, debugging, and maintaining the source
code, implementation of the build system and management of derived facts such as machine
code of computer programs.

A programming language is a computer language programmers use to develop

applications, scripts, or other set of instructions for a computer to execute. Below is a listing of
several different programming languages and scripting languages currently listed in our
database.

Applications and Program development

Application and program development involves programs you work on a daily bases. The
computer languages used for this purpose are C, C#, C++, Java and Visual Basic

Artificial Intelligence development

Artificial Intelligence or related fields could involve anything from creating the character
interactions in computer games, portions of programs that make the decisions in programs, , or
any other related programs. The computer languages used for this purpose are AIML, C, C#,
C++ and Prolog

Database development
12
Database developers create and maintain databases. If you're interested in creating your own
database or maintaining other, the computer languages used for this purpose are DBASE,
FoxPro, MySQL, SQL and Visual FoxPro

Game development

Game development involves the development of computer games or other entertainment

software. The computer languages used for this purpose are C, C#, C++, DarkBASIC and Java

Computer drivers or other hardware interface development

Computer drivers and programming hardware interface support is a necessity for computers to
operate with the hardware; without it your computer wouldn't work. The computer languages
used for this purpose are Assembly and C.

COMPUTER VIRUS

A computer virus is a computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer without the
permission or knowledge of the owner. It damages computer systems and/or destroys or
erases data files

Types of Computer Virus

A time bomb is a virus program that performs an activity on a particular date

A logical bomb is a destructive program that performs an activity when a certain action has
occurred

A worm is also a destructive program that fills a computer system with self-replicating
information, clogging the system so that its operations are slowed down or stopped

A boot sector virus infects boot sector of computers. During system boot, boot sector virus is
loaded into main memory and destroys data stored in hard disk

A macro virus is associated with application software like word and excel. When opening the
infected document, macro virus is loaded into main memory and destroys the data stored in
hard disk
13
Trojan Horse is a destructive program. It usually pretends as computer games or application
software. If executed, computer system will be damaged. Trojan Horse usually comes with
monitoring tools and key loggers

Signs Your Computer is infected

 Functions slower than normal

 Responds slowly and freezes often

 Restarts itself often

 See uncommon error messages, distorted menus, and dialog boxes

 Notice applications fail to work correctly

 Fail to print correctly

Actions to prevent virus infection

 Always update your anti-virus software at least weekly.

Back up your important files and ensure that they can be restored.
Change the computer's boot sequence to always start the PC from its hard drive
 Don't share Drive C: without a password and without read-only restrictions.
Empty floppy drives of diskettes before turning on computers, especially laptops.
 Forget opening unexpected e-mail attachments, even if they're from friends
Get trained on your computer's anti-virus software and use it.
Have multiple backups of important files. This lowers the chance that all are infected.
 Install security updates for your operating system and programs as soon as possible.
Jump at the chance to learn more about your computer. This will help you spot viruses.

COMPUTER NETWORKING
I. NETWORK CONCEPT
When two or more computers are connected together they can be called a network. A Computer
Network is an interconnected collection of autonomous computers. Two computers are said to
be interconnected if they are capable of exchanging information. The connection need not be
via a copper wire; micro waves, fiber optic cables and earth satellites can also be used.

14
ADVANTAGES OF NETWORKING
- Sharing of Resources, information and data
- Promotes better use of hardware
- High speed data communication
- Electronic Mail and Distributed Computing
- Flexibility of equipment location
- Promotes POS (Point of Sale ) applications

Types of Computer Network

Local Area Networks

Local area networks (LANs) are used to connect networking devices that are in a very
close geographic area, such as a floor of a building, a building itself, or a campus
environment. LAN is a Local Area Network. It is normally private and will connect in the
computer in a small area such as all the computer in single company or building. The
network at your business or school is an example of a LAN . In LAN, two or mare
computers and peripheral devices are connected within the small area, as is a room,
office building or a campus. The number of computers in a LAN varies from 2 to 1000
computers. The data transmission speed is slow as compare to WAN. A few data errors
occur. In LAN computer terminals are physically connected with wires.
Wide Area Networks
Wide area networks (WANs) are used to connect LANs together. Typically, WANs are
used when the LANs that must be connected are separated by a large distance. WAN is
a Wide Area Network. It is a "LAN" that has been extended to cover a wider area such
as multiple sites around the world, an entire country, or even the whole world. It may be
private in that it connects all the sites within a single company or organization (such as
a network that connects all the Toyota plants around the world). Or it may be public
such as the network of computers (over 900,000) that make up the network. This kind of
networks can connect two or more computers present at distant places. In WAN
computer terminals are not connected with wires. They are linked by the communication
services like satellite signals, telecommunications. The usage of WAN network systemis
15
limited to very large organizations and government agencies. The main example of
WAN network system in our daily life is telecom system.

Metropolitan Area Networks

A metropolitan area network (MAN) is a hybrid between a LAN and a WAN. It is a
"LAN" that has been extended so that it covers a larger area such as an entire city.
Usually it is public - open to anyone in the city. Your ISP is an example of a MAN .
MAN network system is larger than LAN network system. This system is spread across
a city. The main and common example of MAN is in our daily life is Cable Television.
SYSTEM ANALYSIS AND DESIGN

What is System Analysis and Design

 System
– organized set of related components established to accomplish certain
task
– Natural
– Planned and placed by people
 Example
– A Computer system that has computers as one of its components
 Systems analysis
Process of studying an existing system to determine how it works and how it meets
user needs

 Systems design
Process of developing a plan for an improved system, based upon the results of the
systems analysis

Characteristics of a System

•Organization
•Interaction

16
•Interdependence
•Integration
•Central Objective

Elements of a System

•Outputs and Inputs

•Processor
•Control
•Feedback
•Environment
•Boundaries and Interface
Types of System
Physical or Abstract System
•Physical – These are tangible entities that may be static or dynamic in operation. For
example- parts of a computer center are the desks, chairs etc. that facilitate operation of
the computer. They are static and a programmed computer is dynamic.
Abstract System – These are conceptual or non physical entities. For example- the
abstract conceptualization of physical situations. A model is a representation of a real or
planned system. A model is used to visualize relationships.
Deterministic System – It operates in a predictable manner and the interaction
between parts is known with certainty. For example: Two molecules of hydrogen and
one molecule of oxygen makes water.
Probabilistic System – It shows probable behavior. The exact output is not known. For
example: weather forecasting, mail delivery.
Social System- It is made up of people. For example: social clubs, societies
Human Machine System- When both human and machines are involved to perform a
particular a particular task to achieve a target. For example:- Computer.
Machine System- Where human interference is neglected. All the tasks are performed
by the machine.

17
Natural System- The system which is natural. For example- Solar system, Seasonal
System.
Manufactured System- System made by man is called manufactured system. For
example- Rockets, Dams, Trains.
Permanent System- Which persists for long time. For example- policies of business.
•Temporary System- Made for specified time and after that they are dissolved. For
example- setting up DJ system.
Adaptive System- respond to change in the environment in such a way to improve their
performance and to survive. For example- Human beings, animals.
Non Adaptive System-The system which doesn't respond to the environment. For
example- Machines
Open System – It has many interfaces with its environment. It interacts across
its boundaries, it receives inputs from and delivers outputs to the outside world. It must
adapt to the changing demands of the user.
Closed System – It is isolated from the environmental influences. A completely closed
system is rare.
SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE

1. Problem Definition
In this stage the users or the manager realizes that the Information system is no
longer reflective of the existing business which may have expanded or that they
need to computerize their manual operations.

This problem could come about due to complaints by users or by formal review of
the Information system.

An Analyst examines whether there is a problem and then studies the problem in
depth, and an authorization to conduct a feasibility study is given. This
authorization is the output or the deliverable at this stage. Thus users, managers
and Analyst are used in this stage.

2. Feasibility Study:

18
 In this stage the Analyst examines whether a new system is feasible. He
assesses the magnitude of this problem and decides the scope of the project. He
examines the problem of the current system and what will be required of the new
system.

Economical, technical and operational feasibilities are done. The output is a

feasibility study report.

Tools used in this stage are fact gathering Techniques and Estimation
Techniques. Users and the Analyst plus management are heavily involved.

3. Analysis
In this stage detailed investigation are done about the current system. This
include

 reading existing documentation

 Interviewing the users
 Observing work being done
 Observing current procedures
 Questionnaires
After gathering the needed facts about the existing system the Analyst diagrams the
current system and then considers the functions of the new system. A new set of
diagrams which incorporate new functions is made. A prototype is also generated
using these gathered facts to help uncertain users know what they want in the new
system. Thus it helps to reveal new requirements. The Analysts makes a problem
specification using fact gathering tools, prototypes, DFD, Data models process
specifically etc. Users are involved so is the Analysts

4. Design:
In this stage basically the hardware and software are ordered so that they can
arrive in time for construction.

Functional diagrams are translated into hierarchical diagrams by the analyst so

as to identify what programs are needed and how they relate to one another. The
19
 analyst decides on the program structure, program interface and the hierarchy in
which programs will be arranged.

The Analyst ensures quality designs, incorporates security measures, designs

easy to use input forms, output reports interfaces.

The Database designer fulfills the file requirements. The output is a design
specification.

Tools used are DFD, Data Dictionary, Data models, prototypes, system
flowcharts: The personnel involved are users, Analysts, Database Designer.

5. Construction
The computer environment is prepared, the programs to be written are done and
they are tested, user documentation and training manuals are developed.

Computer environment being prepared means electrical wires, network cables

are installed, furniture, air conditioning are in place. The computers are installed
and tested.

Programs are written per the program and design specifications. The programs
are tested using walk through and group reviews. The Analyst supervises the
writing of training manuals and user documentations. User documentation
includes user manuals, user quick reference guides, on-screen help etc.

People involved are programmers and analysts. Tools used are structured,
walkthroughs, CASE tools etc

6. Conversion

The Analyst helps the staff to convert from the old system to the new one. The Analysts
oversees the transfer of data files electronically to the new system.

Conversion can be done in various ways

 Phase Conversion

20
  Parallel Conversion
 Direct Conversion
 Pilot Conversion
Output is that the system is operational and the tools used are automated data transfer
programs.

7. Maintenance:

System modifications are made to the system after the system is operational.
Maintenance can be

(1) Perfective (3) preventive

(2) Corrective (4) adaptive

The traditional SDLC has a number of good features. It has been well tried and tested.
However this method has been known to have several drawbacks.

Some of the drawbacks of SDLC are user dissatisfaction. SDLC assumes that the
user already knows all their requirements thus they expect the users to tell them their
requirements and once documented the requirements should remain unchanged, thus
they develop the system with these requirements only to find that when the system is
implemented, it does not provide for their need or their changed requirements, hence
they become dissatisfied with the system.

Failure to meet the needs of the management in that the system developed with the
approach are mainly operational processing systems such as payroll, invoicing which
deals with low level operational tasks, thus ignoring the information needs of the tactical
and top management, that they require to make decisions e.g. which products to stop
selling e.t.c.

Un ambitious system design, in that the systems developed by this approach often
tend to computerize the manual operational tasks like invoicing, thus they tend to come
up with systems design that are similar to the existing manual process.

21
Application backlog, this approach has many phases with sub phases, It may take
many weeks to complete a phase, thus the overall development time of a single project
may be months and if there are other system waiting to be developed using this
process, it may cause a backlog.

Maintenance workload since the firm may have many systems to develop, the
development is often quick and ‗dirty‘ so as to make the delivery date, thus brings about
systems which take a huge effort to maintain.

Problems with documentation, this approach provides for documentation of the

implementation process which is very ideal, but the notation of the documentation is
towards the computer person in that the documentation is highly technical and not easy
to understand by the user.

22
 2. INFORMATION SYSTEMS

1. INTRODUCTION

In this age of information, almost all fields of endeavor such as education, manufacturing,
research, games, entertainment, and business treat information systems as a need. Indeed,
every activity in our daily life today requires people to get involved in the use of information
systems.

What is a system? A system is simply a group of activities and elements, which have been
arranged to achieve a certain objective. An information system is a combination of hardware,
software and telecommunication systems, which can support business operations to increase
productivity, and help managers make decisions. In this age, the success of a business
depends on the information system.

INFORMATION
Information is nothing but refined data. Data before processing is said to be raw data. Raw data
are collected, screened and processed to make it organized for effective use. Data after
processing become linked with other data and carry meanings and, strictly speaking, to be
termed as information. Information is data that has been processed into a form that is
meaningful to the user in effective interpretation and decision making.

Information involves communication and reception of intelligence. Information consists of data,

text, images, voice etc. The term data in normal sense includes all these.

CHARACTERISTICS OF USEFUL INFORMATION:

The following are the characteristics of information. These characteristics determine the quality
and usefulness of information:

23
• Timeliness – This parameter is important to increase effectiveness in the use.

• Accuracy – The most important ingredient for quality of information.

• Comprehensive – Information should be integrated one with all other related issues to make
it more meaningful.

• Relevance - The need for type of information differs from user to user. Relevant information
filtered for a purpose ensures its effective and best use.

• Understandability - The information must be presented in a form that users can interpret the
same for decision making.

INFORMATION SYSTEM / (Computer Based Information System) CBIS

An Information System is designed by a user according to the business operation involved and
the need for his decision making. It is a vehicle which supplies necessary information for
decision making. Before computer being used in a business environment, Information System
also existed in some form to support management in decision making. To-day business
environment has become very complex and highly competitive. If an organization has to survive,
it has to plan and develop its own Information System. Of course, the size, structure and set up
may vary depending upon the need of the organization, policy and capability. In today‘s
business environment computer has become a must for an information system. The information
system is to feed the management for control purpose. This is why Information System is
generally called as Management Information System (MIS) or Computer Based Information
System (CBIS).

Generally, MIS uses Computer System and Communication technology to collect information
from different operational points and disseminate them at different users for decision making.
The activities in an Information System are:

 Collection, storing and processing data

 Generation of Information Reports
 Dissemination of Information to right users

An MIS provides timely information of right quality for better management decision making for
developing business strategy.

24
THE ADVANTAGES OF CBIS ARE:

 Reduction in cost of record maintenance

 Improvement in the efficiency of human resources
 Regular flow of information at different levels of management
 Easy use of scientific tools and models for quality decision making
 Faster response to customers
 Better control over resources
 Faster access to records in case of dispute
 Effective use of manpower etc.

COMPONENTS OF AN INFORMATION SYSTEM

The activity of converting data into information is called a process. An information system
contains FIVE main components - the hardware, software, data, process and human, as shown
in Figure below:

Figure: Components of an information system

Information is an organised, meaningful and useful interpretation of data such as a company‘s

performances or a student's academic performance. Information systems change data into
information, which is useful and capable of giving a certain meaning to its users.

Figure below shows an example to represent data and information:

25
 Figure: Difference between data and information

CHARACTERISTICS OF AN INFORMATION SYSTEM: -

The following are the general characteristics of an Information system:

i) Specific objective: The information system should have some specific objective. An
Information System in highly scientific research centre will have an objective to accumulate data
from different activities, display of some information instantly for controlling activities and so on.
In a business environment, the objective will be sharing information from different functional
areas and smooth flow of information for management decision making.

ii) Structured: An information system should have a definite structure with all modules of sub-
systems. The structure depends on the sub-modules, their interactions and integration
requirements, operational procedure to be followed and the solution sets. The structure of the
information system refers to diagrammatic representation of the system showing sub-systems,
their inter-relation and the procedure to be followed to fulfill the process requirements.

iii) Components: The sub-systems are the components. The sub-systems should be
distinguishable among themselves but have well-defined relation among. For example, a Sales
system may be sub-systems like Invoicing, Delivery monitoring, and Sales Proceeds Collection
system. The inter-link between these systems must be well defined.

iv) Integrated: An Information System should be designed in such a fashion that proper
integration among sub-systems are taken care to establish correct linkage and generate
meaningful information. Information in isolation may not be that meaningful but its usage is
improved if it is integrated with information of other closely related issues. For example, Sales
information of a region becomes more meaningful if other information like previous period sales,
sales in other regions, sales of competitive products are also combined in the information set.

v) Life-Cycle: An Information system will have its own life-cycle. The duration of life cycle varies
from the system to system. An information system has the similar stages of life-cycle as seen in

26
any other system. Every information system will have distinctly different phases - Initial, Growth,
Maturity and Decline.

vi) Behaviour: A system has its own set reaction and outcome depending on the environment.
A well managed business information system behaves nicely with its users by satisfying them
with correct and timely information. The design of the system plays a good role in setting its
behaviour pattern.

vii) Self-regulatory: An Information System which may have different sub-systems interacting
with the each other in a desired fashion to be operative smoothly and in the process they
regulate themselves. This is what is self-regulatory nature of the system. A payroll system
involves three activities – first, maintaining attendance of employees, second, pay calculation
and third pay disbursement. If the target date for pay disbursement is last date of a month, the
second adjusts its start time accordingly and the first one is also regulated in such a fashion that
it can provide input to the second in time.

CATEGORIES OF INFORMATION SYSTEM

Now there are several approaches to solving a certain problem. There are also several types of
information systems, which are developed to overcome specific problems, besides trying to fulfill
the user's requests in general. In a large organisation, solving business problems such as the
management of staff salaries, processing of business data and others is normally done by the
use of large computers with internal and external networks. Every type of information system
has a role to play. If you look at the functions and the scope of usage, information systems can
be divided into six main categories such as those provided in Figure below.

Figure: Categories of information system

Information systems can be divided into six main categories:

1. Transaction Processing System

27
 2. Management Information System
3. Expert System
4. Decision Support System
5. Executive Information System
6. Office information system

Transaction Processing System

Transaction processing refers to the processing of information relating to monetary transactions

in the business activities like purchase, sale, payment, receipts etc. It is a computer based
processing for different functional areas to generate all required reports for day-to-day use in the
organization. The transaction processing system may be disintegrated or integrated. In case
disintegrated transaction processing, data are collected from respective functional areas and
processed and reports are generated for their use. In case of integrated transaction processing
system, an application system which has capability of integrating all functional areas (say, ERP
system), transaction processing are interlinked with all data from different system and the
reports reflect the impact of integrated information.

Transaction processing may also be in batch mode or may follow on-line or distributed data
processing system. Example of transaction processing in an organisation :

 Payroll
 Accounts Receivable
 Bank Reconciliation
 Purchase Order Processing
 Sales Order Processing
 Inventory Control
 Job Costing etc.

On-line Transaction Processing (OLTP)

On-line transaction processing is carried in a client/server system. In today‘s competitive

environment, information at right time plays a great role in controlling costs of various resources
and providing best possible services to the customers. In other words, business environment
has been characterized by growing competition, shrinking cycle time and accelerating pace of
technological innovations and companies have to focus on better information management.
Better information means right information at right time.

OLTP are being adopted in wider scale to have the following advantages:

 It can serve multiple users at a point of time

 Technology serves the facilities to collect information from multi-locations
 High flexibility in information processing etc.

28
In case of Sales and Distribution System in an organization where transactions take place at
different locations on-line transaction processing is followed to carry out the following basic
functions:

 Inquiry handling
 Quotation preparation
 Receiving Order from Customers
 Checking availability of materials / products
 Scheduling delivery
 Monitoring sales transactions
 Invoicing
 Managing Bills Receivables etc.

On-line Analytical Processing (OLAP)

An OLAP software does the analysis of information from data warehouse. The OLAP
applications are widely scattered in divergent application area like Finance Management, Sales
Analysis. The real test of an OLAP system is inefficient use of data from databases and
computational capability of data to develop model establishing the relationship of various
parameters. In fact, it provides the services of ‗just-in-time‘ information.

Though OLAP software‘s are found in widely divergent functional areas, they have three
common key features which are:

 Multidimensional views of data

 High analytical ability
 ‗Just-in-time‘ information delivery

Rarely a business model limited a fewer than three dimensions. The common dimensions in
business environment are organization, line item, time, product, channel, place etc. OLAP
system should have the ability to respond the queries from a manager within a specified time.
The OLAP software must provide a rich tool kit of powerful capability of analytical ability.

Management Information System

Management Information System is a systematic process of providing relevant information in

right time in right format to all levels of users in the organization for effective decision making.
MIS is also defined to be system of collection, processing, retrieving and transmission of data to
meet the information requirement of different levels of managers in an organization.

MIS is a set of procedures designed to provide managers at different levels in the organization
with information for decision making, and for control of those parts of the business for which
they are responsible.

29
Objectives of MIS

 To provide the managers at all levels with timely and accurate information for control of
business activities
 To highlight the critical factors in the operation of the business for appropriate decision
making
 To develop a systematic and regular process of communication within the organization
on performance in different functional areas
 To use the tools and techniques available under the system for programmed decision
making
 To provide best services to customers
 To gain competitive advantage
 To provide information support for business planning for future

Expert System

An Expert System is an application software system which is used to store data relevant to a
particular subject area and to provide solutions to problems requiring discriminatory judgment
based on that data.

Expert system is software which derives extraordinary intelligent solution like an expert. The
knowledge of an expert in invaded in the software with solution options for different complex
problems situation, particularly, unstructured problem situation. Here the expert knowledge is
knowledge of specialized field and solutions sets at different problem situations.

For example, knowledge of expert marketing management for experts system in marketing,
knowledge of legal expert for expert system in legal field, expert knowledge of taxation for
expert system in taxation. This expert knowledge and history of different unstructured problem
solutions are stored in organized manner so that the related expert system can use the data
base. The expert system is not a simple management information system. Rather it helps in
involving solutions in complex problem situation. The components in expert systems are:

 Data management
 Expert knowledge handling tools
 Complex problem situations and framing corresponding solution sets.

Decision Support Systems (DSS)

Decision Support Systems (DSS), is a combination of hardware and software to aid decision
making. It includes Database (DBMS), Model Base (MBMS), Knowledge base (KBMS) and
Dialogue Systems (DGMS). DSS is designed to aid the decision making functions of the
management. Management at the lower levels has to deal with structured problems. Higher and
middle level managements have to deal with strategic aspects of decision making where the
problems are unstructured. These levels of managements need tools that can enhance their
capabilities in the area of predicting the outcome of future course actions. An important

30
component of DSS is simulation, i.e. construction of mathematical/statistical models for
evaluating the behaviour of real variables.

Data Base Management System (DBMS) : This refers to a database management system
software like Ingress or Oracle, that helps in organising the data and facilitates easy
accessibility through query language for the decision maker, to retrieve any type of data
depending on the decision environment.

Model Base Management System (MBMS): This refers to Model Base Management System
that facilitates representation of a decision environment and stimulates the results of various
plans of actions. This helps in improving the quality of decision making. Model Base
Management System includes special purpose models like linear programming models etc. that
help in decision making situations like production planning and optimisation.

Knowledge Base Management System (KBMS) : KBMS refers to Knowledge Base

Management System. This is a recent development in applications of artificial intelligence.
These systems capture the experience of a decision maker in the form of rule so that such rule
base can be used by another decision maker for decision making. These are known as expert
systems for decision making.

Executive Information System (EIS)

An Executive Information System (EIS) is special type MIS meant for top management of an
organization. In other words, it is a Decision Support System (DSS) for Executives. Executive
decisions are of three types – strategic planning, tactical planning and ‗fire-fighting‘.

An Executive Information System (EIS) is a set of procedure designed to allow senior managers
to gather and evaluate information relating to the organization and its environment. Naturally,
the EIS takes care the requirement of information depending upon the type of decisions taken at
different levels of managers in an organization. In fact, EIS acts as a tool specially designed for
different executives to feed their information need in useful formats. A manager can navigate a
particular format with some amount of computer skill. The EIS is not only limited to internal data
source rather facilities to easy access to common sources of external data is also arranged.

Following are the special features of an EIS:

 It a specially designed tool to feed executives information need.

 It is an easy - to - use and screen based software.
 It provides the executives to facilities of on-line analysis tools like time series analysis,
regression analysis etc.
 It is not limited to internal data only. Access to external sources of data is also provided.
 It provides the facilities to connect to internet
 Information is presented in summary format
 It is a comprehensive information system and work in conjunction with DSS.

31
Office Information System

Office automation is wider than word processing and form processing. This information system
covers activities in the office, which can improve work flow and communication among workers,
whether inside or outside the office.

The focus of this system is on the collection of information for whoever needs it.

The functions of this system are word processing, e-mails, work group programming, work
group scheduling, facsimile processing, e-document, imaging and management of work flow.

32
 3. Peripheral Devices
In computing, input/output or I/O is the communication between an information processing
system (such as a computer) and the outside world, possibly a human or another information
processing system. Inputs are the signals or data received by the system and outputs are the
signals or data sent from it. The term can also be used as part of an action; to "perform I/O" is to
perform an input or output operation. I/O devices are used by a human (or other system) to
communicate with a computer. For instance, a keyboard or mouse is an input device for a
computer, while monitors and printers are output devices. Devices for communication between
computers, such as modems and network cards, typically perform both input and output
operations.

Keyboard

The computer keyboard is used to enter text information into the computer, as when you type
the contents of a report. The keyboard can also be used to type commands directing the
computer to perform certain actions. Commands are typically chosen from an on-screen menu
using a mouse, but there are often keyboard shortcuts for giving these same commands.

In addition to the keys of the main keyboard (used for typing text), keyboards usually also
have a numeric keypad (for entering numerical data efficiently), a bank of editing keys (used in
text editing operations), and a row of function keys along the top (to easily invoke certain
program functions). Laptop computers, which don‘t have room for large keyboards, often
include a ―fn‖ key so that other keys can perform double duty (such as having a numeric
keypad function embedded within the main keyboard keys).

Improper use or positioning of a keyboard can lead to repetitive-stress injuries.

Some ergonomic keyboards are designed with angled arrangements of keys and with built-in
wrist rests that can minimize your risk of RSIs. Most keyboards attach to the PC via a PS/2
connector or USB port (newer). Older Macintosh computers used an ABD connector, but for
several years now all Mac keyboards have connected using USB.

Pointing Devices

The graphical user interfaces (GUIs) in use today require some kind of device for positioning
the on-screen cursor. Typical pointing devices are: mouse, trackball, touch pad, trackpoint,
graphics tablet, joystick, and touch screen.

Pointing devices, such as a mouse, connected to the PC via aserial ports (old), PS/2 mouse
port (newer), or USB port (newest). Older Macs used ADB to connect their mice, but all recent
Macs use USB (usually to a USB port right on the USB keyboard).

Mouse

The mouse pointing device sits on your work surface and is moved with your hand. In older
mice, a ball in the bottom of the mouse rolls on the surface as you move the mouse, and
33
internal rollers sense the ball movement and transmit the information to the computer via the
cord of the mouse.

The newer optical mouse does not use a rolling ball, but instead uses a light and a small
optical sensor to detect the motion of the mouse by tracking a tiny image of the desk surface.
Optical mice avoid the problem of a dirty mouse ball, which causes regular mice to roll
unsmoothly if the mouse ball and internal rollers are not cleaned frequently.

A cordless or wireless mouse communicates with the computer via radio waves (often
using BlueTooth hardware and protocol) so that a cord is not needed (but such mice need
internal batteries).

A mouse also includes one or more buttons (and possibly a scroll wheel) to allow users to
interact with the GUI. The traditional PC mouse has two buttons, while the traditional
Macintosh mouse has one button. On either type of computer you can also use mice with
three or more buttons and a small scroll wheel (which can also usually be clicked like a
button).

Touch pad

Most laptop computers today have a touch pad pointing device. You move the on-screen
cursor by sliding your finger along the surface of the touch pad. The buttons are located below
the pad, but most touch pads allow you to perform ―mouse clicks‖ by tapping on the pad itself.

Touch pads have the advantage over mice that they take up much less room to use. They
have the advantage over trackballs (which were used on early laptops) that there are no
moving parts to get dirty and result in jumpy cursor control.

Trackpoint

Some sub-notebook computers (such as the IBM ThinkPad), which lack room for even a touch
pad, incorporate atrackpoint, a small rubber projection embedded between the keys of the
keyboard. The trackpoint acts like a little joystick that can be used to control the position of the
on-screen cursor.

Trackball

The trackball is sort of like an upside-down mouse, with the ball located on top. You use your
fingers to roll the trackball, and internal rollers (similar to what‘s inside a mouse) sense the
motion which is transmitted to the computer. Trackballs have the advantage over mice in that
the body of the trackball remains stationary on your desk, so you don‘t need as much room to
use the trackball. Early laptop computers often used trackballs (before superior touch pads
came along).

Trackballs have traditionally had the same problem as mice: dirty rollers can make their cursor
control jumpy and unsmooth. But there are modern optical trackballs that don‘t have this

34
problem because their designs eliminate the rollers.

Joysticks

Joysticks and other game controllers can also be connected to a computer as pointing
devices. They are generally used for playing games, and not for controlling the on-screen
cursor in productivity software.

Touch screen

Some computers, especially small hand-held PDAs, have touch sensitive display screens.
The user can make choices and press button images on the screen. You often use a stylus,
which you hold like a pen, to ―write‖ on the surface of a small touch screen.

Graphics tablet

A graphics tablet consists of an electronic writing area and a special ―pen‖ that works with it.
Graphics tablets allows artists to create graphical images with motions and actions similar to
using more traditional drawing tools. The pen of the graphics tablet is pressure sensitive, so
pressing harder or softer can result in brush strokes of different width (in an appropriate
graphics program).

Scanners

A scanner is a device that images a printed page or graphic by digitizing it, producing an
image made of tiny pixels of different brightness and color values which are represented
numerically and sent to the computer. Scanners scan graphics, but they can also scan pages
of text which are then run through OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software that
identifies the individual letter shapes and creates a text file of the page's contents.

Microphone

A microphone can be attached to a computer to record sound (usually through a sound card
input or circuitry built into the motherboard). The sound is digitized—turned into numbers that
represent the original analog sound waves—and stored in the computer to later processing
and playback.

MIDI Devices

MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a system designed to transmit information

between electronic musical instruments. A MIDI musical keyboard can be attached to a
computer and allow a performer to play music that is captured by the computer system as a
sequence of notes with the associated timing (instead of recording digitized sound waves)

35
Output Devices

CRT Monitor

The traditional output device of a personal computer has been the CRT (Cathode Ray Tube)
monitor. Just like a television set (an older one, anyway) the CRT monitor contains a large
cathode ray tube that uses an electron beam of varying strength to ―paint‖ a picture onto the
color phosphorescent dots on the inside of the screen. CRT monitors are heavy and use more
electrical power than flat panel displays, but they are preferred by some graphic artists for
their accurate color rendition, and preferred by some gamers for faster response to rapidly
changing graphics.

Monitor screen size is measured diagonally across the screen, in inches. Not all of the screen
area may be usable for image display, so the viewable area is also specified. The resolution of
the monitor is the maximum number of pixels it can display horizontally and vertically (such as
800 x 600, or 1024 x 768, or 1600 x 1200). Most monitors can display several resolutions
below its maximum setting. Pixels (short for picture elements) are the small dots that make of
the image displayed on the screen. The spacing of the screen‘s tiny phosphor dots is called
the dot pitch (dp), typically .28 or .26 (measured in millimeters). A screen with a smaller dot
pitch produces sharper images.

Your computer must produce a video signal that a monitor can display. This may be handled
by circuitry on the motherboard, but is usually handled by a video card in one of the
computer‘s expansion slots; often the slot is a special one dedicated to video use, such as
an AGP slot (Accelerated Graphics Port). Video cards are also called video display adapters,
and graphics cards. Many video cards contain separate processors and dedicated video
memory for generating complex graphics quickly without burdening the CPU.
These accelerated graphics cards are loved by gamers.

Flat Panel Monitor

A flat panel display usually uses an LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) screen to display output from
the computer. The LCD consists of several thin layers that polarize the light passing through
them. The polarization of one layer, containing long thin molecules called liquid crystals, can
be controlled electronically at each pixel, blocking varying amounts of the light to make a pixel
lighter or darker. Other types of flat panel technology exist (such as plasma displays) but
LCDs are most commonly used in computers, especially laptops.

Older LCDs had slow response times and low contrast, but active matrix LCD screens have a
transparent thin film transistor (TFT) controlling each pixel, so response, contrast, and viewing
angle are much improved.

Flat panel displays are much lighter and less bulky than CRT monitors, and they consume
much less power. They have been more expensive than CRTs in the past, but the price gap is
narrowing. You will see many more flat panels in the future.

36
As with CRTs, the display size of a flat panel is expressed in inches, and the resolution is the
number of pixels horizontally and vertically on the display.

Ink Jet Printer

For hardcopy (printed) output, you need some kind of printer attached to your computer (or
available over a network). The most common type of printer for home systems is the color ink
jet printer. These printers form the image on the page by spraying tiny droplets of ink from the
print head. The printer needs several colors of ink (cyan, yellow, magenta, and black) to make
color images. Some photo-quality ink jet printers have more colors of ink. Ink jet printers are
inexpensive, but the cost of consumables (ink cartridges and special paper) make them costly
to operate in the long run for many purposes.

Laser Printer

A laser printer produces good quality images by the same technology that photocopiers use. A
drum coated with photosensitive material is charged, then an image is written onto it by a
laser (or LEDs) which makes those areas lose the charge. The drum then rolls
through toner (tiny plastic particles of pigment) that are attracted to the charged areas of the
drum. The toner is then deposited onto the paper, and then fused into the paper with heat.

Most laser printers are monochrome (one color only, usually black), but more expensive laser
printers with multiple color toner cartridges can produce color output.

Laser printers are faster than ink jet printers. Their speed is rated in pages per minute (ppm).
Laser printers are more expensive than ink jets, but they are cheaper to run in the long term if
you just need good quality black & white pages.

Other Printers

Multi-function printers are available that not only operate as a computer printer, but also
include the hardware needed to be a scanner, photocopier, and FAX machine as well.

Dot matrix printers use small electromagnetically activated pins in the print head, and an inked
ribbon, to produce images by impact. These printers are slow and noisy, and are not
commonly used for personal computers anymore (but they can print multi-layer forms, which
neither ink jet or laser printers can).

Sound Output

Computers also produce sound output, ranging from simple beeps alerting the user, to
impressive game sound effects, to concert quality music. The circuitry to produce sound may
be included on the motherboard, but high quality audio output from a PC usually requires
a sound card in one of the expansion slots, connected to a set of good quality external
speakers or headphones.

37
 4. Storage Fundamentals
Computer data storage, often called storage or memory, refers to computer components and
recording media that retain digital data used for computing for some interval of time. Computer
data storage provides one of the core functions of the modern computer, that of information
retention. It is one of the fundamental components of all modern computers, and coupled with
a central processing unit (CPU, a processor), implements the basic computer model used since
the 1940s.

Computer storage devices are typically classified into primary memory or main memory on
the one hand, and secondary storage or peripheral storage on the other. Primary memory
usually refers to Random Access Memory (RAM), while secondary storage refers to devices
such as hard disk drives, solid state drives, removable "USB" drives, CDs, and DVDs. Primary
memory also includes registers, cache, and video memories, but we will ignore them for this
discussion because their existence does not affect the principal differences between primary
and secondary memory.

Along with a faster CPU, every new model of computer seems to come with more main
memory. As memory size continues to increase, is it possible that relatively slow disk storage
will be unnecessary? Probably not, because the desire to store and process larger files grows at
least as fast as main memory size. Prices for both main memory and peripheral storage devices
have dropped dramatically in recent years.

There is now a wide range of removable media available for transferring data or storing data
offline in relative safety. These include floppy disks (now largely obsolete), writable CDs and
DVDs, "flash" drives, and magnetic tape. Optical storage such as CDs and DVDs costs roughly
half the price of hard disk drive space per megabyte, and have become practical for use as
backup storage within the past few years. Tape used to be much cheaper than other media, and
was the preferred means of backup, but are not so popular now as other media have decreased
in price. Flash drives cost the most per megabyte, but due to their storage capacity and
flexibility, quickly replaced floppy disks as the primary storage device for transferring data
between computer when direct network transfer is not available.

38
Secondary storage devices have at least two other advantages over RAM memory. Perhaps
most importantly, disk, flash, and optical media are persistent, meaning that they are not erased
from the media when the power is turned off. In contrast, RAM used for main memory is
usually volatile—all information is lost with the power. A second advantage is that CDs and USB
drives can easily be transferred between computers. This provides a convenient way to take
information from one computer to another.

Minimize the number of disk accesses!

There are generally two approaches to minimizing disk accesses. The first is to arrange
information so that if you do access data from secondary memory, you will get what you need in
as few accesses as possible, and preferably on the first access. File structure is the term used
for a data structure that organizes data stored in secondary memory. File structures should be
organized so as to minimize the required number of disk accesses. The other way to minimize
disk accesses is to save information previously retrieved (or retrieve additional data with each
access at little additional cost) that can be used to minimize the need for future accesses. This
requires the ability to guess accurately what information will be needed later and store it in
primary memory now. This is referred to as caching.

File Access Methods

Information is kept in files. Files reside on secondary storage. When this information is to be
used, it has to be accessed and brought into primary main memory. Information in files could be
accessed in many ways. It is usually dependent on an application.

Sequential Access: A simple access method, information in a file is accessed sequentially one
record after another. To process the with record all the 1-1 records previous to 1 must be
accessed. Sequential access is based on the tape model that is inherently a sequential access
device. Sequential access is best suited where most of the records in a file are to be processed.
For example, transaction files.

Direct Access: Sometimes it is not necessary to process every record in a file. It may not be
necessary to process records in the order in which they are present. Information present in a
record of a file is to be accessed only if some key value in that record is known. In all such
cases, direct access is used. Direct access is based on the disk that is a direct access device
39
and allows random access of any file block. Since a file is a collection of physical blocks, any
block and hence the records in that block are accessed. For example, master files. Databases
are often of this type since they allow query processing that involves immediate access to large
amounts of information. All reservation systems fall into this category. Not all operating systems
support direct access files. Usually files are to be defined as sequential or direct at the time of
creation and accessed accordingly later. Sequential access of a direct access file is possible but
direct access of a sequential file is not.

Indexed Sequential Access: This access method is a slight modification of the direct access
method. It is in fact a combination of both the sequential access as well as direct access. The
main concept is to access a file direct first and then sequentially from that point onwards. This
access method involves maintaining an index. The index is a pointer to a block. To access a
record in a file, a direct access of the index is made. The information obtained from this access
is used to access the file. For example, the direct access to a file will give the block address and
within the block the record is accessed sequentially. Sometimes indexes may be big. So
hierarchies of indexes are built in which one direct access of an index leads to info to access
another index directly and so on till the actual file is accessed sequentially for the particular
record. The main advantage in this type of access is that both direct and sequential access of
files is possible.

ISAM

ISAM stands for Indexed Sequential Access Method, a method for indexing data for fast
retrieval. ISAM was originally developed by IBM for mainframe computers. Today the term is
used for several related concepts: Specifically, the IBM ISAM product and the algorithm it
employs. ..

In an ISAM system, data is organized into records which are composed of fixed length fields.
Records are stored sequentially, originally to speed access on a tape system. A secondary set
of hash tables known as indexes contain "pointers" into the tables, allowing individual records to
be retrieved without having to search the entire data set. This is a departure from the
contemporaneous navigational databases, in which the pointers to other data were stored inside
the records themselves. The key improvement in ISAM is that the indexes are small and can be
searched quickly, thereby allowing the database to access only the records it needs.

40
Additionally modifications to the data do not require changes to other data, only the table and
indexes in question.

When an ISAM file is created, index nodes are fixed, and their pointers do not change during
inserts and deletes that occur later (only content of leaf nodes change afterwards). As a
consequence of this, if inserts to some leaf node exceed the node's capacity, new records are
stored in overflow chains. If there are many more inserts than deletions from a table, these
overflow chains can gradually become very large, and this affects the time required for retrieval
of a record.

ISAM is very simple to understand and implement, as it primarily consists of direct, sequential
access to a database file. It is also very inexpensive. The tradeoff is that each client machine
must manage its own connection to each file it accesses. This, in turn, leads to the possibility of
conflicting inserts into those files, leading to an inconsistent database state. This is typically
solved with the addition of a client-server framework which marshals client requests and
maintains ordering. This is the basic concept behind a database management system (DBMS),
which is a client layer over the underlying data store.

The Benefits of Secondary Storage

Picture, if you can, how many filing-cabinet drawers would be required to hold the millions of
files of, say, tax records kept by the Internal Revenue Service or historical employee records
kept by General Motors. The record storage rooms would have to be enormous. Computers, in
contrast, permit storage on tape or disk in extremely compressed form. Storage capacity is
unquestionably one of the most valuable assets of the computer.

Secondary storage, sometimes called auxiliary storage, is storage separate from the computer
itself, where you can store software and data on a semi permanent basis. Secondary storage is
necessary because memory, or primary storage, can be used only temporarily. If you are
sharing your computer, you must yield memory to someone else after your program runs; if you
are not sharing your computer, your programs and data will disappear from memory when you
turn off the computer. However, you probably want to store the data you have used or the
information you have derived from processing; that is why secondary storage is needed.
Furthermore, memory is limited in size, whereas secondary storage media can store as much
data as necessary.

The benefits of secondary storage can be summarized as follows:

41
  Capacity. Organizations may store the equivalent of a roomful of data on sets of disks
that take up less space than a breadbox. A simple diskette for a personal computer
holds the equivalent of 500 printed pages, or one book. An optical disk can hold the
equivalent of approximately 400 books.
 Reliability. Data in secondary storage is basically safe, since secondary storage is
physically reliable. Also, it is more difficult for unscrupulous people to tamper with data
on disk than data stored on paper in a file cabinet.
 Convenience. With the help of a computer, authorized people can locate and access
data quickly.
 Cost. Together the three previous benefits indicate significant savings in storage costs.
It is less expensive to store data on tape or disk (the principal means of secondary
storage) than to buy and house filing cabinets. Data that is reliable and safe is less
expensive to maintain than data subject to errors. But the greatest savings can be found
in the speed and convenience of filing and retrieving data.

These benefits apply to all the various secondary storage devices but, as we will see, some
devices are better than others. We begin with a look at the various storage media, including
those used for personal computers, and then consider what it takes to get data organized and
processed. There are three different types of storage on a computer, although primary storage
is accessed much faster than secondary storage because of the price and size limitations
secondary storage is used with today‘s computers to store all your programs and your personal
data. The figure below depicts broad categorization of secondary storage

42
devices:

SEQUENTIAL ACCESS STORAGE DEVICE

Sequential access means that the computer system must search the storage device from the
beginning until the desired data are found. The most common sequential access storage device
is magnetic tape, where data are stored and processed sequentially. Magnetic tape is the best
example

Magnetic Tape Storage

Magnetic tape is a medium for magnetic recording generally consisting of a thin magnetically
coating on a long and narrow strip of plastic. Nearly all recording tape is of this type, whether
used for recording audio or video or for computer data storage.

Devices that record and playback audio and video using magnetic tape are generally called tape
recorders and video tape recorders respectively. A device that stores computer data on
magnetic tape can be called a tape drive, a tape unit, or a streamer.

How do you add data to it?

43
 • A method for storing data onto a magnetic tape from one or more sources includes
providing a first temporary storage area for temporarily holding data and a second
temporary storage area for temporarily holding housekeeping information. The first
temporary storage area contains a number of data holding areas of fixed size.
• A quantity of data to be stored is read into the first data holding area of the first
temporary storage area. Housekeeping information identifying the data held in the first
data area and its location is formulated and written into the second temporary storage
area.

How do you read data from it?

The purpose of any magnetic tape unit is to write data on and read data from the tape used by
the device. Tape is moved from a supply reel or hub to a take-up reel or hub on the magnetic
tape transport section of the unit The magnetic oxide coated side of the tape passes in close
proximity of a read/write.

The process is repeated until the first storage area is full or there is no more data to store. The
contents of the first and second temporary storage areas are then written onto the tape as a
single unit. The procedure is repeated as necessary until the tape is full or all of the data to be
stored has been written onto the tape. We saved magnetic tape storage for last because it has
taken a subordinate role in storage technology. Magnetic tape looks like the tape used in music
cassettes plastic tape with a magnetic coating. As in other magnetic media, data is stored as
extremely small magnetic spots. Tapes come in a number of forms, including l/2-inch-wide tape
wound on a reel, l/4-inch- wide tape in data cartridges and cassettes, and tapes that look like
ordinary music cassettes but are designed to store data instead of music. The amount of data
on a tape is expressed in terms of density, which is the number of characters per inch (cpi) or
bytes per inch (bpi) that can be stored on the tape.

The highest-capacity tape is the digital audio tape, or DAT, which uses a different method of
recording data. Using a method called helical scan recording, DAT wraps around a rotating
read/write head that spins vertically as it moves. This places the data in diagonal bands that run
across the tape rather than down its length. This method produces high density and faster
access to data.

Tape now has a limited role because disk has proved the superior storage medium. Disk data is
quite reliable, especially within a sealed module. Furthermore, as we will see, disk data can be
44
accessed directly, as opposed to data on tape, which can be accessed only by passing by all
the data ahead of it on the tape. Consequently, the primary role of tape today is as an
inexpensive backup medium.

Magnetic tape has several advantages, even when compared to digital media, but also has
some important drawbacks.

Capacity

One of the key advantages of magnetic tape is its capacity for holding data. Magnetic tape was
the first medium able to hold a feature-length movie on a small, inexpensive device, thus
enabling the home video market of the 1980s. In addition, compact cassettes can hold music on
both sides, giving them a 90-minute total playing time, which is even greater than most CDs.
Editing

Magnetic tape is also easy to edit using a traditional linear-editing system. This can involve
duplicating a portion of a tape to a master reel, or physically cutting the tape and attaching the
desired portions together with glue, splicing cement or adhesive tape. Editing in this manner
requires no special computer equipment and may be less expensive and/or easier to learn than
nonlinear digital editing.

Generation Loss

One of the disadvantages of magnetic tape is generation loss, which refers to the fact that each
successive copy of a tape loses quality compared to the original. This can make it difficult to use
magnetic tape for editing-intensive projects, or when extremely high fidelity is important. Digital
media, on the other hand, can be copied and reproduced indefinitely with no visible or audible
difference between the original and any of its copies.

Durability

Another problem with magnetic tape is its tendency to stretch out over time, causing the quality
of the data to deteriorate. On old video tapes, this generally appears in the form of poor audio,
and picture data can eventually suffer as well. Over time magnetic tape acquires a layer of
magnetic debris from recording and playback heads, which may need to be cleaned periodically
to continue functioning.
45
Mechanical Complexity

The mechanical complexity needed to use magnetic tape is another disadvantage of the
medium. Items like cassette and VHS tapes include two separate reels, as well as a mechanism
for exposing a small portion of the tape inside a player or recording device. Reel-to-reel tape
players use multiple motors and moving parts, each of which is susceptible to mechanical
failure. In the realm of digital media, flash-based memory uses no moving parts, thus eliminating
this problem.

Magnetic Disks

Magnetic storage materials are a very important part of our everyday lives. We may not know it

but we use these materials nearly everyday. The most common type of magnetic storage is your

computers hard drive. These complicated devices store our most important information using
magnetic particles.

A hard drive is a series of disks, made of magnetic material. A hard drive is a series of disks,
made of magnetic material. One or more disks are mounted on a spindle. The disks are
sometimes called "platters". The spindle is connected to shaft of a drive motor. The drive motor
rotates continuously at a constant speed (measured in RPM‘s). The disk material is non-
magnetizeable (using aluminum and/or glass), but the disk surfaces are coated with a very thin
magnetizable coating.

Read/write recording head (one or more) for each disk. The R/W heads are attached to an
"access arm". The access arms are attached to a "boom". The boom is connected to a "step"
motor (also called a "servo-motor"). The step motor moves the boom and R/W heads to a track
position and stops there before a read or write operation can occur.

On a hard drive, the read/write heads float on a cushion of air over the surfaces of the disks.
The smaller the air gap, the closer the read/write head is to surface, the smaller the magnetized
spot. So, the smaller the air gap is made, the more dense the recording of bits will be.
Contaminants on the surface are larger than the air gap

46
If a contaminant "crashes" into the R/W head, then as with a car going over a large bump, the
R/W head is forced up and then the access arm will slam it down onto the recording surface and
gouge the magnetizable material off the surface, called a head crash. This makes the disk
unusable. This was a significant problem when disk surfaces were exposed to the ambient air
which is filled with particulates.

Hence, newer drives have the disks, spindle, R/W heads, access arms and boom enclosed in a
sealed case that will not allow contamination from the outside environment. This technology was
developed by IBM and was known as Winchester disk technology in the past, but the term has
since been dropped since all hard disk drives now are constructed this way.

Sectors

Each track is divided into a whole number of sectors. Sector size is fixed for the disk. All PC's
use sectored track organization with 512 byte sectors. Some other sector sizes that have been
used by various manufacturers are 256 and 1024 bytes.

A single disk operation = a read or write operation on one track. The minimum amount of data
transferred between the computer and the drive is 1 sector. The max amount transferred in a
single disk operation is 1 whole track of sectors. Files are stored in a whole number of sectors.
In other words, a file that needs 2.5 sectors of space consumes 3 whole sectors.

For most disk drives, all of the tracks have the same number of sectors. Other disk drives have
groups of tracks with different numbers of sectors. If not all sectors have the same size, then
inner disk tracks will have fewer sectors than outer tracks since the inner tracks have a smaller
circumference than outer tracks. Some hard drives to have 40+ sectors on inner tracks and 50+
sectors on the outer tracks.

On most disk drives, each sector begins with a small header that contains a gap and address
mark. Most manufacturers also end each sector with an error correcting code. (For the students
who have taken Networking course, think "check bits".)

Advantages of Magnetic Storage Devices

1. Very fast access to data.

47
 2. Data can be read directly from any part of the hard disc.

3. In most of the magnetic storage devices the acces speed is about 1000kb/s

4. Some of the magnetic storage devices are very cheap for example floppy disks.

5. Most of the magnetic storage devices store very large amounts of data.

Disadvantages of Magnetic storage devices

1. Data can be altered by magnetic fields, dust, mechanical problems
2. Gradually lose their charge over time - data lost
3. Hard disks eventually fail which stops the computer from working.
4. Regular crashes can damage the surface of the disk, leading to loss of data in
that sector.
5. The disk is fixed inside the computer and cannot easily be transferred to another
computer.

Hard disk

A hard disk uses rigid rotating platters. It stores and retrieves digital data from a planar magnetic
surface. Information is written to the disk by transmitting an electromagnetic flux through an
antenna or write head that is very close to a magnetic material, which in turn changes its
polarization due to the flux. The information can be read back in a reverse manner, as the
magnetic fields cause electrical change in the coil or read head that passes over it.
A typical hard disk drive design consists of a central axis or spindle upon which the platters spin
at a constant speed. Moving along and between the platters on a common armature are the
read-write heads, with one head for each platter face. The armature moves the heads radially
across the platters as they spin, allowing each head access to the entirety of the platter.

Types of HDD :

1. IDE : Integrated Drive Electronics. IDE drives are also known as PATA drives( Parallel
advance technology attachment )
2. SATA : Serial advance technology attachment
3. SCSI : Small Computer System Interface. SCSI is pronounced as scuzzy.
4. SAS : Serial Attached SCSI

48
IDE / PATA (Integrated Drive Electronics Drive / Parallel Advance Technology Attachment
Drive)

 IDE/PATA Drives have usually 40 pins.

 IDE/PATA Drives offer 133 MB/sec transfer rate.
 It sends 8 bit data at a time.
 PATA Cables are used to connect PATA HDD. Two drives can be connected in a single
pata cable. One as master and other as slave. The configuration of master and slave is
done by different combination of jumpers in the hdd.

SATA (Serial Advance Technology Attachment Drive)

SATA Drives have usually 7 pins, 4 pins in pair of two for sending and receiving data and rest 3
pins are grounded.

 SATA Drives offers generally 300MB/sec transfer rate.

 It sends data bit by bit.
 SATA Cables are used to connect SATA HDD. Only one drive can be connected in a
single SATA cable.

Disadvantages
 Slower transfer rates compared to SCSI
 Not supported in older systems without the use of additional components
Advantages
 Low costs
 Large capacity
 Faster transfer rates compared to ATA (difference is marginal at times though)
 Smaller cables for better heat dissipation
SCSI (Small Computer System Interface Drive)

 SCSI Drives have usually 50 to 68 pins.

 SCSI Drive offers generally 640MB/sec transfer rate.
 This drives are hot swappable.
 SCSI cables are used to connect SCSI HDD. Maximum of 16 drives can be connected in
a single scsi cable. Each hdd have a 8 bytes hexadecimal code known
as WWN (worldwide name) for its identification in the cable.

Disadvantages
 Costs
 Not widely supported

49
  Many, many different kinds of SCSI interfaces
 SCSI drives have a higher RPM, creating more noise and heat
Advantages
 Faster
 Wide range of applications
 Better scalability and flexibility in Arrays (RAID)
 Backward compatible with older SCSI devices
 Better for storing and moving large amounts of data
 Tailor made for 24/7 operations
 Reliability

SAS(Serial Attached SCSI Drive)

 SAS Drives generally offers 805 MB/sec transfer rate.

 This drives are hot swappable.
 SAS Cables are used to connect SAS Drives. Maximum of 128 drives can be connected
in a single sas cable.
 Firstly, you need to find out the type of disk drive your PC mainboeard can accept. Most
of the latest ones can accept both ATA and Serial ATA. If this is the case then choose a
Serial ATA disk drive. However, if you are on a very tight budget then you may be able
to save a little by choosing an ATA/IDE disk drive.

Optical Discs
In the Information Age, storage, retrieval, transmission and distribution of data has taken on
unprecedented importance. The medium of storage and distribution has been revolutionized by
the birth and emergence of Optical Discs.

Invented by Philips in 1977, the Compact Disc (CD) was first commercially manufactured in
1982. The production process was further refined and by 1987, the introduction of the first inline
machine heralded a new era of CD production.

Better and cost-effective production systems, a greater supply than demand, mushrooming of
production units around the world rapidly brought down the costs of CDs making them
affordable and increasing their demand many fold.

Towards increasing the storage capacity of Optical Disks, Philips, Sony and SD alliance
announced their intention of creating the Digital Video Disc in 1995. Today, both CDs and DVDs
have become industry standards in storage, archival, transmission and distribution of data,
software and entertainment.

50
Types of optical discs

1. Pre-recorded: These are discs which are manufactured with the data they are to
contain. They can be read-from but no additional data can be added to them. Examples:
CD, DVD

2. Recordable: These discs, when manufactured, are blank and contain no data. These
are ―Write Once Read Many‖ [WORM] media and data can be written on to these discs
only once. In other words, data once recorded can neither be erased nor over-written.
Examples: CD-R, DVD-R, +R

3. Re-writable: Manufactured as blanks, these discs allow data to be written, erased and
overwritten many times. Examples: CD-R, DVD-R, +RW.

Besides many differences in technical specifications and the way data is accessed from
these media, the similar-looking CDs and DVDs have two major functional differences –
capacity and access speed.

While a CD can store up to 680 MB of data that can be accessed at a maximum speed
of 1.23 MB per second, a DVD can store up to 4.7 GB (4,700 MB) of data on each layer
that can be accessed at a maximum speed of 11.08 MB per second.

Compact Disc
A compact disc is a pre recorded disc where information is stored as PITS and Lands . the pits
and lands are read by the light spot made by the laser beam of the player .

Compact Discs Recordable

CD-R is the Record able format in the family of Optical discs like CD-audio, VCD, CD-Rom etc
and was developed by Phillips , The Netherlands in 1992.

Compact Disc Record able or CD-R is a one time record able disc i.e. it can be written only
once. It is also called as WORM Disc (Write Once Read Many).

After recording it behaves like CD audio ,VCD, CD-Rom depending upon the data recorded
and can be played on Normal CD-player, VCD player or CD-Rom drive on the computers
depending upon the data recorded.

All kinds of data like Music, Movies, Software, Photo‘s Etc can be recorded on this disc

51
Digital Video Discs Recordable

DVDR is manufactured in the same way as cdr ,only difference being that DVDR has 2 halves
of 0.6mm each called as active and dummy layer , molded on 2 Injection molding
machines. After the Sputtering step (Silver deposition) instead of lacquering, the two halves a
joined together by Bonding process.

Then these 2 bonded discs are cured under the u.v light and scanned for further testing.

DVDR has 2 formats

1. DVD-R : Most common format in India .This was the first of the DVD formats to be
launched in the world . After the Disc are made some information has to be pre written
before the disc Can be recorded by the customer .So an additional pre writer is required to
be installed.
2. DVD+R: A newer format where in no prewriting is required. Can be directly recorded like
CDR.
DVDR has capacity of 4.5 GB /135 Mins. written and recorded on one side . the other side is
used for Printing purposes.

Zip Disk

An earlier 3.5" removable disk drive from Iomega. Zip disks came in 100MB, 250MB and 750MB
varieties, with the latter introduced in 2002 using USB and FireWire interfaces. The 250MB
drives, introduced in 1998, also read and wrote 100MB disks. The 750MB drives read all, but
only wrote 250MB and 750MB disks.

Zip disks were a floppy-like technology that used design concepts from hard disks and Iomega's
earlier Bernoulli disks. The drive was bundled with software that could catalog the disks and
lock the files for security. When Zip disks were introduced in 1995, they became popular very
quickly. Like all removable storage media, the Zip disk was eclipsed by recordable CDs and
DVDs and the Internet.

Flash Drives

Flash drives, also called jump drives, pen drives, and thumb drives, are small flash memory
drives with a USB (Universal Serial Bus) connection. Most computers have at least two USB
ports which are usually located in the back of the computer tower or on the sides of a laptop
computer. Some computers will have USB ports located on the front of the computer tower
52
which is the case for all lab computers on Lake Land College campuses. Flash drives can hold
from 64 MB to upwards of 16 GB of data. It is important to remember that while flash drives are
more reliable than floppy disks, they are not fail safe. Back-up data stored on flash drive often
by copying the files to your computer‘s (C.) drive or burning the files to a CD.

Digital audio tape

Digital Audio Tape (DAT or R-DAT) is a signal recording and playback medium introduced by
Sony in 1987. In appearance it is similar to a compact audio cassette, using 4 mm magnetic
tape enclosed in a protective shell, but is roughly half the size at 73 mm × 54 mm × 10.5 mm.
As the name suggests the recording is digital rather than analog, DAT converting and recording
at higher equal or lower sampling rates than a CD (48, 44.1 or 32 kHz sampling rate, and 16 bits
quantization) without data compression. This means that the entire input signal is retained. If a
digital source is copied then the DAT will produce an exact clone, unlike other digital media
such as Digital Compact Cassette or MiniDisc, both of which use data compression. The
technology of DAT is closely based on that of video recorders, using a rotating head and helical
scan to record data. This, crucially or not, prevents DATs from being physically edited.

Digital Data Storage

Digital Data Storage (DDS) is a format for storing and backing up computer data on magnetic
tape that evolved from Digital Audio Tape (DAT) technology, which was originally created for
CD-quality audio recording. In 1989, Sony and Hewlett Packard defined the DDS format for data
storage using DAT tape cartridges. Tapes conforming to the initial DDS format can be "played"
by either DAT or DDS tape machines. However, most DDS tape drives cannot retrieve the audio
stored on a DAT cartridge.

Magneto-Optical Disc

Magneto-Optical disc is an optical disc format that uses a combination of optical and magnetic
technologies. The sizes of discs are usually 3.5'' or 5.25'', and disk capacities are usually one of
128MB/230MB/540MB/640MB/1.3GB/2.6GB. A special Magneto-optical drive is required to read
these discs.

53
Multimedia Card

The Multimedia Card (MMC) is a flash memory card standard. Unveiled in 1997 by Siemens
and SanDisk, it is based on Toshiba's NAND-based flash memory, and is therefore much
smaller than earlier systems based on Intel NOR-based memory such as Compact Flash.
MMC is about the size of a postage stamp: 24mm x 32mm x 1.5mm. MMC originally used a 1-
bit serial interface, but newer versions of the specification allow transfers of 4 or sometimes
even 8 bits at a time. They have been more or less superseded by SD cards, but still see
significant use because MMC cards can be used in any device which supports SD cards.

Typically, an MMC card is used as storage media for a portable device, in a form that can easily
be removed for access by a PC.

MMC cards are currently available in sizes up to and including 2 GB, and are used in almost
every context in which memory cards are used, like cell phones, mp3 players, digital cameras,
and PDAs. Since the introduction of Secure Digital few companies build MMC slots into their
devices, but the slightly-thinner, pin-compatible MMC cards can be used in any device that
supports SD cards. A handful of companies, most notably Nokia, still support MMC exclusively,
however.

Secure Digital

Secure Digital (also known as SD) is a flash memory memory card format. SD cards are based
on Toshiba's older Multimedia Card (MMC) format, but add little-used DRM encryption features
and allow for faster file transfers, as well as being physically slightly thicker. Devices with SD
slots can use the thinner MMC cards, but SD cards won't fit into the thinner MMC slots.
Standard SD cards measure 32 mm by 24 mm by 2.1 mm. Typically, an SD card is used as
storage media for a portable device, in a form that can easily be removed for access by a PC.

xD-Picture Card

The xD-Picture Card is a flash memory memory card format developed and introduced to the
market in July 2002 by Olympus and Fujifilm. xD cards are used exclusively in Olympus and

54
Fujifilm digital cameras, and are available in a range of sizes, from 16 MB to 1 GB. They
primarily compete with formats such as Secure Digital Card (SD), CompactFlash (CF), and
Sony Memory Sticks. xD stands for "extreme digital."

Blue-ray Disc

Blu-ray Disc is a next-generation optical disc format meant for high definition video (HD) and
high density data storage, and is one of two competing standards for HD optical media. Its
competitor is HD-DVD. Blu-ray gets its name from the shorter wavelength (405 nm) blue laser
that, in addition to other techniques, allows it to store substantially more data on the same sized
disc than DVD, which uses a longer wavelength (650 nm) red laser. Blu-ray was jointly
developed by a group of leading consumer electronics and PC companies called the Blu-ray
Disc Association (BDA), which succeeded the Blu-ray Disc Founders (BDF).
One single-layer Blu-ray Disc (BD) can hold about 25 GB or over two hours of HD video plus
audio, and the dual-layer disc can hold approximately 50 GB.

HD-DVD

HD-DVD (High-Density Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical media format which is being
developed as one standard for high-definitionDVD. HD-DVD is similar to the competing Blu-ray
Disc, which also uses the same CD sized (120 mm diameter) optical data storage media and
405 nm wavelength blue laser. HD-DVD is promoted by Toshiba, NEC, and Sanyo, and backed
by four major film studios.

HD-DVD has a single layer capacity of 15 GB and a dual-layer capacity of 30 GB. Toshiba has
announced a triple-layer disc is in development, which would offer 45GB of storage.

Memory Stick

A Memory Stick is a removable memory card format, launched by Sony in October 1998.
Typically, a Memory Stick is used as storage media for a portable device, in a form that can
easily be removed for access by a PC. For example, Sony digital cameras use Memory Sticks
for storing image files. With a Memory Stick reader a user could copy the information form the
stick to the PC.

55
Micro Drive

A microdrive is originally a miniaturized hard disk in the format of a Compact Flash-Card

developed by IBM. The first generation of micro drives had a capacity of 340 MB. This version
was already used by the NASA. The next generation were available with a capacity of 512 MB
and 1 GB. Microdrives have a magnetic memory with a high capacity and a disc-diameter of 1
inch. These small hard disks can be easily destroyed by vibrations and too low air pressure.
Microdrives are usually used in PDAs and digital cameras.

USB key

A USB Flash Drive is essentially NAND-type flash memory integrated with a USB interface
used as a small, lightweight, removable data storage device. This hot-swappable, non-volatile,
solid-state device is universally compatible with post-Windows 98 platforms, Macintosh
platforms, and most Unix-like platforms.

USB Flash Drive are also known as "pen drives", "thumb drives", "flash drives", "USB keys",
"USB memory keys", "USB sticks", "jump drives", "keydrives","vault drives" and many more
names. They are also sometimes miscalled memory sticks (a Sony trademark describing a
different type of portable memory).

Flash drives are active only when powered by a USB computer connection, and require no other
external power source or battery power source; key drives are run off the limited supply afforded
by the USB connection (5V). To access the data stored in a flash drive, the flash drive must be
connected to a computer, either by direct connection to the computer's USB port or via a USB
hub.

It may not be claimed that this description of secondary storage devices is exhaustive. May be
that every day/every hour/every minute/every second research bringing new devices which
might have larger capacity than existing. For the purpose we need to keep our selves updated.

56
 5. Basic Computer Organization

A major defining point in the history of computing was the realisation in 1944–1945 that data
and instructions to manipulate data were logically the same and could be stored in the same
place. The computer design built upon this principle, which became known as the von Neumann
Architecture, is still the basis for computer today. Although the name honours John von
Neumann, a brilliant mathematician who worked on the construction of the atomic bomb, the
idea probably originated with J. Presper Echkert and John Mauchly, two other early pioneers
who worked on the ENIAC at the Moore School at the University of Pennsylvania during the
same time period.
von Neumann Architecture[edit]

Another major characteristic of the von Neumann architecture is that the units
that process information are separate from the units that store information. This characteristic
leads to the following components of the von Neumann architecture.

 The memory unit that holds both data and instructions.

 The arithmetic/logic gate unit that is capable of performing arithmetic and logic
operations on data.
 The input unit that moves data from the outside world into the computer.
 The output unit that moves results from inside the computer to the outside world.
 The control unit that acts as the stage unit to ensure that all the other components act in
concert.
57
Memory

Memory is a collection of cells, each with a unique physical address. We use the generic word
cell here rather than byte, because the number of bits in each addressable location, called the
memory's addressability, varies from one machine to another. Today, most computers are byte
addressable.

To fully illustrate the concept of memory, take a computer with 4GB of RAM as an example. The
memory consists of 4 × 230 bytes, which means each byte of the computer is uniquely
addressable, and the addressability of the machine is 8 bits. The cells in memory are numbered
consecutively beginning with 0. For example, if the addressability is 8, and there are 256 cells of
memory, the cells would be addressed as follows:

Address Contents

00000000 11100011

00000001 01010101

11111100 00000000

11111101 11111111

11111110 10101010

11111111 00110011

What are the contents of address 11111110 ? The bit pattern stored at that location
is 10101010 . However, what the contents actually represents, be it instructions, value, sign,
etc. will be discussed later. What is important, however, is to understand that the bit pattern
is information and can be interpreted.

When referring to the bits in a byte or word, the bits are numbered from right to left beginning
with zero. The bits in address 1111110 are numbered as follows:

Bit Position 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

Contents 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0

58
Arithmetic/Logic Unit

The Arithmetic/Logic Unit (ALU) is capable of performing basic arithmetic operations such as
adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing two numbers. This unit is also capable of
performing logical operations such as AND , OR , and NOT . The ALU operates on words, a
natural unit of data associated with a particular computer design. Historically, the word length of
a computer has been the number of bits processed at once by the ALU. However, the current
Intel line of processors has blurred this definition by defining the word length to be 16 bits. The
processor can work on words (of 16 bits), double words (32 bits), and quadwords (64 bits). In
the rest of this wiki, when referring to word, it will be of the historical nature aforementioned.

Most modern ALUs have a small number of special storage units called Registers. These
registers contain one word and are used to store information that is needed again immediately.
For example in the calculation of 1 × (2 + 3). 2 is first added to 3 and the result is multiplied by
1. Rather than storing the result of adding 2 and 3 in memory and then retrieving it to multiply it
by 1, the result is left in a register and the contents of the register is multiplied by 1. Access to
registers is much faster than access to memory locations.

Input/Output Units

All of the computing power in the world would not be useful if one could not input values into the
calculations from the outside or report to the outside the results of said calculations. Input and
output units are the channels through which the computer communicates with the outside world.

An Input Unit is a device through which data and programs from the outside world are entered
into the computer. The first input units interpreted holes punched on paper tape or cards.
Modern-day input devices, however, include, but are not limited to; keyboards, mice, cameras
(also known as, simply, webcams), and scanning devices.

An Output Unit is a device through which results stored in the computer memory are made
available to the outside world. Examples include printers and screen monitors.

Control Unit

The Control Unit is the organising force in the computer, for it is in charge of the Fetch-Execute
Cycle. There are two special registers in the control unit. The Instruction Register (IR) contains
the instruction that is being executed, and the Program Counter (PR) contains the address of
the next instruction to be executed. Because the ALU and the control unit work so closely
together they are often thought of as one unit called the Central Processing Unit (CPU).

59
Above is a simplified view of the flow of information through the parts of a von Neumann
machine. The parts are connected to one another by a collection of wires called a bus, through
which data travels in the computer. Each bus carries three kinds of information; address, data,
and control. An address is used to select the memory location or device to which data will go, or
from which it will be taken. Data then flows over the bus between CPU, memory, and I/O
Devices. The control information is used to manage the flow of addresses and data. For
example, a control signal will typically be used to determine the direction in which the data is
flowing either to or from the CPU. The Bus Width is the number of bits that it can transfer
simultaneously. The wider the bus, the more address or data bits it can move at once.

60
 5. Memory
Internal storage areas in the computer.

The term memory identifies data storage that comes in the form of chips, and the
word storage is used for memory that exists on tapes or disks. Moreover, the term memory is
usually used as a shorthand for physical memory, which refers to the actual chips capable of
holding data. Some computers also use virtual memory, which expands physical memory onto
a hard disk.

Every computer comes with a certain amount of physical memory, usually referred to as main
memory or RAM. You can think of main memory as an array of boxes, each of which can hold a
single byte of information. A computer that has 1 megabyte of memory, therefore, can hold out
1 million bytes (or characters) of information

(Random-access memory): This is the same as main memory. When used by itself, the term
RAM refers to read and write memory; that is, you can both write data into RAM and read data
from RAM. This is in contrast to ROM, which permits you only to read data. Most RAM
is volatile, which means that it requires a steady flow of electricity to maintain its contents. As
soon as the power is turned off, whatever data was in RAM is lost.

ROM (read-only memory): Computers almost always contain a small amount of read-only
memory that holds instructions for starting up the computer. Unlike RAM, ROM cannot be
written to.

PROM (programmable read-only memory): A PROM is a memory chip on which you

can store a program. But once the PROM has been used, you cannot wipe it clean and use it to
store something else. Like ROMs, PROMs are non-volatile.

EPROM (erasable programmable read-only memory): An EPROM is a special type of

PROM that can be erased by exposing it to ultraviolet light.

EEPROM (electrically erasable programmable read-only memory): An EEPROM is a

special type of PROM that can be erased by exposing it to an electrical charge.

61
 7. Classification of computers

Computers differ based on their data processing abilities. They are classified according to
purpose, data handling and functionality.

According to purpose, computers are either general purpose or specific purpose. General
purpose computers are designed to perform a range of tasks.

They have the ability to store numerous programs, but lack in speed and efficiency. Specific
purpose computers are designed to handle a specific problem or to perform a specific task. A
set of instructions is built into the machine.

According to data handling, computers are analog, digital or hybrid. Analog computers work
on the principle of measuring, in which the measurements obtained are translated into data.
Modern analog computers usually employ electrical parameters, such as voltages, resistances
or currents, to represent the quantities being manipulated. Such computers do not deal directly
with the numbers. They measure continuous physical magnitudes. Digital computers are those
that operate with information, numerical or otherwise, represented in a digital form. Such
computers process data into a digital value (in 0s and 1s). They give the results
with more accuracy and at a faster rate. Hybrid computers incorporate the measuring feature of
an analog computer and counting feature of a digital computer. For computational purposes,
these computers use analog components and for storage, digital memories are used.

According to functionality, computers are classified as :

Analog Computer

An analog computer is a form of computer that uses continuous physical phenomena such as
electrical, mechanical, or hydraulic quantities to model the problem being solved

Digital Computer

A computer that performs calculations and logical operations with quantities represented as
digits, usually in the binary number system

Hybrid Computer (Analog + Digital)

A combination of computers those are capable of inputting and outputting in both digital and
analog signals. A hybrid computer system setup offers a cost effective method of performing
complex simulations.
62
On the basis of Size

Super Computer

The fastest and most powerful type of computer Supercomputers are very expensive and
are employed for specialized applications that require immense amounts of mathematical
calculations. For example, weather forecasting requires a supercomputer. Other uses of
supercomputers include animated graphics, fluid dynamic calculations, nuclear
energy research, and petroleum exploration.

The chief difference between a supercomputer and a mainframe is that a supercomputer

channels all its power into executing a few programs as fast as possible, whereas a mainframe
uses its power to execute many programs concurrently.
Mainframe Computer

A very large and expensive computer capable of supporting hundreds, or even thousands, of
users simultaneously. In the hierarchy that starts with a simple microprocessor (in watches, for
example) at the bottom and moves to supercomputers at the top, mainframes are just below
supercomputers. In some ways, mainframes are more powerful than supercomputers because
they support more simultaneous programs. But supercomputers can execute a single program
faster than a mainframe.
Mini Computer

A midsized computer. In size and power, minicomputers lie

between workstations and mainframes. In the past decade, the distinction between large
minicomputers and small mainframes has blurred, however, as has the distinction between
small minicomputers and workstations. But in general, a minicomputer is a multiprocessing
system capable of supporting from 4 to about 200 users simultaneously.

Micro Computer or Personal Computer

 Desktop Computer: a personal or micro-mini computer sufficient to fit on a

desk.
 Laptop Computer: a portable computer complete with an integrated screen
and keyboard. It is generally smaller in size than a desktop computer and larger than
a notebook computer.
 Palmtop Computer/Digital Diary /Notebook /PDAs: a hand-sized computer.
Palmtops have no keyboard but the screen serves both as an input and output device.

63
 8. Operating System -

Introduction to windows XP/ Windows 7 and its features

I. Need & Role of an Operating System

As operating system (OS) is an interrelated set of programs that is used to manage the various
resources and overall operations of a computer system. It is designed to support the activities
of a computer installation. Its prime objective is to improve the performance and efficiency of a
computer system and increase facility, the ease with which a system can be used. Thus, like a
manager of a company, and operating system is responsible for the smooth and efficient
operation of the entire computer system. Moreover, it makes the computer system user friendly.
That is, it makes it easier for people to interface with the make use of the computer.
Operating system go by many different names, depending on the manufacturer of the
computer. Other terms used to describe the operating system are monitor, executive,
supervisor, controller, and master control programs. No matter by which name they are called,
today most operating systems perform the following functions:

1. Processor management, that is, assignment of processors to different tasks being

performed by the computer system.
2. Memory management, that is, allocation of main memory and other storage areas to the
system programs as well as user programs and data.
3. Input/output management, that is coordination and assignment of the different input and
output devices while one or more programs are being executed.
4. File management, that is the storage of files on various storage, devices and the transfer
of these files from one storage device to another. It also allows all files to be easily
changed and modified through the use of text editors or some other file manipulation
routines.
5. Establishment and enforcement of a job priority system. That is, it determines and
maintains the order in which jobs are to be executed in the computer system.
6. Automatic transition from job to job as directed by special control statements.
7. Interpretation of commands and instructions.

64
8. Coordination and assignment of compilers, assemblers, utility programs, and other
software to the various users of the computer system.
9. Establishment of data security and integrity. That is, it keeps different programs and
data in such a manner that they do not interfere with each other. Moreover, it also
protects itself from being destroyed by any user.
10. Production of dumps, traces, error messages, and other debugging and error-detecting
aids.
11. Maintenance of internal time clock and log of system usage for all users.
12. Facilitates easy communication between the computer system and the computer
(human) operator.
As operating system performs a wide variety of jobs. Each of these jobs are performed by one
or more computer programs and all these computer programs are jointly known as an operating
system. Out of the complete operating system, normally, one control program resides in the
main memory of the computer system. This control program is known as the resident program
or the resident routine. The other programs are stored on the disk and are called transient
programs or transient routines. These programs include utility programs, compilers,
assemblers, etc. The control program transfers these programs into the main memory and
executes them as an when they are needed. It may be recalled here that the capacity of the
main memory of any computer system is very small as compared to its secondary storage
devices like disks. This is because main memory is very expensive as compared to secondary
storage devices. This is the reason why only the control program is stored in main memory and
the rest of the operating system is stored on disks.

In effect, besides the hardware, each computer system consists of an operating system that
enables the user to effectively use the system. Thus, as shown in Figure the OS tends to
isolate the hardware from the user. The user communicates with the OS, supplies application
programs and input data, and receives output results. However, it is interesting to known that
all the tasks performed by the OS are performed automatically. The functions of the OS are
transparent to the user – he really is not at all concerned with what the OS is doing or how the
OS directs the hardware to handle certain tasks.

The efficiency of an operating system and the overall performance of a computer installation is
judged by a combination of two main factors. They are ;

65
1. Throughput. It is the total volume of work performed by the system over a given period
of time.
2. Turnaround Time. It is also known as response time and is defined as the interval
between the time a user submits his job to the system for processing and the time he
receives results. Response time is especially important where many different users share
the use of the system and the overall progress of their work depends upon their receiving
prompt results from the system.
II. DOS, UNIX , WINDOWS, WINDOWS-NT,

MS-DOS

MS-DOS (Micro Soft Disk Operating System) was developed by Microsoft Corporation(U.S.A.).
It is a Single user operating system. It works like a translator between a user and a Computer.
Basically this translator is a series of programs, it can be loaded in computer‘s memory either
through floppy or hard disk. Once it has been loaded, the user may execute his programs and
use devices such as printers, disk drives, etc.

UNIX

The Unix system is built around several utilities, a hierarchical file structure, powerful command
languages, and a structured software tool design philosophy that is essential to producing
reliable, maintainable, portable, and practical programs. These characteristics make the UNIX
system one of the most popular software development systems available today.

CHARACTERISTICS OF UNIX :

1. It is written in C language. As it is written in high-level language, it is easy to

understand and alter.
2. UNIX is a time-sharing operating system.
3. It is a multi-user, multitasking operating system.
4. It is a modular, integrated set of software that resides on and coordinates a computer
system‘s resources.
5. The UNIX system serves as the interactive interface between user and a computer
system.
MULTIUSER OPERATING SYSTEM :

66
The fundamental concepts of UNIX are almost common to all multi-user operating systems and
are implemented one way or the other.

System Security : In any multi-user operating system it is essential to restrict the user‘s
access of the system.

UNIX provides two levels of security for providing protected environment to users.

 Login Security
 File permission security.
LOGIN SECURITY :

UNIX identifies each user before allowing him to use the system. The procedure to identifying
the validity of the user is same as that followed by banks for operating the bank accounts. In
Unix a Unique name (account number) is assigned to each user. This name is known as login
name of the user and is used to identify different users. To keep the identity of the user secret
each login name has a corresponding secret code. This secret code is nothing but a sequence
of characters and is known as password. If the login name and password are found valid then
only Unix permits the user to work on the system, else it denies the access. This procedure
prohibits any unauthorised user from entering into the system and is known as login procedure.

FILE PERMISSION SECURITY :

To protect the files, Unix associates three types of permissions with each file. These
permissions are in the form of

Reading permissions: control the access of the files.

Writing permissions : control the changes in the files.

Execute permissions : control the execution of the files.

These permissions can be visualized as three types of locks associated with a file and
permissions can be visualized as keys.

ADVANTAGE OF UNIX O.S.

Unix is quite flexible, so as to support large number of peripherals and handle large data

volumes and provide an environment for the development of large and complex

67
 applications.

Some of the important advantages of Unix are listed below:

Multi-tasking Portability Communication &

Capability electronic mail

Multi-user Large selection of

Capability powerful Unix supplied

Programs

WINDOWS NT

Windows NT is a Network Operating System. ―Windows NT‖ is a generic term. Actually there
are two specialized products: Windows NT Server and Windows NT Workstation. In a Network
running Windows NT, the server component is loaded on a system dedicated (but not restricted
to) to perform as a file and print server.
Currently Microsoft has 3 operating systems competing in the market:

1. Windows 95/ 98 Operating system

2. Windows NT Server
3. Windows NT Workstation

WINDOWS NT SERVER

Windows NT Server basically provides File and Print services. The Operating system requires
larger amount of RAM and disk space than other desktop operating systems. Most Networks
running Windows NT operating system have the version 4.0 loaded on them, although Windows
NT5 is already here. Windows NT Server also has a built in Web server so that normally, no
additional software will be required.

Minimum requirements of Windows NT Server are as follows:

68
  486DX / 33 Intel processor
 16 MB RAM
 125 MB Hard disk space
 3.5 inch drive

WINDOWS NT WORKSTATION

Windows NT Workstation is a very robust and pure 32 bit Operating System. All Windows
Applications run on this operating system. It lacks some of the features of Windows 95 due to
the simplicity. Windows workstation can act as a stand alone OS. Windows NT Workstation can
also act as a client to a Windows NT Domain. Windows NT Workstation (if configured as a
client) asks the name and the password of the user to boot up. If correct entries are made, the
system logs the user ‗in‘. The main advantage of Windows NT workstation over Windows95 is
the security that Windows NT Workstation provides.

WORKGROUPS

Computer Networks can be in 2 environments:

 Domain based
 Workgroup
A workgroup is a collection of computers grouped together due to their common purpose. Each
computer has to manage its own accounts. A workgroup environment is not suitable or
recommended in a large corporate environment.

This is due to the absence of any centralized control over the resources and security. The
security is in the hands of the users, which can be expected to manage the computer accounts
properly.

Migration Tool, as the name suggests allows the administrator to ―migrate‖ from a Novell
environment to an NT environment. The process occurs painlessly and is easy to perform for
the Administrator. NT takes all the pains of conversion. There‘s at least one NetWare LAN in
almost every company.

How Does Windows NT Differ from Windows ?

 The client operating systems such as Windows 95 or Windows NT

69
 Workstation should be used to run word processing and spreadsheet applications;
where as Windows NT Server should be used to store files on the network.

Windows 95 is actually much more complicated than Windows NT because Windows 95

must be able to run all programs written for previous versions of Windows and DOS. And
meeting that requirement is not easy. Windows NT, on the other hand, has to run only programs
written for Windows NT and those programs for Windows and DOS that do not interfere with
Windows NT security mechanisms.

WINDOWS OPERATING ENVIRONMENT

1. Common term used to describe a desktop computer.

2. When referring to an operating system or GUI, the Desktop is a system of organization

of icons on a screen. The Microsoft Windows Desktop was first introduced with
Microsoft Windows 95 and has been included with all versions of Windows since then.
Below is a basic example of the Microsoft Windows desktop.

Windows 95 Desktop

In the above picture, is an example of the Microsoft Windows 95 Desktop. In this picture,
there are Desktop icons on the left-hand-side of the window, blue and white clouds for
the wallpaper, and the Taskbar is found on the bottom of the screen.

70
 Tip: Press the shortcut key Windows key + D at any time to get to the Windows Desktop.
Press the same keys again to restore windows back to how they were before they were
minimized.

What icons and items are found on the Windows Desktop?

Some of the most common icons you're likely to find on the Desktop include the My
Computer icon, Recycle Bin, your Internet browser icon (e.g. Internet Explorer), and My
Documents. On the Windows Desktop, you'll also have access to the Windows Start
Menu through the Start button on the Taskbar and the Windows Notification Area.

Taskbar

A bar located at the bottom of the screen that was first introduced with Microsoft Windows
95 and found in all versions of Windows after that. The Taskbar allows the user to locate and
launch programs through the Start button, see any program that is currently open, display the
time or date, items running in the background through the Systray, and with subsequent
versions of the Windows operating system, the Quick Launch.

Windows 7 Taskbar

Windows 98 Taskbar

In the above two pictures, are examples of differences between Windows Taskbars. First, the
Windows 98 Taskbar is an example of what the Taskbar looks like in many of the earlier
versions of Microsoft Windows. As can be seen by this picture, this Taskbar has the Start
button, the Quick launch area, the currently running programs, and the Systray and system
time.

The second image, is the latest evolution of the Windows Taskbar, first introduced with
Windows Vista. In this version of the Taskbar, the Start button is now an Orb with the Windows
flag, displays icons like the Quick Launch with the currently running programs, running
programs are only shown by icon, running programs icons in the Systray are now hidden, and
the date is below the time.

Start Menu

The Microsoft Windows Start Menu is the primary location in Windows to locate your installed
programs and find any files or folders. By default, the Start menu is located in the bottom left-
hand corner of the screen and is accessed by clicking the Start button. In the below picture, is
71
an example of what the Windows 7 Start Menu may look like. In this example, the Start Menu
has five important sections.

Left Pane

First, the left pane shows recently ran programs or any pinned program shortcuts. In the
above example, there is one pinned program separated by a line and then the recently
ran programs.

All Programs

Next, at the bottom of the left pane is the "All Programs" option, which displays all
programs that have been installed on the computer.

Search

Next, directly below All Programs is the "Search" bar, this useful feature allows you to
type in the name of the program or file you're looking for and have the results displayed
above.

Right Pane

Fourth, the right pane shows each of the more commonly accessed sections of the
computer such as your computer, control panel, documents, music, and pictures.

Shut down

Finally, the Shut down button allows you to Shut down the computer or click the arrow
next to the Shut down button to switch user, log off, restart, and sleep the computer.

72
 My Pictures

The easiest way to locate and view pictures on your computer is by using Windows Photo
Gallery. By default, Photo Gallery shows all the pictures and videos that are located in the
Pictures folder, but you can add other folders to Photo Gallery. You can search for pictures and
videos by typing in the Search box or by clicking tags, ratings, or dates in the Navigation pane.

Open Windows Photo Gallery by clicking the Start button , clicking All Programs, and then
clicking Windows Photo Gallery.

A subfolder of My Documents, this is the default location for pictures and images in Windows
XP Professional. If My Documents is redirected, My Pictures is also redirected by default. It is
recommended that you accept the default setting and allow My Pictures to follow the My
Documents folder.

My Music

A subfolder of My Documents, this is the default location for music files. If My Documents is
redirected, My Music is also redirected by default.

Working with recycle bin – restoring a deleting

When Microsoft introduced the Recycle Bin in Windows 95, it immediately became a failsafe for
many users. If you delete a file and realize that you actually need it, you can recover it easily by
doing the following:

 Open the Recycle Bin by double-clicking on the Recycle Bin icon on your desktop (or
you can go to the Recycle Bin folder in Windows Explorer).
 Find the file you want to recover and click to highlight it.
 Go to the File menu and choose the Restore option (or right click over the filename and
select Restore from the context-sensitive menu).
 The file is now back on your computer in its original place.

While the Recycle Bin is a great utility, there are times that a file is not placed in the Recycle Bin
when you delete it. These include files from removable storage such as flash memory and Zip
disks, files deleted from within some applications, and files deleted from the command prompt.
Also, there are times that you will empty the Recycle Bin and then realize that there was a file
you wanted to keep.

A common misconception is that the data is actually removed from the hard drive (erased) when
you delete a file. Any time that a file is deleted on a hard drive, it is not erased. Instead, the tiny
bit of information that points to the location of the file on the hard drive is erased. This pointer,
along with other pointers for every folder and file on the hard drive, is saved in a section near
the beginning of the hard drive and is used by the operating system to compile the directory tree
73
structure. By erasing the pointer file, the actual file becomes invisible to the operating system.
Eventually, the hard drive will write new data over the area where the old file is located.

There are several hard disk utilities that you can find on the Internet that allow you to recover
"deleted" files. What these utilities do is search for data on the hard drive that does not have
corresponding pointer information and present you with a list of these files. Your chances of fully
recovering a file diminish the longer you wait after you deleted the file since the probability that
the file has been overwritten increases. Sometimes you can recover portions of a file that has
not been completely overwritten.

Emptying the recycle bin

When you delete a file, it's usually moved to the Recycle Bin so that you can restore the file
later if necessary. For information about recovering a file, see Recover files from the Recycle
Bin.

To permanently remove files from your computer and reclaim any hard disk space they were
using, you need to delete the files from the Recycle Bin. You can delete individual files from the
Recycle Bin or empty the entire Recycle Bin at once.

1. Open the Recycle Bin by double-clicking the Recycle Bin on the desktop.

2. Do one of the following:

 To permanently delete one file, click it, press Delete, and then click Yes.
 To delete all of the files, on the toolbar, click Empty the Recycle Bin, and then
click Yes.
Managing Files & Folders

Every Windows folder provides easy access to common file and folder management tasks.
When you open any folder on your computer, a list of hyperlinked tasks is displayed next to the
folder contents. You can select a file or folder, and then click a task to rename, copy, move, or
delete it. You can also send a file in e-mail or publish it to the Web.

In addition to the basic file and folder tasks provided in all Windows folders, there are several
folders that provide links to specialized tasks.

My Pictures and My Music folders provide task links that can help you manage your picture and
music files.

In the My Computer folder, you can view and select the drives on your computer, the devices
with removable storage, and the files stored on your computer. You can use the task links in this
folder to view information about your computer, change system settings using Control Panel,
and perform other system management tasks.

74
Use the Recycle Bin tasks to empty the Recycle Bin or restore deleted files and folders to their
original locations. The Recycle Bin is displayed on your desktop

Disk navigating between folders, manipulating files and folders

A file is an item that contains information—for example, text or images or music. When opened,
a file can look very much like a text document or a picture that you might find on someone's
desk or in a filing cabinet. On your computer, files are represented with icons; this makes it easy
to recognize a type of file by looking at its icon. Here are some common file icons:

Icons for a few types of files

A folder is a container you can use to store files in. If you had thousands of paper files on your
desk, it would be nearly impossible to find any particular file when you needed it. That's why
people often store paper files in folders inside a filing cabinet. On your computer, folders work
the same way. Here are some typical folder icons:

An empty folder (left); a folder containing files (right)

Folders can also store other folders. A folder within a folder is usually called a subfolder. You
can create any number of subfolders, and each can hold any number of files and additional
subfolders.

75
Using libraries to access your files and folders

When it comes to getting organized, you don't need to start from scratch. You can use libraries,
a feature new to this version of Windows, to access your files and folders, and arrange them in
different ways. Here's a list of the four default libraries and what they're typically used for:

 Documents library. Use this library to organize and arrange word-processing

documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and other text-related files. For more information,
see Managing your documents.
By default, files that you move, copy, or save to the Documents library are stored in the My
Documents folder.
 Pictures library. Use this library to organize and arrange your digital pictures, whether
you get them from your camera, scanner, or in e-mail from other people. For more
information, see Managing your pictures.
By default, files that you move, copy, or save to the Pictures library are stored in the My
Pictures folder.
 Music library. Use this library to organize and arrange your digital music, such as songs
that you rip from an audio CD or that you download from the Internet. For more information,
see Managing your music.
By default, files that you move, copy, or save to the Music library are stored in the My
Music folder.
 Videos library. Use this library to organize and arrange your videos, such as clips from
your digital camera or camcorder, or video files that you download from the Internet. For
more information, see Managing your videos.
By default, files that you move, copy, or save to the Videos library are stored in the My
Videos folder.
To open the Documents, Pictures, or Music libraries, click the Start button , and then
click Documents, Pictures, or Music.

You can open common libraries from the Start menu

For more information about libraries,

Understanding the parts of a window

When you open a folder or library, you see it in a window. The various parts of this window are
designed to help you navigate around Windows or work with files, folders, and libraries more
easily. Here's a typical window and each of its parts:

76
Viewing and arranging files and folders

When you open a folder or library, you can change how the files look in the window. For
example, you might prefer larger (or smaller) icons or a view that lets you see different kinds of
information about each file. To make these kinds of changes, use the Views button in the
toolbar.

Each time you click the left side of the Views button, it changes the way your files and folders
are displayed by cycling through five different views: Large Icons, List, a view called Details that
shows several columns of information about the file, a smaller icon view called Tiles, and a view
called Content that shows some of the content from within the file.

If you click the arrow on the right side of the Views button, you have more choices. Move the
slider up or down to fine-tune the size of the file and folder icons. You can see the icons change
size as you move the slider.

77
 The Views options

In libraries, you can go a step further by arranging your files in different ways. For example, say
you want to arrange the files in your Music library by genre (such as Jazz and Classical):

1. Click the Start button , and then click Music.

2. In the library pane (above the file list), click the menu next to Arrange by, and then
click Genre.

Top of page

Finding files

Depending on how many files you have and how they are organized, finding a file might mean
browsing through hundreds of files and subfolders—not an easy task. To save time and effort,
use the search box to find your file.

The search box

The search box is located at the top of every window. To find a file, open the folder or library
that makes the most sense as a starting point for your search, click the search box, and start
typing. The search box filters the current view based on the text that you type. Files are

78
displayed as search results if your search term matches the file's name, tags or other properties,
or even the text inside a text document.

If you're searching for a file based on a property (such as the file's type), you can narrow the
search before you start typing by clicking the search box, and then clicking one of the properties
just below the search box. This adds a search filter (such as "type") to your search text, which
will give you more accurate results.

If you aren't seeing the file you're looking for, you can change the entire scope of a search by
clicking one of the options at the bottom of the search results. For example, if you search for a
file in the Documents library but you can't find it, you can clickLibraries to expand the search to
the rest of your libraries. For more information, see Find a file or folder.

Copying and moving files and folders

Occasionally, you might want to change where files are stored on your computer. You might
want to move files to a different folder, for example, or copy them to removable media (such as
CDs or memory cards) to share with another person.

Most people copy and move files using a method called drag and drop. Start by opening the
folder that contains the file or folder you want to move. Then, open the folder where you want to
move it to in a different window. Position the windows side by side on the desktop so that you
can see the contents of both.

Next, drag the file or folder from the first folder to the second folder. That's all there is to it.

To copy or move a file, drag it from one window to another

When using the drag-and-drop method, you might notice that sometimes the file or folder is
copied, and at other times it's moved. If you're dragging an item between two folders that are
stored on the same hard disk, then the item is moved so that two copies of the same file or
folder aren't created in the same location. If you drag the item to a folder that's in a different
location (such as a network location) or to removable media like a CD, then the item is copied.
79
Creating a New Folder

A folder is a location where you can store your files. You can create any number of folders and
even store folders inside other folders (subfolders). Here‘s how to create a new folder:

1. Go to the location (such as a folder or the desktop) where you want to create a new
folder.

2. Right-click a blank area on the desktop or in the folder window, point to New, and then
click Folder.

3. Type a name for the new folder, and then press Enter.

How to Search for a File or Folder

To search for a file or folder:

1. Click Start, and then click Search.

2. In the Search Companion dialog box, click All files and folders.
3. Type part or all of the name of the file or folder, or type a word or phrase that is in the
file.
4. In the Look in box, click the drive or drives, folder, or network location that you want to
search.
5. Choose one of the following options:
6.
a. Click When was it modified to look for files that were created or modified on or
between specific dates.
b. Click What size is it to look for files that are specific size.
c. Click More advanced options to specify additional search criteria.

Click Search.

Formatting Floppy drive

This article shows you how to format a floppy disk in Windows.

80
 Steps

1.

Go to My Computer (Start->My Computer). If you have the classic start menu, then it's on the
desktop.

Ad

81
2.

Right click the floppy icon (usually A: or B:) and click Format. You will see the Format
Dialogue box

3. Decide on all of the options:

 Capacity: How much the disk can store. Choose the best capacity available.

82
 File system: Choose the file system FAT or NTFS. NTFS is not compatible with
Windows 3.1, 95, 98 or ME, so select FAT if you want to use the disk for these operating
systems.

 Allocation Unit Size: Leave as default.

 Volume Label (optional): Choose a label.

 Quick Format (optional): Formats the disk faster; however, it does not securely
delete all data.

 Create an MS-DOS startup disk (optional): If you want to create one.

83
4

Click Start when you are finished. A warning box will pop up; read it and then click OK.

Watch the progress bar and the result of the format. If you didn't select Quick Format, this
could take a while.

84
 6
Click Close when it is finished. Your disk is now formatted and can now be used to store your
files.

85
 9 .Windows Accessories

System Tools:--- For a smooth performance of a system, periodic maintenance is necessary.

Tools like Disk Check, Disk Defragmenter, etc., helps in system maintenance. It is practically
impossible for administrators to manually perform the maintenance on a regular basis.

Desktop Central provides an option to schedule these tasks at regular intervals to be executed
on multiple computers simultaneously. It allows creating multiple tasks that can be created to
execute various tools on different target computers at different intervals. Moreover, these tasks

can also be done during off hours.

Disk Defragmenter

Disk gets fragmented as users create and delete files and folders, download files from internet,
or install/uninstall programs. When a file or a folder is deleted from the hard disk, the space that
was occupied by it will be used to store any new files. When a file gets saved, it uses the first
contiguous free space that is large enough for the file and the remaining part of the file is saved
in the next available free space.

Check Disk

Disk errors related to bad sectors, cross-linked files, directory errors, etc., create problems in I/O
operations. The Check Disk tool creates a status report of the disk based on its file system.
Desktop Central supports the following options to run the check disk tool:

 Verbose: Displays the name of each file in every directory as the disk is checked.
 Quick Check: This option is available only for the NTFS File system. Selecting this
option will perform the check disk operation quickly by skipping the checking of cycles

within the folder structure and by performing a less vigorous check of index entries.

86
Disk Cleanup

The Disk Cleanup utility helps in determining the unused files in the disk and deletes them to
significantly increase the free space.

Wake On LAN

Wake on LAN tool remotely 'wakes-up' a machine (boots-up a machine) that is present in the
network but not alive. For this tool to work, the machine should be configured to accept the

Wake-on-LAN remote command. The Wake on LAN tool supports both manual and scheduled
waking up of systems. It can be used to boot systems across VLANs.

Remote Shutdown

Remote Shutdown tool of Desktop Central allows Administrators to perform the following tasks
remotely:

 Shutdown
 Restart
 Hibernate
 Stand By
 Lock Computers

These tasks can either be done manually or scheduled to run at specified intervals. Separate

tasks containing same or different computers can be created and scheduled to run at different
intervals. The status of each of the task is available for verification.

Control Panel:--

The Control Panel is a part of the Microsoft Windows graphical user interface
which allows users to view and manipulate basic system settings and controls via applets, such
as adding hardware, adding and removing software, controlling user accounts, and changing
accessibility options. Additional applets can be provided by third party software.
87
In recent versions of Windows, the Control Panel has two views, Classic View and Category
View, and it is possible to switch between these through an option that appears on either the left
side or top of the window.

Many of the individual Control Panel applets can be accessed in other ways. For instance,
Display Properties can be accessed by right-clicking on an empty area of the desktop and
choosing Properties.

The classic view consists of shortcuts to the various control panel applets, usually without any
description (other than the name). The categories are seen if the user use "Details" view.

The category view consists of categories, which when clicked on display the control panel
applets related to the category. In Windows Vista, the category used applets below the name of
the category.

List of Control Panel applets[edit]

The control panel then uses these lists to locate the applets and load them into the control panel
program (control.exe) when started by the user. In addition to using the control panel, a user
can also invoke the applets manually via the command processor. For instance, the syntax
"Control.exe inetcpl.cpl" or "control.exe /name Microsoft.InternetOptions" will run the internet
properties applet in Windows XP or Vista respectively. While both syntax examples are
accepted on Windows Vista, only the former one is accepted on Windows XP.[2]

Standard applets

Accessibility Options (Access.cpl)

Allows users to configure the accessibility of their PC. It comprises various settings primarily
aimed at users with disabilities or hardware problems.

 The behavior of the keyboard can be modified, this is aimed at people who have
difficulty pressing key-combinations, or pressing a key just once. (StickyKeys, FilterKeys
and ToggleKeys)
 Behavior of sounds can be modified. (SoundSentry and ShowSounds)
 High contrast mode can be activated.
 The keyboard cursor can be customized.
 The pointer can be controlled using the keyboard. (MouseKeys)

Note that in the next generation of Windows, the Ease of Access control panel superseded the
simple access.cpl control panel in previous versions.
Add New Hardware (hdwwiz.cpl)
Launches a wizard which allows users to add new hardware devices to the system. This can be
done by selecting from a list of devices or by specifying the location of the driver installation
files.
Add or Remove Programs (appwiz.cpl)

The Add/Remove Programs dialog allows the user to manipulate software installed on the
88
system in a number of ways;

 Allows users to uninstall and change existing software packages, as well as indicating
how much space individual programs take and how frequently they are used.
 Allows users to manually install software from a CD-ROM or Floppy Disk, and install
add-ons from Windows Update.
 Allows users to change which Windows components are installed, via the Windows
setup Wizard, which includes Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player and Windows
Messenger
 Finally, it allows users to specify the default applications for certain tasks, via the 'set
program access and defaults' wizard, such as internet browsers, media players and
email programs and whether access to these programs is available

Administrative Tools (control admintools)

Contains tools for system administration, including security, performance and service
configuration. These are links to various configurations of the Microsoft Management Console
such as the local services list and the Event Viewer.
Automatic Updates (wuaucpl.cpl)
This is used to specify how the Automatic Updates client (wuauclt.exe) should download
updates from the Microsoft Update Website, by default this is set to download and install daily,
however this can be changed to a more suitable frequency. This also allows the user to specify
whether to ask permission before downloading and/or installing updates or to simply switch off
Automatic Updates all together.
Date and Time (timedate.cpl)
Allows user to change the date and time stored in the machine's BIOS, change the time zone
and specify whether to synchronize the date and time with an Internet Time Server and which
server to use.
Display (control desktop) (desk.cpl)

Allows the user to change the display characteristics of their computer;

 Allows users to change the desktop background (wallpaper) to a picture of their choice
and specifies how it should be shown.
 Allows the user to change or disable the screensaver, and specify how long it takes to
activate and whether to ask for a password on resume
89
  Allows the user to specify the color styles of all elements within the system, primarily
whether to use the Windows XP / Vista styles (blue by default in XP) or to use the
classic Windows 98 / Me styles, this also allows the user to change the My Computer
and Recycle Bin icons.
 Allows the user to change the screen resolution and colour quality, and provides trouble
shooting advice for displays.

Folder Options (control folders)

This item allows for configuration of how folders and files are presented in Windows Explorer.
More specifically it allows the user to specify general settings like whether folders open in a new
window or the existing window and whether the common tasks pane is shown, as well as more
advanced tasks such as whether windows should hide critical system files and whether to show
file extensions. It is also used to modify file type associations in Windows; i.e., which program
opens which type of file and other settings like actions for each file type and the file extension.
Fonts (control fonts)
Displays all fonts installed on the computer. Users can remove fonts, install new fonts or search
for fonts using font characteristics. Note that "explorer \Windows\Fonts" has the same effect.
Internet Options (inetcpl.cpl)
Allows the user to change the way the computer manages internet connections and browser
settings for Internet Explorer, it has several tags specifying different attributes;

 General - This specifies the homepage and color schemes and allows the user to delete
internet usage history.
 Security & Privacy - These specify whether the computer should allow websites to
undertake certain processes and download cookies, this panel also gives access to the
inbuilt pop-up blocker (Windows XP SP2 and later) and the phishing controls (Internet
Explorer 7).
 Content - Allows the parental controls and auto-complete to be configured and also
specifies how to deal with certificates.
 Connections, Programs and Advanced - These give access to other aspects of internet
settings such as the default modem connection and email client, proxy settings and
other advanced configurations.

Game Controllers (joy.cpl)

Allows one to add, display, troubleshoot, and use advanced settings on joysticks and game
controllers.
Keyboard (control keyboard) (main.cpl)
Lets the user change and test keyboard settings, including cursor blink rate and key repeat rate.
Mail (mlcfg32.cpl) (mlcfg.cpl)
Mail allows for configuration of the mail client in Windows, usually Microsoft Outlook. Microsoft
Outlook Express cannot be configured with this item; it is configured through its own interface.
mlcfg.cpl is used for 64 bit office applications first available with the Office 2010 release.
Mouse (control mouse) (main.cpl)
Mouse allows the configuration of pointer options, such as the double click and scroll speed,
and includes visibility options such as whether to use pointer trails and whether the pointer
should disappear when typing. This also allows the user to specify the pointer appearance for
90
each task, such as resize and busy.
Network Connections

Displays and allows the user to edit or create network

connections such as Local Area Networks (LAN) and
internet connections. It also offers troubleshooting
functions in case the computer has to be reconnected
to the network.

Phone and Modem Options (telephon.cpl)

Manages telephone and modem connections.
Power Options (powercfg.cpl)
Includes options to manage energy consumption such as;

 Specify how long it takes to switch off the display and hard drives and how long it takes
for the system to enter standby, if at all.
 To decide what to do when the computer's on/off button is pressed, such as whether to
shut down or to enter standby.
 Whether to allow Hibernation (some systems become unstable when restarting).
 Allows the user to configure UPS (if available).

Printers and Faxes (control printers)

Displays all the printers and faxes currently installed on the computer, and has two main uses;

 Firstly, it shows all the jobs queued for each printer, the file size and status of each job
and which user they belong to, it also allows each job to be paused, canceled or moved
up or down the list.
 Secondly, it allows the user to set the printing or faxing preferences, such as paper size
and quality via the manufacturers own preferences pane and also specifies how to share
the printer across a computer network, the device drivers, ports etc.

Regional and Language Settings (intl.cpl)

Various regional settings can be altered, for instance:

 The way numbers are displayed (e.g. decimal separator).

 How Currency values are displayed, including the currency symbol.
 Time and date notations, such as the date separator and whether the clock should be in
12 or 24 hours.
 Cultural location of the user's computer (The time zone is set in Date and Time).
 Language;

91
 o Input language.
o Keyboard layout (mapping between key strokes and characters).
o Display language for Menus and Dialog Boxes.
 Whether files necessary for Asiatic language support must be installed.
 Installed code pages.

Security Center
Renamed "Action Center" in Windows 7
First added in Windows XP with Service Pack 2, Security Center gives the user access to the
inbuilt Windows security components, as well as providing information about any existing
antivirus software such as McAfee or Zone Alarm. It includes access to Windows Update, where
users can specify whether the computer should check for updates regularly (also available
through the Windows Update panel), and options for managing internet security settings. It also
includes links to internet articles about PC security and current virus threats and notifies the
user when the PC's security is compromised.
Sounds and Audio Devices (mmsys.cpl)
This panel contains various audio-related functions;

 Change the speaker volume and type and specify whether to show the volume icon in
the notification area.
 Change the sounds played for the system or specific programs when a certain event
occurs, i.e. Windows Startup or Critical Stop.
 Change default devices for music playback, recording, voice recognition, MIDI etc.
 Change the Sound card settings and whether to use Hardware acceleration.
 Display the audio devices installed on the computer, and allows them to be configured.

Speech (Sapi.cpl)
This applet has two main functions, the first is specify settings for Speech synthesis, allowing
the user to select the voice the computer should use to narrate text and how fast it should read.
The second is to specify settings for Speech recognition, allowing the user to set up different
profiles detailing how the computer should deal with an individual's dialect, for instance;

 The amount of grammatical errors in a person's voice (punctuality sensitivity).

 The speed at which the person speaks, and the time delay between words.

This also allows the user to access the voice recognition training wizard, in which an individual
'teaches' the computer to recognize a person voice interactively using the microphone.
System (Sysdm.cpl)
This is used to view and change core system settings, a user can for instance:

 Display general information on the user's machine such as the amount of RAM, CPU
speed and type, the version of Windows the system is using and the manufacturer.
 Edit the computer name in a network workgroup.
 Manage and Configure hardware devices, and view information such as the
manufacturer, user access and driver version of any hardware device installed on the
system via Device Manager.
 Enable/Disable system features such as automatic updates and System restore
92
 monitoring.
 Specify advanced features such as performance logs, virtual memory settings and
roaming profiles.

Taskbar and Start Menu (rundll32.exe shell32.dll, Options_RunDLL 1)

Allows the user to change the behavior and appearance of the task bar and Start Menu;

 Specifies whether to use Windows XP/Vista or Classic 9x/Me styles on the taskbar and
start menu.
 Whether the taskbar should Auto-Hide.
 Whether to show the clock in the notification area.
 Allows the user to manage the tray icons.
 Advanced options such as whether to show Printers & Faxes in the start menu and
whether to display My Documents as a menu or as a link to a new window.

User Accounts (nusrmgr.cpl)

This allows the user to configure their account and other accounts used in the system, should
they have sufficient privileges. They can change their username and password, their picture (if
enabled) and their .net passport. If the current user has an administrators account they can also
add, delete and modify other user accounts as well as make changes to core system settings.
This panel also specifies whether the guest account should be active and whether to use the
Welcome screen while Windows loads.

Peripheral devices

These are options in the control panel that show devices connected to the computer. They do
not actually offer a direct interface to control these devices, but rather offer basic tasks such as
removal procedures and links to wizards (Printers & faxes is the exception).

Such Applets include;

 Scanners and Cameras

 Game Controllers
 Portable Media Devices

Other Microsoft-distributed applets

Bluetooth Devices (bthprops.cpl)

Available with Bluetooth enabled systems running XP SP2 or later, this enables users to
configure a Bluetooth connection, showing a list of all Bluetooth devices interacting with the
system, an addition to the following items;

 Allowing users to create incoming and outgoing 'virtual' COM Ports, which allow devices
to have dedicated connections to the system.
 Allowing users to specify general Bluetooth characteristics such as whether the
computer is discoverable and the computer's name which is broadcast.

93
Color (color.cpl)
Enables a more advanced control of color settings within Windows than is available in 'display',
suitable for developers and visual specialists it allows users to create and load International
Color Consortium compliant color profiles, associate screen color with printers and cameras and
view a 3D graphics plot of the color gamut. By default this applet is not installed, however it can
be installed for free from the Microsoft Website.
Infrared (irprops.cpl)
Similar to the Bluetooth applet, this is used to configure how the computer manages any
wireless infrared ports installed, including options such as connectivity and security.
CSNW (nwc.cpl)
The Client Service for NetWare applet is used to select a default tree and context in a Novell
Directory Services (NDS) environment, or the NetWare server used most frequently in a non-
NDS environment.

Requirement: Installing the Client Service for NetWare.

Software Explorers
Part of Windows Defender, allows users to view detailed information about software that is
currently running on the computer that can affect the users' privacy or the security of the
computer.
Control Panel options:--

It‘s time to personalise your Operating System. We walk you through the essentials of using and
customising settings with the Windows Control Panel

You may be keen to change settings on your

computer. While changes to display settings,
colours and wallpaper are common, you may fail to
take advantage of the configuration options found in
the various applets within the Control Panel.

If you're a new user, the Control Panel offers the

ability to change input device settings, add, remove
and troubleshoot hardware and software, configure
input devices like your keyboard and mouse, and
much more. If you're a more experienced user,
Control Panel can be customised to a greater
degree through a series of Registry tweaks and
third-party utilities

Accessibility Options
Among the more obscure applets in the Control Panel is Accessibility Options. Although the
purpose of this applet is to configure Windows settings so that the environment is friendlier to
users with motion, visual, and hearing disabilities, settings found here can often to useful to any
user. This applet enables you to control various keyboard, sound, display and mouse settings.
For example, the Keyboard tab enables you to configure settings known as Sticky Keys, Filter
Keys and Toggle Keys. These mean you can press key combinations such as [Ctrl] + [Alt] +
[Del] one key at a time rather than simultaneously, ignore brief repeated keystrokes, or play a
94
sound when you press any of the Lock keys. Toggle keys is especially useful if you tend to
accidentally press [Caps Lock] and then type a paragraph of text before you even notice.

Other options found in this tool include the ability to display visual representations of system
sounds, configure your number keypad to act as your mouse and change display settings to
high contrast.

Add/Remove
The Add/Remove tools in Control Panel will probably be among those you‘ll visit most often.
While the Add/Remove Hardware applet gives you access to a wizard environment used to add,
remove, unplug or troubleshoot hardware, visits to Add/Remove Programs are far more
common. This tool not only enables you to add, remove and change software, but also enables
you to change installed operating system components (such as games or other utilities), and
provides you with a graphical interface from which to create a bootable floppy disk.

Obviously, removing unused software with help to free up system components. However,
creating a bootable floppy disk should be a priority for all users, since it will ultimately prove
indispensable should your system be unable to boot.

Display settings

The Display applet is a common tool that you‘re probably already familiar with. Not only does it
enable you to control various colour and desktop layout settings, but you also use this tool to
configure screen savers, desktop wallpaper, visual effects and more. The most important
options are those found on the Settings tab, since these enable you to control both the display
resolution and colour depth used. If your display seems less than vivid, try either a higher colour
depth or higher resolution. If these options cannot be changed, it‘s likely that you‘ve got the
wrong video driver for your system installed – check the manufacturer‘s Web site for an update.

Keyboard and Mouse

The Control Panel also enables you to control a variety of external devices. Although the exact
options available will differ depending on your version of Windows, the keyboard and mouse
applets are a required visit.

For example, using the keyboard applet you can install additional languages, or control the
keyboard delay and repeat rate. Change to a slower repeat delay if you have a tendency to hold
down individual keys for too long and accidentally end up with multiple instances of a character
onscreen. The mouse applet enables you to change a wide variety of settings, including the
speed at which your mouse responds to double-clicks, the hand-orientation of the mouse (a
definite visit for readers who are left-handed), and even change the Windows pointers used.

Sounds
The fact that your computer plays sounds is great, but you may want to mute the volume
permanently. Whether it‘s more, less or different sounds that you‘re after, a visit to the Sounds
applet will solve your problem
.

95
From this tool you can change and preview the sounds associated with events like a critical
stop, exclamation, receiving new email and even the one played at Windows startup. One
particular sound that you may want to be rid of is the clicking noise associated with accessing a
file or folder. If so, go to the Windows Explorer section and set the sound associated with the
Start Navigation item to None.

Power Management

Regardless of whether you‘re a desktop or laptop user, you‘ll want to explore the Power
Management applet. The settings that appear here will differ depending upon the power
management standards (such as APM or ACPI) that your system supports. However, you‘ll
want to configure system standby settings, which control when your PC‘s components go into a
low power mode. Not only is this environmentally conscious, but not configuring system standby
settings will ultimately lead to an unpleasantly higher utility bill for users who leave their PC
powered on regularly.

Regional Settings

The Regional Settings applet is used to control the way that Windows will display and sort
dates, numbers, currencies, and time by default. For example, you might choose to change the
default currency symbol or the way that positive and negative values are displayed.

User settings

The Users applet on a Windows 98 system enables you to add additional users accounts to
your PC, as well as control whether they are given a dedicated user profile. When users are
created and given individual profiles, they can be granted access to their own dedicated
desktop, My Documents folder, favorites and more.

Control Panel add-ins

Beside the applets covered in this article, Control Panel provides access to Internet properties,
folder options, as well as configuration settings for faxes, networking, printers, modems, and
more. Furthermore, individual programs such as Norton Antivirus, QuickTime and others may
also add their own dedicated applet, enabling you to configure related settings. Each of these is
worth exploring according to your needs.

Dedicated user profiles

Create dedicated users and profiles settings in Windows 98

1. Click Start, point to Settings, and then select Control Panel. Double-click the Users icon to

96
open the Enable Multi-user settings wizard. Click Next. Enter a username for the new account
and click Next.

2. At the Enter a new password screen, type in a password for the account in both the
Password and confirm password text boxes, and click Next.

3. At the Personalized Items Settings screen, check the items that you want to be unique for this
user account. Click Next and Finish. After you reboot your PC, log on as the new user to view
the settings.

Hide Control Panel applets Save your settings by concealing Control Panel applets from other
users

Although Control Panel enables you to customise a large number of system settings according
to your preferences, it doesn‘t take much for another user to ‗help‘ you by changing these
settings. Luckily, most users will head straight to Control Panel to make their changes. That‘s
good news for you, because it‘s relatively easy to hide Control Panel applets using the Windows
Registry, files like control.ini, and popular utilities such as TweakUI.

Network Connections

Network Connections provides connectivity between your computer and the Internet, a network,
or another computer. With Network Connections, you can configure settings to reach local or
remote network resources or functions.

Network Connections combines Microsoft® Windows® NT 4.0 Dial-Up Networking with features
that were formerly located in the Network Control Panel, such as network protocol and service
configuration. Each connection in the Network Connections folder contains a set of features that
creates a link between your computer and another computer or network. By using Network
Connections, performing a task, such as modifying a network protocol, is as easy as right-
clicking a connection and then clicking Properties.

About Network Connections

Network Connections provides connectivity between your computer and the Internet, a network,
or another computer. With Network Connections, you can gain access to network resources and
functionality, whether you are physically located at the location of the network or in a remote
location. Connections are created, configured, stored, and monitored from within the Network
Connections folder. For information about creating connections, see Make Network and Dial-up
Connections. For a list of network connection icons, see Network connection icons.

Each connection in the Network Connections folder contains a set of features that you can use
to create a link between your computer and another computer or network. Outgoing connections
contact a remote access server by using a configured access method (LAN, modem, ISDN line,
cable modem, DSL line, X.25 line, and so on) to establish a connection with a remote network.
97
Conversely, an incoming connection enables a computer running Microsoft® Windows® XP or a
stand-alone computer running a member of the Windows Server 2003 family to be contacted by
other computers. This means your computer can operate as a remote access server. Whether
you are connected locally (LAN), remotely (dial-up, VPN, and so on), or both, you can configure
any connection so that it can perform any needed network function. For example, you can print
to network printers, access network drives and files, browse other networks, or access the
Internet.

Because all services and communication methods are configured within the connection, you do
not need to use external management tools to configure connection settings. For example, the
settings for a dial-up connection include features to be used before, during, and after
connecting. These include the modem you use to dial, the type of password encryption you
want to use upon connecting, and the network protocols you use after you connect. Connection
status, which includes the duration and speed of a connection, is viewed from the connection
itself; you do not need to use an external status tool. For information about configuring a
connection, see Configure a connection to a remote network.

Logon and domain security, support for security hosts, data encryption, authentication, and
callback provide secure network access for network and dial-up connections. For more
information about security features, see Security Features of Network Connections.

Microsoft Paint – Features

In Microsoft Paint you can draw image, edit your image, resize your image, also there are many
features. Microsoft Paint is not as good as some professional software, but still I like it because
it‘s easy to use and have some amazing features.

In this Hub I am going to show some features, which I like most, and may be unknown for some
people.

Made your own Brush

In Microsoft Paint, they give you 9 different types of brushes.

See below image.

98
Brush Types

But if you want to make your own brush you can make it. I will show you,

First select ―Pencil‖ tool. You can also select color for it. Now let‘s start. Draw some texture; it
may be a single line or multiple lines.

See image below.

Brush Stroke

Now most important step, select the texture, you have drawn, from select tool, Select
Transparent Selection, hold down SHIFT key and Drag it in desired way, and

YIPPI… you will see amazing shapes.

99
See all 7 photos

New-Brush Here is another one.

100
NOTEPAD.

Notepad is a free (as in "free speech" and also as in "free beer") source code
editor and Notepad replacement that supports several languages. Running in the
MS W indows environment, its use is governed by GPL License.

FEATURES OF NOTEPAD.

Notepad is a common text-only (plain text) editor. The resulting files—typically saved with the
.txt extension—have no format tags or styles, making the program suitable for editing system
files that are to be used in a DOS environment and occasionally, source code for later
compilation or execution, usually through a command prompt.

Notepad supports both left-to-right and right-to-left based languages.

Unlike WordPad, Notepad does not treat newlines in Unix- or Mac-style text files correctly.

Notepad offers only the most basic text manipulation functions, such as finding text. Only newer
versions of Windows include an updated version of Notepad with a search and replace function.
However it has much less functionality in comparison to full-scale editors.

Microsoft's first version of Notepad predates Windows – it was included in a set of utilities
bundled with the Microsoft Mouse as early as 1983. Like subsequent versions, this was a plain
text editor which utilizes the mouse for menu navigation and text manipulation; however, unlike
its Windows successors, it was a DOS program limited to full-screen operation.

In all versions of Windows, Notepad makes use of a built-in window class named "EDIT". In
older versions such as those included with Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me and
Windows 3.1, there is a 64k limit on the size of the file being edited, an operating system limit of
the EDIT class.

101
Up to Windows 95, Fixedsys was the only available display font for Notepad. Windows NT 4.0
and 98 introduced the ability to change this font. As of Windows 2000, the default font was
changed to Lucida Console. The font

setting, however, only affects how the text is shown to the user and how it is printed, not how
the file is saved to disk. The default font was changed to Consolas on Windows 8.

Up to Windows Me, there were almost no keyboard shortcuts and no line-counting feature.
Starting with Windows 2000, shortcuts for common tasks like new, open and save were added,
as well as a status-bar with a line counter (available only when word-wrap is disabled).

In the Windows NT-based versions of Windows, Notepad can edit traditional 8-bit text files as
well as Unicode text files (both UTF-8 and UTF-16, and in case of UTF-16, both little-endian and
big-endian).

Notepad also has a simple built-in logging function. Each time a file that starts with .LOG is
opened, the program inserts a text timestamp on the last line of the file.

Notepad accepts text from the Windows clipboard. When clipboard data with multiple formats is
pasted into Notepad, the program will only accept text in the CF_TEXT format. This is useful for
stripping embedded font type and style codes from formatted text, such as when copying text
from a web page and pasting into an email message or other WYSIWYG text editor. Formatted
text can be temporarily pasted into Notepad, and then immediately copied again in stripped
format to be pasted into the other program.

Files can be printed, but they will not print correctly if "Word Wrap" is turned on. Headers,
footers, and margins can be set and adjusted when preparing to print a file under "Page Setup".
The date, file name, and other information can be placed in the headers and footers with various
codes consisting of an ampersand ('&') followed by a letter.

WordPad

WordPad is a basic word processor that is included with almost all versions of Microsoft
Windows from Windows 95 onwards. It is more advanced than Notepad but simpler than
Microsoft Works Word Processor and Microsoft Word. It replaced Microsoft Write.

Features

WordPad can format and print text, including fonts, bold, italic, colored, and centered text, etc.,
but lacks intermediate features such as a spell checker, thesaurus, and the creation of tables.
However WordPad can read, render, and save many RTF features that it cannot create such as
tables, strikeout, superscript, subscript, "extra" colors, text background colors, numbered lists,
right or left indent, quasi-hypertext and URL linking, and various line spacings. Among its
advantages are low system-resource usage, simplicity, and speediness. Pasting into or from an
HTML document such as from the internet or email typically will automatically convert most or
all of it to RTF (although this is partially browser-dependent). As such, WordPad is well suited
for taking notes, writing letters and stories, or for usage in various tablet PCs and smart phones.

102
However, WordPad is underpowered for work that relies heavily on graphics or typesetting such
as most publishing-industry requirements for rendering final hard copy.

WordPad natively supports the Rich Text Format, though it does not support all the features
defined in the RTF/Word 2007 specification. Previous versions of WordPad also supported the
"Word for Windows 6.0" format, which is forward compatible with the Microsoft Word format.

In Windows 95, 98 and Windows 2000, it used Microsoft's RichEdit control, versions 1.0, 2.0
and 3.0 respectively. In Windows XP SP1 and later, it uses RichEdit 4.1, including Windows 7.[3]

WordPad for Windows XP added full Unicode support, enabling WordPad to support multiple
languages, but UTF-16/UCS-2 Big Endian is not supported. It can open Microsoft Word
(versions 6.0-2003) files, although it opens newer versions of the .DOC format with incorrect
formatting. Also, unlike previous WordPad versions, it cannot save files in the .doc format (only
.txt or .rtf).Windows XP Service Pack 2 onwards reduced support for opening .WRI files for
security purposes.

Windows XP Tablet PC Edition SP2 and Windows Vista include speech recognition, and
therefore dictation into WordPad is possible. In these and later Windows versions, the RichEdit
control was added and as a result, WordPad now supports extensible third-party services (such
as grammar and spell check) built using the Text Services Framework (TSF).

In Windows Vista, support for reading Microsoft Word DOC files was removed because of the
incorrect rendering and formatting problems, as well as a Microsoft security bulletin that
reported a security vulnerability in opening Word files in WordPad. For viewing older (97-2003)
as well as newer (Office Open XML) documents, Microsoft recommends Word Viewer, which is
available for free. Native Office Open XML and ODF support was released in the Windows 7
version of WordPad.

Microsoft has updated the user interface for WordPad in Windows 7, giving it an Office 2010-
style ribbon that replaces the application menu and toolbars. Other bundled Windows
applications such as Paint have had similar interface makeovers.

History

WordPad was introduced in Windows 95, replacing Microsoft Write, which came with all
previous versions of Windows (version 3.11 and earlier). The source code to WordPad was also
distributed by Microsoft as a Microsoft Foundation Classes sample application with MFC 3.2
and later, shortly before the release of Windows 95. It is still available for download from the
MSDN Web site.

The default font used in Windows 95 to Windows Vista was Arial 10, in Windows 7 it was
changed to Calibri 11.

A similar word processor called WordPad is supplied by some vendors on a Windows CE pre-
installation. It has simple functionality like its desktop OS cousin. The icon resembles an early
Microsoft Word icon.

103
10. Advanced features of Windows XP/ windows 7
Features new to Windows 7

Some of the new features included in Windows 7 are advancements in touch, speech, and
handwriting recognition, support for virtual hard disks, support for additional file formats,
improved performance on multi-core processors,[1] improved boot performance, and kernel
improvements.

Shell and user interface

Windows 7 retains the Windows Aero user interface and visual style first introduced with its
predecessor, Windows Vista, but many areas have seen enhancements.

Desktop

Windows 7's Desktop Slideshow

Themes

Support for themes has been extended in Windows

7. In addition to setting the colors of the window
chrome, desktop background, desktop icons,
mouse pointers and sound schemes, themes in Windows 7 include desktop slideshow settings.
A new control panel interface, accessible through the "Personalize" context menu item on the
desktop, has been introduced which provides the ability to customize and switch between
themes, as well as download more themes from Microsoft's web site. Support for "theme packs"
is included; theme packs are cabinet files with an extension of .themepack, and consist of a
.theme as well as any number of image, sound, icon, and mouse cursor files. [2] Windows 7
recognizes this file format and will switch the user's theme to the theme contained inside when
opened. A Windows 7 theme can also specify an RSS feed from which new desktop
background images can be downloaded.

The default theme is titled "Windows 7", which consists of a single desktop background named
"Harmony" and the same sound scheme, desktop icons and mouse pointers as Windows Vista.
Six new "Aero Themes" are included: Architecture, Characters, Landscapes, Nature, Scenes,
and an additional country-specific theme that is determined based on the defined locale when
the operating system is installed. Windows 7 includes themes for the United States, United
Kingdom, Germany, Canada, Japan, South Africa and Australia, and while the theme for the
user's home country is the only one displayed in the user interface, the files for all these themes
are included in the operating system installation.[3] Each of the themes included with Windows 7
104
consists of six desktop backgrounds each at 1920x1200 resolution; none of the desktop
backgrounds included with Windows Vista are present in Windows 7. The country-specific
desktop backgrounds depict both famous places in those countries (such as the Sydney skyline)
as well as country scenes. A number of sound schemes are included, each associated with an
included theme: Afternoon, Calligraphy, Characters, Cityscape, Delta, Festival, Garden,
Heritage, Landscape, Quirky, Raga, Savanna, and Sonata.

Additional theme packs are available as free downloads from Microsoft's web site.

Desktop Slideshow

Windows 7 includes a desktop slideshow that changes the desktop background in a designated
amount of time with a smooth fading transition. This feature supports pre-downloaded sets of
wallpapers and also supports photo RSS feed.

Gadgets

Windows Vista introduced Gadgets and a sidebar which provides the ability to anchor Gadgets
to the side of the user's desktop. In Windows 7, the sidebar has been removed, while gadgets
can still be placed on the desktop. Gadgets snap to certain positions on the desktop and from
each other; dragging with the Shift key held down prevents gadgets from automatically snapping
into position. Windows 7 adds a Windows Media Center gadget to the default collection while
removing the Contacts and Notes gadgets.

Managing gadgets is more closely integrated with Windows Explorer, but the gadgets
themselves continue to operate in a separate sidebar.exe process.[4] The Desktop context menu
includes a new "Gadgets" menu option to access the gadget gallery, and a "View" sub-menu
option to show or hide gadgets. Hiding gadgets results in the sidebar.exe process being
unloaded, which Microsoft says is a power-saving practice. Unlike Windows Vista, all gadgets
run in a single process, which saves memory, and the process is not run at all if the user has no
gadgets on the desktop. Gadgets can be brought to the foreground on top of active applications
by pressing Win+G.

Branding and customization

OEMs and enterprises are able to customize the logon screen wallpaper of Windows 7 that is
displayed before a user logs on.

Windows Explorer

Windows Explorer's revised user interface Windows Explorer in Windows 7 supports file
libraries that aggregate content from various locations – including shared folders on networked
systems if the shared folder has been indexed by the host system – and present them in a
unified view. The libraries hide the actual location the file is stored in. Searching in a library
automatically federates the query to the remote systems, in addition to searching on the local
system, so that files on the remote systems are also searched. Unlike search folders, Libraries
are backed by a physical location which allows files to be saved in the Libraries. Such files are
105
transparently saved in the backing physical folder. The default save location for a library may be
configured by the user, as can the default view layout for each library. Libraries are generally
stored in the Libraries special folder, which allows them to be displayed on the navigation pane.

By default, a new user account in Windows 7 contains four libraries for different file types:
Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos. They are configured to include the user's profile
folders for these respective file types, as well as the computer's corresponding Public folders.
The Public folder also contains a hidden Recorded TV library that appears in the Windows
Explorer sidepane when TV is set up in Media Center for the first time.

In addition to aggregating multiple storage locations, Libraries enable Arrangement Views and
Search Filter Suggestions. Arrangement Views allow you to pivot your view of the library's
contents based on metadata. For example, selecting the "By Month" view in the Pictures library
will display photos in stacks, where each stack represents a month of photos based on the date
they were taken. In the Music library, the "By Artist" view will display stacks of albums from the
artists in your collection, and browsing into an artist stack will then display the relevant albums.

Search Filter Suggestions are a new feature of the Windows 7 Explorer's search box. When the
user clicks in the search box, a menu shows up below it showing recent searches as well as
suggested Advanced Query Syntax filters that the user can type. When one is selected (or
typed in manually), the menu will update to show the possible values to filter by for that
property, and this list is based on the current location and other parts of the query already typed.
For example, selecting the "tags" filter or typing "tags:" into the search box will display the list of
possible tag values which will return search results.

Arrangement Views and Search Filter Suggestions are database-backed features which require
that all locations in the Library be indexed by the Windows Search service. Local disk locations
must be indexed by the local indexer, and Windows Explorer will automatically add locations to
the indexing scope when they are included in a library. Remote locations can be indexed by the
indexer on another Windows 7 machine, on a Windows machine running Windows Search 4
(such as Windows Vista or Windows Home Server), or on another device that implements the
MS-WSP remote query protocol.[5]

Federated search

Windows Explorer also supports federating search to external data sources, such as custom
databases or web services, that are exposed over the web and described via an OpenSearch
definition. The federated location description (called a Search Connector) is provided as a .osdx
file. Once installed, the data source becomes queryable directly from Windows Explorer.
Windows Explorer features, such as previews and thumbnails, work with the results of a
federated search as well.

Miscellaneous shell enhancements

Windows Explorer has received numerous minor enhancements that improve its overall
functionality. The Explorer's search box and the address bar can be resized. Folders such as
those on the desktop or user profile folders can be hidden in the navigation pane to reduce
clutter. A new Content view is added, which shows thumbnails and metadata together. A new
106
button to toggle the Preview Pane has been added to the toolbar. The button to create a new
folder has been moved from the Organize menu and onto the toolbar. List view provides more
space between items than in Windows Vista. Finally, storage space consumption bars that were
only present for hard disks in Windows Vista are now shown for removable storage devices.

Other areas of the shell have also received similar fine-tunings: Progress bars and overlay icons
may now appear on an application's button on the taskbar to better alert the user of the status of
the application or the work in progress. File types for which property handlers or iFilters are
installed are re-indexed by default. Previously, adding submenus to shell context menus or
customizing the context menu's behavior for a certain folder was only possible by installing a
form of plug-in known as shell extensions. In Windows 7 however, computer-savvy users can do
so by editing Windows Registry and/or desktop.ini files.[6][7] Additionally, a new shell API was
introduced designed to simplify the writing of context menu shell extensions by software
developers.[8][9]

Start menu

The start orb now has a fade-in highlight effect when the user moves the mouse over it. The
Start Menu's right column is now the Aero glass color. In Windows Vista, it was always black.

The search results pane in Windows 7, demonstrating a search for the word "wireless".

Windows 7's Start menu retains the two-column layout of its predecessors, with several
functional changes:

 The "Documents", "Pictures" and "Music" buttons now

link to the Libraries of the same name.
 A "Devices and Printers" option has been added that
displays a new device manager.
 The "shut down" icon in Windows Vista has been
replaced with a text link indicating what action will be
taken when the icon is clicked. The default action to
take is now configurable through the Taskbar and Start
Menu Properties window.
 Taskbar Jump Lists are presented in the Start Menu
via a guillemet; when the user moves the mouse over
the guillemet, or presses the right-arrow key, the right-
hand side of the Start menu is widened and replaced
with the application's Jump List.
 Links to the "Videos", "Downloads", and "Recorded TV"
folders can now be added to the Start menu.

The Start Search field, introduced in Windows Vista, has been extended to support searching
for keywords of Control Panel items. For example, clicking the Start button then typing
"wireless" will show Control Panel options related to configuring and connecting to wireless
network, adding Bluetooth devices, and troubleshooting. Group Policy settings for Windows
Explorer provide the ability for administrators of an Active Directory domain, or an expert user to
add up to five Internet web sites and five additional "search connectors" to the Search Results
view in the Start menu. The links, which appear at the bottom of the pane, allow the search to
107
be executed again on the selected web site or search connector. Microsoft suggests that
network administrators could use this feature to enable searching of corporate Intranets or an
internal SharePoint server.[10]

Taskbar

The Windows Taskbar has seen its most significant revision since its introduction in Windows
95 and combines the previous Quick Launch functionality with open application window icons.
The taskbar is now rendered as an Aero glass element whose color can be changed via the
Personalization Control Panel. It is 10 pixels taller than in Windows Vista to accommodate touch
screen input and a new larger default icon size (although a smaller taskbar size is available), as
well as maintain proportion to newer high resolution monitor modes.[11] Running applications are
denoted by a border frame around the icon. Within this border, a color effect (dependent on the
predominant RGB value of the icon) that follows the mouse also indicates the opened status of
the application. The glass taskbar is more translucent than in Windows Vista. Taskbar buttons
show icons by default, not application titles, unless they are set to 'not combine', or 'combine
when taskbar is full.' In this case, only icons are shown when the application is not running.
Programs running or pinned on the taskbar can be rearranged. Items in the notification area can
also be rearranged.

The default taskbar of Windows 7.

Pinned applications
The Quick Launch toolbar has been removed from the default configuration, but may be
easily added.[12] The Windows 7 taskbar is more application-oriented than window-
oriented, and therefore doesn't show window titles (these are shown when an application
icon is clicked or hovered over, provided there are multiple windows for the application).
Applications can now be pinned to the taskbar allowing the user instant access to the
applications they commonly use. There are a few ways to pin applications to the taskbar.
Icons can be dragged and dropped onto the taskbar, or the application‘s icon can be
right-clicked to pin it to the taskbar.

The Windows 7 taskbar shows a preview of the window.

Thumbnail previews
Thumbnail previews which were introduced in Windows Vista have been expanded to
not only preview the windows opened by the application in a small-sized thumbnail view,
but to also interact with them. The user can close any window opened by clicking the X
on the corresponding thumbnail preview. The name of the window is also shown in the
thumbnail preview. A "peek" at the window is obtained by hovering over the thumbnail
preview. Peeking brings up only the window of the thumbnail preview over which the
mouse hovers, and turns any other windows on the desktop transparent. This also works
for tabs in Internet Explorer: individual tabs may be peeked at in the thumbnail
previews.Thumbnail previews integrate Thumbnail Toolbars [13] which can control the

108
 application from the thumbnail previews themselves. For example, if Windows Media
Player is opened and the mouse is hovering on the application icon, the thumbnail
preview will allow the user the ability to Play, Stop, and Play Next/Previous track without
having to switch to the Windows Media Player window.

Notification area
The notification area has been redesigned; the standard Volume, Network, Power and
Action Center status icons are present, but no other application icons are shown unless
the user has chosen them to be shown. A new "Notification Area Icons" control panel
has been added which replaces the "Customize Notification Icons" dialog box in the
"Taskbar and Start Menu Properties" window first introduced in Windows XP. In addition
to being able to configure whether the application icons are shown, the ability to hide
each application's notification balloons has been added. The user can then view the
notifications at a later time.

A triangle to the left of the visible notification icons displays the hidden notification icons.
Unlike Windows Vista and Windows XP, the hidden icons are displayed in a window
above the taskbar, instead of on the taskbar. Icons can be dragged between this window
and the notification area.

Aero Peek
In past versions of Windows, the taskbar ended with the notification area on the right
side. However, there is now the Aero Peek button, which, when clicked or hovered over
with the mouse, displays the desktop and gadgets by turning all windows transparent.
This replaces the Show Desktop shortcut in the Quick Launch bar in previous versions of
Windows. Aero Peek exhibits the same features used by the thumbnail previews, except
it applies them to the desktop. If the mouse hovers over it, all windows are transparent,
as shown in the picture. If the button is clicked, all applications are minimized, and when
clicked again, they are restored. In addition, it is possible to disable Aero Peek for this
button only.

Window management mouse gestures

Aero Snap

Windows can be dragged to the top of the screen to maximize them and dragged away
to restore them. Dragging a window to the left or right of the screen makes it take up half
the screen, allowing the user to tile two windows next to each other. Also, resizing the
window to the bottom of the screen or its top will extend the window to full height but
retain its width.] These features can be disabled via the Ease of Access Center if users
do not wish the windows to automatically resize.

109
Aero Shake
Aero Shake allows users to clear up any clutter on their screen by shaking (dragging
back and forth) a window of their choice with the mouse. All other windows will minimize,
while the window the user shook stays active on the screen.[17] When the window is
shaken again, they are all restored, similar to desktop preview.

Keyboard shortcuts

A variety of new keyboard shortcuts have been introduce.

Global keyboard shortcuts:

 Windows key + Space bar operates as a keyboard shortcut for Aero Peek.
 Windows key + Up maximizes the current window.
 Windows key + Down if current window is maximized, restores it; otherwise minimizes
current window.
 Windows key + Shift + Up makes upper and lower edge of current window nearly touch
the upper and lower edge of the Windows desktop environment, respectively.
 Windows key + Shift + Down restores original size of the current window prior to using
Windows key + Shift + Up.
 Windows key + Left snaps the current window to the left edge of the screen.
 Windows key + Right snaps the current window to the right half of the screen.
 Windows key + Shift + Left and Windows key + Shift + Right move the current
window to the left or right display.
 Windows key + + (plus sign) functions as zoom in command wherever applicable.
 Windows key + − (minus sign) functions as zoom out command wherever applicable.
 Windows key + ESC (Escape key) turn off zoom once enabled.
 Windows key + Home operates as a keyboard shortcut for Aero Shake.
 Windows key + TAB View opened application and windows in 3D stack view.
 Windows key + P Opens Connect to a Network Projector, which has been updated from
previous versions of Windows, and allows one to dictate where the desktop is displayed:
on the main monitor, an external display, both; or allows one to display two independent
desktops on two separate monitors.

Taskbar:

 Shift + Click, or Middle click starts a new instance of the application, regardless of
whether it's already running.
 Ctrl + Shift + Click starts a new instance with Administrator privileges; by default, a
User Account Control prompt will be displayed.
 Shift + Right-click shows the classic Window menu (Restore / Minimize / Move / etc.);
right-clicking on the application's thumbnail image will also show this menu. If the icon
being clicked on is a grouped icon, the classic menu with Restore All / Minimize All /
Close All menu is shown.
 Ctrl + Click on a grouped icon cycles between the windows (or tabs) in the group.

Windows Explorer:

110
  Shift + Right-click on an application icon allows a process to be started as a different
user.

Font management

The user interface for font management has been overhauled. As with Windows Vista, the
collection of installed fonts is shown in a Windows Explorer window, but fonts from the same
font family appear as "stacks" instead of as individual icons. A user can then double-click on the
font stack and see the individual font. A preview of the font is displayed as part of the icon as
well. New options for hiding installed fonts are included; a hidden font remains installed, but is
not enumerated when an application asks for a list of available fonts. Windows Vista had
received considerable criticism for including the same "Add Font" dialog that had existed as far
back as Windows NT 3.1; this dialog has been removed.

The Font dialog box has also been updated to show previews of the font selection in the
selection lists.

The fontview.exe default font viewing application has replaced the "Properties" button with a
"Install" button.

Devices

There are two major new user interface components for device management in Windows 7,
"Devices and Printers" and "Device Stage". Both of these are integrated with Windows Explorer,
and together provide a simplified view of what devices are connected to the computer, and what
capabilities they support.

Devices and Printers

The new Devices and Printers Control Pane; custom icons can be downloaded via the Internet.

Devices and Printers is a new Control Panel interface that is directly accessible from the Start
menu. Unlike the Device Manager Control Panel applet, which is still present, the icons shown
on the Devices and Printers screen are limited to components of the system that a non-expert
user will recognize as plug-in devices. For example, an external monitor connected to the
system will be displayed as a device, but the internal monitor on a laptop will not. Device-
specific features are available through the context menu for each device; an external monitor's
context menu, for example, provides a link to the "Display Settings" control panel.

111
This new Control Panel applet also replaces the "Printers" window in prior versions of Windows;
common printer operations such as setting the default printer, installing or removing printers,
and configuring properties such as paper size are done through this control panel.

Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 introduce print driver isolation, which improves the reliability of
the print spooler by running printer drivers in a separate process to the spooler service. If a third
party print driver fails while isolated, it does not impact other drivers or the print spooler service.

Multi-touch

Hilton Locke, who worked on the Tablet PC team at Microsoft, reported on December 11, 2007
that Windows 7 will have new touch features on devices supporting multi-touch. An overview
and demonstration of the multi-touch capabilities, including a virtual piano program, a mapping
and directions program and a touch-aware version of Paint, was given at the All Things Digital
Conference on May 27, 2008. A video of the multi-touch capabilities was made available on the
web later the same day.

Graphics

DirectX

 Direct3D 11 is included with Windows 7. It is a strict super-set of Direct3D 10.1, which

was introduced in Windows Vista Service Pack 1 and Windows Server 2008.
 Direct2D and Direct Write, new hardware-accelerated vector graphics and font rendering
APIs built on top of Direct3D 10 that are intended to replace GDI/GDI+ for screen-
oriented native-code graphics and text drawing. They can be used from managed
applications with the Windows API Code Pack
 Windows Advanced Rasterization Platform (WARP), a software rasterizer component for
DirectX that provides all of the capabilities of Direct3D 10.0 and 10.1 in software.[27]
 DirectX Video Acceleration-High Definition (DXVA-HD)[28]

Direct3D 11, Direct2D, DirectWrite, DXGI 1.1, WARP and several other components are
currently available for Windows Vista SP2 and Windows Server 2008 SP2 by installing the
Platform Update for Windows Vista.[29]

Desktop Window Manager

First introduced in Windows Vista, the Desktop Window Manager (DWM) in Windows 7 has
been updated to use version 10.1 of Direct3D API, and its performance has been improved
significantly.

The Desktop Window Manager still requires at least a Direct3D 9-capable video card (supported
with new D3D10_FEATURE_LEVEL_9_n device type introduced with the Direct3D 11 runtime).

With a video driver conforming to Windows Display Driver Model v1.1, DXGI kernel in Windows
7 provides 2D hardware acceleration to APIs such as GDI, Direct2D and DirectWrite (though
GDI+ was not updated to use this functionality). This allows DWM to use significantly lower
amounts of system memory, which do not grow regardless of how many windows are opened,
112
like it was in Windows Vista. Systems equipped with a WDDM 1.0 video card will operate in the
same fashion as in Windows Vista, using software-only rendering.

The Desktop Window Manager in Windows 7 also adds support for systems using multiple
heterogeneous graphics cards from different vendors.

Other changes

Support for color depths of 30 and 48 bits is included, along with the wide color gamut scRGB
(which for HDMI 1.3 can be converted and output as xvYCC). The video modes supported in
Windows 7 are 16-bit sRGB, 24-bit sRGB, 30-bit sRGB, 30-bit with extended color gamut
sRGB, and 48-bit scRGB.

Each user of Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 has individual DPI settings, rather than the
machine having a single setting as in previous versions of Windows. DPI settings can be
changed by logging on and off, without needing to restart.

File system

Solid state drives

Over time, several technologies have been incorporated into subsequent versions of Windows to
improve the performance of the operating system on traditional hard disk drives (HDD) with
rotating platters. Since Solid state drives (SSD) differ from mechanical HDDs in some key areas
(no moving parts, write amplification, limited number of erase cycles allowed for reliable
operation), it is beneficial to disable certain optimizations and add others, specifically for SSDs.

Windows 7 incorporates many engineering changes to reduce the frequency of writes and
flushes, which benefit SSDs in particular since each write operation wears the flash memory.

Windows 7 also makes use of the TRIM command. If supported by the SSD (not implemented
on early devices), this optimizes when erase cycles are performed, reducing the need to erase
blocks before each write and increasing write performance.

Several tools and techniques that were implemented in the past to reduce the impact of the
rotational latency of traditional HDDs, most notably disk defragmentation, Superfetch,
ReadyBoost, and application launch prefetching, involve reorganizing (rewriting) the data on the
platters. Since SSDs have no moving platters, this reorganization has no advantages, and may
instead shorten the life of the solid state memory. Therefore these tools are by default disabled
on SSDs in Windows 7, except for some early generation SSDs that might still benefit.

Finally, partitions made with Windows 7‘s partition-creating tools are created with the SSD‘s
alignment needs in mind, avoiding unwanted systematic write amplification.

Virtual hard disks

The Enterprise, Ultimate, and Professional editions of Windows 7 incorporate support for the
Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) file format. VHD files can be mounted as drives, created, and booted
113
from, in the same way as WIM files. Furthermore, an installed version of Windows 7 can be
booted and run from a VHD drive, even on non-virtual hardware, thereby providing a new way to
multi boot Windows. Some features such as hibernation and BitLocker are not available when
booting from VHD.

Disk partitioning

By default, a computer's disk is partitioned into two partitions: one of limited size for booting,
BitLocker and running the Windows Recovery Environment and the second with the operating
system and user files

Removable media

Windows 7 has also seen improvements to the Safely Remove Hardware menu, including the
ability to eject just one camera card at the same time (from a single hub) and retain the ports for
future use without reboot; and the labels of removable media are now also listed, rather than
just the drive letter as for Windows versions from Me and 2000 to Vista. Windows Explorer now
by default only shows memory card reader ports in My Computer if they contain a card

BitLocker to Go

BitLocker brings encryption support to removable disks such as USB drives. Such devices can
be protected by a passphrase, a recovery key, or be automatically unlocked on a computer.[41]

Boot performance

According to data gathered from the Microsoft Customer Experience Improvement Program,
35% of Vista SP1 installations boot up in 30 seconds or less.[42] The more lengthy boot times on
the remainder of the machines are mainly due to some services or programs that are loaded but
are not required when the system is first started. Microsoft's Mike Fortin, a Distinguished
Engineer on the Windows team,[43] noted in August 2008 that Microsoft has set aside a team to
work solely on the issue, and that team aims to "significantly increase the number of systems
that experience very good boot times." They "focused very hard on increasing parallelism of
driver initialization." Also, it aims to "dramatically reduce" the number of system services, along
with their processor, storage, and memory demands.

Multimedia

Windows Media Center

Windows Media Center in Windows 7 has retained much of the design and feel of its
predecessor, but with a variety of user interface shortcuts and browsing capabilities. Playback of
H.264 video both locally and through a Media Center Extender (including the Xbox 360) is
supported.

Some notable enhancements in Windows 7 Media Center include a new mini guide, a new
scrub bar, the option to color code the guide by show type, and internet content that is more

114
tightly integrated with regular TV via the guide. All Windows 7 versions now support up to four
tuners of each type (QAM, ATSC, CableCARD, NTSC, etc.).

When browsing the media library, items that don't have album art are shown in a range of
foreground and background color combinations instead of using white text on a blue
background. When the left or right remote control buttons are held down to browse the library
quickly, a two-letter prefix of the current album name is prominently shown as a visual aid. The
Picture Library includes new slideshow capabilities, and individual pictures can be rated.

Also, while browsing a media library, a new column appears at the top named "Shared." This
allows users to access shared media libraries on other Media Center PCs from directly within
Media Center.

For television support, the Windows Media Center "TV Pack" released by Microsoft in 2008 is
incorporated into Windows Media Center. This includes support for CableCARD and North
American (ATSC) clear QAM tuners, as well as creating lists of favorite stations.

A Windows Media Center gadget is included as well.

Security

The Windows Security Center, which encompasses both security and maintenance of the
computer, has been renamed Windows Action Center (Windows Health Center and Windows
Solution Center in earlier builds).

A new user interface for User Account Control has been introduced, which provides the ability to
select four different levels of notifications, one of these notification settings, Default, is new to
Windows 7Geo-tracking capabilities are also available in Windows 7. The feature will be
disabled by default. When enabled the user will only have limited control as to which
applications can track their location

The Encrypting File System supports Elliptic-curve cryptographic algorithms (ECC) in Windows
7. For backward compatibility with previous releases of Windows, Windows 7 supports a mixed-
mode operation of ECC and RSA algorithms. EFS self-signed certificates, when using ECC, will
use 256-bit key by default. EFS can be configured to use 1K/2k/4k/8k/16k-bit keys when using
self-signed RSA certificates, or 256/384/512-bit keys when using ECC certificates.

In Windows Vista, the Protected User-Mode Audio (PUMA) content protection facilities are only
available to applications that are running in a Protected Media Path environment. Because only
the Media Foundation application programming interface could interact with this environment, a
media player application had to be designed to use Media Foundation. In Windows 7, this
restriction is lifted PUMA also incorporates stricter enforcement of "Copy Never" bits when using
Serial Copy Management System (SCMS) copy protection over an S/PDIF connection, as well
as with High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) over HDMI connections.

Biometrics

115
Windows 7 includes the new Windows Biometric Framework This framework consists of a set
of components that standardizes the use of fingerprint biometric devices. In prior releases of
Microsoft Windows, biometric hardware device manufacturers were required to provide a
complete stack of software to support their device, including device drivers, software
development kits, and support applications. Microsoft noted in a white paper on the Windows
Biometric Framework that the proliferation of these proprietary stacks resulted in compatibility
issues, compromised the quality and reliability of the system, and made servicing and
maintenance more difficult. By incorporating the core biometric functionality into the operating
system, Microsoft aims to bring biometric device support on par with other classes of devices.

A new Control Panel called Biometric Device Control Panel is included which provides an
interface for deleting stored biometrics information, troubleshooting, and enabling or disabling
the types of logins that are allowed using biometrics. Biometrics configuration can also be
configured using Group Policy settings.

Windows Firewall.

Windows 7 adds support for multiple firewall profiles. The Windows Firewall in Windows Vista
dynamically changes which network traffic is allowed or blocked based on the location of the
computer (based on which network it is connected to). This approach falls short if the computer
is connected to more than one network at the same time (as for a computer with both an
Ethernet and a wireless interface). In this case, Vista applies the profile that is more secure to
all network connections. This is often not desirable; Windows 7 resolves this by being able to
apply a separate firewall profile to each network connection.

DNSSEC

Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 introduce support for Domain Name System Security
Extensions (DNSSEC), a set of specifications for securing certain kinds of information provided
by the Domain Name System (DNS) as used on Internet Protocol (IP) networks. DNSSEC
employs digital signatures to ensure the authenticity of DNS data received from a DNS server,
which protect against DNS cache poisoning attacks.

Management features
Windows PowerShell Integrated Scripting Environment (ISE)

Windows 7 contains Windows PowerShell 2.0 out-of-the-box, which is also available as a

download to install on older platforms:

Windows Troubleshooting Platform

 Windows PowerShell Integrated Scripting Environment

 PowerShell Remoting

Other new management features include:

116
  AppLocker (a set of Group Policy settings that evolved from Software Restriction
Policies, to restrict which applications can run on a corporate network, including the
ability to restrict based on the application's version number or publisher)
 Group Policy Preferences (also available as a download for Windows XP and Windows
Vista).
 The Windows Automation API (also available as a download for Windows XP and
Windows Vista).

Upgraded components
WordPad in Windows 7

Windows 7 includes Internet Explorer 8,[77] .NET Framework 3.5 SP1, Internet Information
Services (IIS) 7.5, Windows Installer 5.0 and a standalone XPS Viewer. Paint, Calculator,
Resource Monitor and WordPad have also been updated.

Paint features a Ribbon interface similar to the one introduced in Office 2007, and also sports
several new features.

Calculator has been rewritten, with multiline capabilities including Programmer and Statistics
modes, unit conversion, and date calculations. Calculator was also given a graphical facelift, the
first since Windows 95 in 1995 and Windows NT 4.0 in 1996.

WordPad also features the new Ribbon user interface. WordPad supports Office Open XML and
ODF file formats.

Resource Monitor includes an improved RAM usage display and supports display of TCP/IP
ports being listened to, filtering processes using networking, filtering processes with disk activity
and listing and searching process handles (e.g. files used by a process) and loaded modules
(files required by an executable file, e.g. DLL files).

Windows Installer 5.0 supports installing and configuring Windows Services, and provides
developers with more control over setting permissions during software installation. Neither of
these features will be available for prior versions of Windows; custom actions to support these
features will continue to be required for Windows Installer packages that need to implement
these features.

Other features

 The hibernation file size is configurable in Windows 7 using powercfg.exe. It can be set
from anywhere between 50% to 100% of the total physical memory using the -size
switch in powercfg.exe, so the hibernation file is compressed and uses less disk space.
The default size is 75%
 Windows 7 improves the Tablet PC Input Panel to make faster corrections using new
gestures, supports text prediction in the soft keyboard and introduces a new Math Input
Panel for inputting math into programs that support MathML. It recognizes handwritten
math expressions and formulas. Additional language support for handwriting recognition
can be gained by installing the respective MUI pack for that language (also called
language pack).
117
  As opposed to the blank start-up screen in Windows Vista, Windows 7's start-up screen
consists of an animation featuring four colored light balls (one red, one yellow, one
green, and one blue). They twirl around for a few seconds and then join together to form
a glowing Windows logo. This only occurs on displays with a vertical resolution of 768
pixels or higher, as the animation is 1024x768. Any screen with a resolution below this
displays the same startup screen that Vista used.

 The Starter Edition of Windows 7 can run an unlimited number of applications, compared
to only 3 in Windows Vista Starter. Microsoft had initially intended to ship Windows 7
Starter Edition with this limitation, but announced after the release of the Release
Candidate that this restriction would not be imposed in the final release

 The ClearType Text Tuner which was previously available as a powertoy for earlier
Windows versions has been integrated into Windows 7.

 For developers, Windows 7 includes a new networking API with support for building
SOAP-based web services in native code (as opposed to .NET based WCF web
services), new features to shorten application install times, reduced UAC prompts,
simplified development of installation packages, and improved globalization support
through a new Extended Linguistic Services API.[90]

 A new font, "Gabriola", is included.

The new Action Center which replaces Windows Security Center

 When a user right-clicks a disc image file, such as an ISO file, the user can click "Burn
disc image" to write the image to any compatible disc. Support for image verification is
included. In previous versions of Microsoft Windows, users had to install third-party
software to burn image discs.

 If an application crashes twice in a row, Windows 7 will automatically attempt to apply a

shim. If an application fails to install a similar self-correcting fix, a tool that asks some
questions about the application launches.

 Windows 7 includes an optional TIFF IFilter that enables indexing of TIFF documents by
reading them with optical character recognition (OCR), thus making their text content
searchable. TIFF iFilter supports Adobe TIFF Revision 6.0 specifications and four
compression schemes: LZW, JPEG, CCITT v4, CCITT v6

 Windows 7 includes power-saving features, such as adaptive display brightness, which

dims a laptop's display when the laptop has not been used for a while. Powercfg.exe
/Energy generates an HTML report of the computer's power-saving efficiency and
checks which devices are preventing the computer from entering the sleep state.
Windows 7 can individually suspend USB hubs and supports selective suspend for all in-
box USB class drivers

 Unlike Windows Vista, window borders and the taskbar do not turn opaque when a
window is maximized with Windows Aero applied. Instead, they remain translucent.

118
 The Windows Console now adheres to the current Windows theme, instead of showing
controls from the Windows Classic theme.

 Games Internet Spades, Internet Backgammon and Internet Checkers, which were
removed from Windows Vista, were restored in Windows 7.

 Users can disable many more Windows components than was possible in Windows
Vista. The new components which can now be disabled include: Handwriting
Recognition, Internet Explorer, Windows DVD Maker, Windows Fax and Scan, Windows
Gadget Platform Windows Media Center, Windows Media Player, Windows Search, and
the XPS Viewer (with its services).

 Windows XP Mode is a fully functioning copy of 32-bit Windows XP Professional SP3

running in a virtual machine in Windows Virtual PC (as opposed to Hyper-V) running on
top of Windows 7. Through the use of the RDP protocol, it allows applications
incompatible with Windows 7 to be run on the underlying Windows XP virtual machine,
but still to appear to be part of the Windows 7 desktop,[98] thereby sharing the native
Start Menu of Windows 7 as well as participating in file type associations. It is not
distributed with Windows 7 media, but is offered as a free download to users of the
Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate editions from Microsoft's web site. Users of Home
Premium who want Windows XP functionality on their systems can download Windows
Virtual PC free of charge, but must provide their own licensed copy of Windows XP. XP
Mode is intended for consumers rather than enterprises, as it offers no central
management capabilities. Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (Med-V) is
available for the enterprise market.

 Native support for Hyper-V virtual machines through the inclusion of VMBus integration
drivers.

 Windows 7 introduces support for location and other sensors. As a demonstration of

these sensors, location can be determined reasonably accurately by a machine
connected to the Internet by Wi-Fi without a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver
by downloading Geosense for Windows (not from Microsoft), which uses "a hybrid mix of
geolocation service providers and geolocation methods to pinpoint the most accurate
location information possible – including but not limited to WiFi triangulation, cell tower
triangulation and IP address lookup".

 The memory manager is optimized to mitigate the problem of total memory consumption
in the event of excessive cached read operations, which occurred on earlier releases of
64-bit Windows.[
 AVCHD camera support and Universal Video Class 1.1
 Protected Broadcast Driver Architecture (PBDA) for TV tuner cards, first implemented in
Windows Media Center TV Pack 2008 for Windows Vista.
 Support for up to 256 logical processors
 Fewer hardware locks and greater parallelism
 Timer coalescing: modern processors and chipsets can switch to very low power usage
levels while the CPU is idle. In order to reduce the number of times the CPU enters and
exits idle states, Windows 7 introduces the concept of "timer coalescing"; multiple
applications or device drivers which perform actions on a regular basis can be set to
119
 occur at once, instead of each action being performed on their own schedule. This
facility is available in both kernel mode, via the KeSetCoalesableTimer API (which would
be used in place of KeSetTimerEx), and in user mode with the SetWaitableTimerEx
Windows API call (which replaces SetWaitableTimer).
 Multi-function devices and Device Containers: Prior to Windows 7, every device attached
to the system was treated as a single functional end-point, known as a devnode, that
has a set of capabilities and a "status". While this is appropriate for single-function
devices (such as a keyboard or scanner), it does not accurately represent multi-function
devices such as a combined printer, fax machine, and scanner, or web-cams with a
built-in microphone. In Windows 7, the drivers and status information for multi-function
device can be grouped together as a single "Device Container", which is presented to
the user in the new "Devices and Printers" Control Panel as a single unit. This capability
is provided by a new Plug and Play property, ContainerID, which is a Globally Unique
Identifier that is different for every instance of a physical device. The Container ID can
be embedded within the device by the manufacturer, or created by Windows and
associated with each devnode when it is first connected to the computer. In order to
ensure the uniqueness of the generated Container ID, Windows will attempt to use
information unique to the device, such as a MAC address or USB serial number.
Devices connected to the computer via USB, IEEE 1394 (FireWire), eSATA, PCI
Express, Bluetooth, and Windows Rally's PnP-X support can make use of Device
Containers.[

 User-Mode Scheduling: The 64-bit versions of Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 introduce
a user-mode scheduling framework. On Microsoft Windows operating systems,
scheduling of threads inside a process is handled by the kernel. While for most
applications this is sufficient, applications with large concurrent threading requirements,
such as a database server, can benefit from having a thread scheduler in-process. This
is because the kernel no longer needs to be involved in context switches between
threads, and it obviates the need for a thread pool mechanism as threads can be
created and destroyed much more quickly when no kernel context switches are required.

120
 10. Computer Networking & Internet

Networking
A computer network or data network is a telecommunications network that
allows computers to exchange data. In computer networks, networked computing devices pass
data to each other along data connections. The connections (network links) between nodes are
established using either cable media or wireless media. The best-known computer network is
the Internet. The theme behind networking is communication and sharing unused resources like
Processor, Memory, HDD, Printer, Scanner etc.

Network computer devices that originate, route and terminate the data are called network
nodes.[1] Nodes can include hosts such as personal computers, phones, servers as well
as networking hardware. Two such devices are said to be networked together when one device
is able to exchange information with the other device, whether or not they have a direct
connection to each other.

Computer networks support applications such as access to the World Wide Web, shared use
of application and storage servers, printers, and fax machines, and use of email and instant
messaging applications.

History of Networking

In the late 1950s, early networks of communicating computers included the military radar
system Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE).In 1960, the commercial airline
reservation system semi-automatic business research environment (SABRE) went online with
two connected mainframes. In 1962, J.C.R. Licklider developed a working group he called the
"Intergalactic Computer Network", a precursor to the ARPANET, at the Advanced Research
Projects Agency (ARPA).In 1964, researchers at Dartmouth developed the Dartmouth Time
Sharing System for distributed users of large computer systems. The same year,
at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a research group supported by General
Electric and Bell Labs used a computer to route and manage telephone connections.
Throughout the 1960s, Leonard Kleinrock, Paul Baran and Donald Davies independently
conceptualized and developed network systems which used packets to transfer information
between computers over a network. In 1965, Thomas Marill and Lawrence G. Roberts created
the first wide area network (WAN). This was an immediate precursor to the ARPANET, of which

121
Roberts became program manager. Also in 1965, the first widely used telephone switch that
implemented true computer control was introduced by Western Electric. In 1969, the University
of California at Los Angeles, the Stanford Research Institute, the University of California at
Santa Barbara, and the University of Utah were connected as the beginning of the
ARPANET network using 50 Kbit/s circuits. In 1972, commercial services using X.25 were
deployed, and later used as an underlying infrastructure for expanding TCP/IP networks. In
1973, Robert Metcalfe wrote a formal memo at Xerox PARC describing Ethernet, a networking
system that was based on the Aloha network, developed in the 1960s by Norman
Abramson and colleagues at the University of Hawaii. In July 1976, Robert Metcalfe and David
Boggs published their paper "Ethernet: Distributed Packet Switching for Local Computer
Networks and collaborated on several patents received in 1977 and 1978. In 1979, Robert
Metcalfe pursued making Ethernet an open standard. In 1976, John Murphy of Datapoint
Corporation created ARCNET, a token-passing network first used to share storage devices. In
1995, the transmission speed capacity for Ethernet was increased from 10 Mbit/s to 100 Mbit/s.
By 1998, Ethernet supported transmission speeds of a Gigabit. The ability of Ethernet to scale
easily (such as quickly adapting to support new fiber optic cable speeds) is a contributing factor
to its continued use today.[4]

Today, computer networks are the core of modern communication. All modern aspects of
the public switched telephone network (PSTN) are computer-controlled. Telephony increasingly
runs over the Internet Protocol, although not necessarily the public Internet. The scope of
communication has increased significantly in the past decade. This boom in communications
would not have been possible without the progressively advancing computer network. Computer
networks, and the technologies that make communication between networked computers
possible, continue to drive computer hardware, software, and peripherals industries. The
expansion of related industries is mirrored by growth in the numbers and types of people using
networks, from the researcher to the home user.
Facilitates interpersonal communications
People can communicate efficiently and easily via email, instant messaging, chat rooms,
telephone, video telephone calls, and video conferencing.
Allows sharing of files, data, and other types of information
Authorized users may access information stored on other computers on the network.
Providing access to information on shared storage devices is an important feature of
many networks.
Allows sharing of network and computing resources

122
 Users may access and use resources provided by devices on the network, such as
printing a document on a shared network printer. Distributed computing uses computing
resources across a network to accomplish tasks.
May be insecure
A computer network may be used by computer Hackers to deploy computer
viruses or computer worms on devices connected to the network, or to prevent these
devices from accessing the network (denial of service).
May interfere with other technologies
Power line communication strongly disturbs certain forms of radio communication, e.g.,
amateur radio. It may also interfere with last mile access technologies such
as ADSL and VDSL.
May be difficult to set up
A complex computer network may be difficult to set up. It may be costly to set up an
effective computer network in a large organization.

Geographic scale

A network can be characterized by its physical capacity or its organizational purpose. Use of the
network, including user authorization and access rights, differ accordingly.

Local area network

A local area network (LAN) is a network that connects computers and devices in a limited
geographical area such as a home, school, office building, or closely positioned group of
buildings. Each computer or device on the network is a node. Wired LANs are most likely based
on Ethernet technology.

The defining characteristics of a LAN, in contrast to a wide area network (WAN), include
higher data transfer rates, limited geographic range, and lack of reliance on leased lines to
provide connectivity.

Storage area network

A storage area network (SAN) is a dedicated network that provides access to consolidated,
block level data storage. SANs are primarily used to make storage devices, such as disk arrays,
tape libraries, and optical jukeboxes, accessible to servers so that the devices appear like
locally attached devices to the operating system. A SAN typically has its own network of storage
devices that are generally not accessible through the local area network by other devices. The

123
cost and complexity of SANs dropped in the early 2000s to levels allowing wider adoption
across both enterprise and small to medium sized business environments.

Campus area network

A campus area network (CAN) is made up of an interconnection of LANs within a limited

geographical area. The networking equipment (switches, routers) and transmission media
(optical fiber, copper plant, Cat5 cabling, etc.) are almost entirely owned by the campus tenant /
owner (an enterprise, university, government, etc.).

For example, a university campus network is likely to link a variety of campus buildings to
connect academic colleges or departments, the library, and student residence halls.
Backbone network

A backbone network is part of a computer network infrastructure that provides a path for the
exchange of information between different LANs or sub-networks. A backbone can tie together
diverse networks within the same building, across different buildings, or over a wide area.

For example, a large company might implement a backbone network to connect departments
that are located around the world. The equipment that ties together the departmental networks
constitutes the network backbone. When designing a network backbone, network
performance and network congestion are critical factors to take into account. Normally, the
backbone network's capacity is greater than that of the individual networks connected to it.

Another example of a backbone network is the Internet backbone, which is the set of wide area
networks (WANs) and core routers that tie together all networks connected to the Internet.
Metropolitan area network

A Metropolitan area network (MAN) is a large computer network that usually spans a city or a
large campus.
Wide area network

A wide area network (WAN) is a computer network that covers a large geographic area such as
a city, country, or spans even intercontinental distances. A WAN uses a communications
channel that combines many types of media such as telephone lines, cables, and air waves. A
WAN often makes use of transmission facilities provided by common carriers, such as
telephone companies.
Enterprise private network

124
An enterprise private network is a network built by a single organization to interconnect its office
locations (e.g., production sites, head offices, remote offices, shops) in order to share computer
resources.
Virtual private network

A virtual private network (VPN) is an overlay network in which some of the links between nodes
are carried by open connections or virtual circuits in some larger network (e.g., the Internet)
instead of by physical wires. The data link layer protocols of the virtual network are said to be
tunneled through the larger network when this is the case. One common application is secure
communications through the public Internet, but a VPN need not have explicit security features,
such as authentication or content encryption. VPNs, for example, can be used to separate the
traffic of different user communities over an underlying network with strong security features.

VPN may have best-effort performance, or may have a defined service level agreement (SLA)
between the VPN customer and the VPN service provider. Generally, a VPN has a topology
more complex than point-to-point.
Global area network

A global area network (GAN) is a network used for supporting mobile across an arbitrary
number of wireless LANs, satellite coverage areas, etc. The key challenge in mobile
communications is handing off user communications from one local coverage area to the next.

NETWORK TOPOLOGY

The way network cables are physically laid out to connect with each of the workstations or
nodes and servers is known as the network topology. It is important as it determines where
nodes can be placed, how easy the cable will be to run, and how much the entire cable system
will cost.
TYPES OF NETWORK TOPOLOGY

The physical topology of a network refers to the configuration of cables, computers, and other
peripherals. Physical topology should not be confused with logical topology which is the method
used to pass information between workstations. Logical topology was discussed in the Protocol
chapter. The types of network topologies are as given below:

Main Types of Physical Topologies

125
The following sections discuss the physical topologies used in networks and other

Linear Bus

A linear bus topology consists of a main run of cable with a terminator at each end (Figure 2.3).
All nodes (file server, workstations, and peripherals) are connected to the linear cable.

Figure:2.3 Linear Bus Topology of a Computer Network

Advantages of a Linear Bus Topology

 Easy to connect a computer or peripheral to a linear bus.

 Requires less cable length than a star topology.

Disadvantages of a Linear Bus Topology

 Entire network shuts down if there is a break in the main cable.

 Terminators are required at both ends of the backbone cable.

 Difficult to identify the problem if the entire network shuts down.

 Not meant to be used as a stand-alone solution in a large building.

Star

A star topology is designed with each node (file server, workstations, and peripherals)
connected directly to a central network hub, switch, or concentrator (Figure 2.4).

Data on a star network passes through the hub, switch, or concentrator before continuing to its
destination. The hub, switch, or concentrator manages and controls all functions of the network.
It also acts as a repeater for the data flow. This configuration is common with twisted pair cable;
however, it can also be used with coaxial cable or fiber optic cable.
126
Figure:2.4 Star Topology of a Computer Network

Advantages of a Star Topology

 Easy to install and wire.

 No disruptions to the network when connecting or removing devices.

 Easy to detect faults and to remove parts.

Disadvantages of a Star Topology

 Requires more cable length than a linear topology.

 If the hub, switch, or concentrator fails, nodes attached are disabled.

 More expensive than linear bus topologies because of the cost of the hubs, etc.

Tree or Expanded Star

A tree topology combines characteristics of linear bus and star topologies. It consists of groups
of star-configured workstations connected to a linear bus backbone cable (Figure 2.5). Tree
topologies allow for the expansion of an existing network, and enable schools to configure a
network to meet their needs.

127
Figure:2.5 Tree Topology of a Computer Network

Advantages of a Tree Topology

 Point-to-point wiring for individual segments.

 Supported by several hardware and software venders.

Disadvantages of a Tree Topology

 Overall length of each segment is limited by the type of cabling used.

 If the backbone line breaks, the entire segment goes down.

 More difficult to configure and wire than other topologies.

Ring Topology

The ring topology is a computer network configuration where each network computer and
device are connected to each other forming a large circle (or similar shape). Each packet is sent
around the ring until it reaches its final destination. Today, the ring topology is seldom used.
Figure 2.6 is a visual example of a simple computer setup on a network using a ring topology.

128
 Each node acts as a repeater boosting the signals between workstations

Advantages:
1. Overall cable length short
2. Less expensive
3. No wiring closet space required.
Disadvantages:

1. A single node failure causes network failure

2. It is more difficult to diagnose faults
3. Network modification / reconfiguration is more difficult and disrupts network operation

Wireless technologies and Network Interfaces

 Terrestrial microwave – Terrestrial microwave communication uses Earth-based

transmitters and receivers resembling satellite dishes. Terrestrial microwaves are in the low-
gigahertz range, which limits all communications to line-of-sight. Relay stations are spaced
approximately 48 km (30 mi) apart.

 Communications satellites – Satellites communicate via microwave radio waves, which

are not deflected by the Earth's atmosphere. The satellites are stationed in space, typically in
geosynchronous orbit 35,400 km (22,000 mi) above the equator. These Earth-orbiting systems
are capable of receiving and relaying voice, data, and TV signals.

129
 Cellular and PCS systems use several radio communications technologies. The systems
divide the region covered into multiple geographic areas. Each area has a low-power transmitter
or radio relay antenna device to relay calls from one area to the next area.

 Radio and spread spectrum technologies – Wireless local area networks use a high-
frequency radio technology similar to digital cellular and a low-frequency radio technology.
Wireless LANs use spread spectrum technology to enable communication between multiple
devices in a limited area. IEEE 802.11 defines a common flavor of open-standards wireless
radio-wave technology known as Wifi.

 Free-space optical communication uses visible or invisible light for communications. In

most cases, line-of-sight propagation is used, which limits the physical positioning of
communicating devices.
Network interfaces

A network interface controller (NIC) is computer hardware that provides a computer with the
ability to access the transmission media, and has the ability to process low-level network
information. For example the NIC may have a connector for accepting a cable, or an aerial for
wireless transmission and reception, and the associated circuitry.

In addition, the NIC will have access to an identifier for either the NIC or the computer as a
whole.
Repeaters and hubs

A repeater is an electronic device that receives a network signal, cleans it of unnecessary noise,
and regenerates it. The signal is retransmitted at a higher power level, or to the other side of an
obstruction, so that the signal can cover longer distances without degradation. In most twisted
pair Ethernet configurations, repeaters are required for cable that runs longer than 100 meters.
With fiber optics, repeaters can be tens of even hundreds of kilometers apart.

A repeater with multiple ports is known as a hub. Repeaters work on the physical layer of the
OSI model. Repeaters require a small amount of time to regenerate the signal. This can cause
a propagation delay which can affect network performance. As a result, many network
architectures limit the number of repeaters that can be used in a row, e.g., the Ethernet 5-4-3
rule.

Hubs have been mostly obsolete by modern switches; but repeaters are used for long distance
links, notably undersea cabling.

130
 Bridges

A network bridge connects and filters traffic between two network segments to form a single
network. This breaks the network's collision domain but maintains a unified broadcast domain.
Network segmentation breaks down a large, congested network into an aggregation of smaller,
more efficient networks.

Bridges come in three basic types:

 Local bridges: Directly connect LANs

 Remote bridges: Can be used to create a wide area network (WAN) link between LANs.
Remote bridges, where the connecting link is slower than the end networks, largely have been
replaced with routers.
 Wireless bridges: Can be used to join LANs or connect remote devices to LANs.

Switches

A network switch is a device that forwards and filters the packets. A switch is distinct from a
hub in that it only forwards the frames to the physical ports involved in the communication rather
than all ports connected if an unknown destination is targeted, the switch broadcasts to all ports
but the source. Switches normally have numerous ports, facilitating a star topology for devices,
and cascading additional switches.
Routers
A router is an internetworking device that forwards packets between networks by processing the
routing information included in the packet

Modem

Modems (Modulator Demodulator) are used to connect network nodes via wire not originally
designed for digital network traffic, or for wireless. To do this one or more frequencies are
modulated by the digital signal to produce an analog signal that can be tailored to give the
required properties for transmission. Modems are commonly used for telephone lines, using
a Digital Subscriber Line technology.
Firewalls

A firewall is a network device for controlling network security and access rules. Firewalls are
typically configured to reject access requests from unrecognized sources while allowing actions

131
from recognized ones. The vital role firewalls play in network security grows in parallel with the
constant increase in cyber attacks.

Internet
The Internet is the largest example of an internetwork. It is a global system of interconnected
governmental, academic, corporate, public, and private computer networks. It is based on the
networking technologies of the Internet Protocol Suite. It is the successor of the Advanced
Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) developed by DARPA of the United States
Department of Defense. The Internet is also the communications backbone underlying
the World Wide Web (WWW).

Participants in the Internet use a diverse array of methods of several hundred documented, and
often standardized, protocols compatible with the Internet Protocol Suite and an addressing
system (IP addresses) administered by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority and address
registries. Service providers and large enterprises exchange information about
the reachability of their address spaces through the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), forming a
redundant worldwide mesh of transmission paths.

The following are the application area of Internet:

1. Facilitate WWW
2. e-Commerce
3. e-Governance
4. e-mail
5. Grid Computing
6. Cloud Computing
7. Resource Sharing
8. Education and Research
9. Video Conferencing
10. Entertainment etc.,
History of the World Wide Web

In the May 1970 issue of Popular Science magazine, Arthur C. Clarke predicted that satellites
would someday "bring the accumulated knowledge of the world to your fingertips" using a
console that would combine the functionality of the photocopier, telephone, television and a
small computer, allowing data transfer and video conferencing around the globe.

132
In March 1989, Tim Berners-Lee wrote a proposal that referenced ENQUIRE, a database and
software project he had built in 1980, and described a more elaborate information management
system.[10]

With help from Robert Cailliau, he published a more formal proposal (on 12 November 1990) to
build a "Hypertext project" called "WorldWideWeb" (one word, also "W3") as a "web" of
"hypertext documents" to be viewed by "browsers" using a client–server architecture.[6] This
proposal estimated that a read-only web would be developed within three months and that it
would take six months to achieve "the creation of new links and new material by readers, [so
that] authorship becomes universal" as well as "the automatic notification of a reader when new
material of interest to him/her has become available." While the read-only goal was met,
accessible authorship of web content took longer to mature, with the wiki concept, blogs, Web
2.0 and RSS/Atom.[11]

The proposal was modeled after the SGML reader Dynatext by Electronic Book Technology, a
spin-off from the Institute for Research in Information and Scholarship at Brown University. The
Dynatext system, licensed by CERN, was a key player in the extension of SGML ISO
8879:1986 to Hypermedia within HyTime, but it was considered too expensive and had an
inappropriate licensing policy for use in the general high energy physics community, namely a
fee for each document and each document alteration.

A NeXT Computer was used by Berners-Lee as the world's first web server and also to write the
first web browser, World Wide Web, in 1990. By Christmas 1990, Berners-Lee had built all the
tools necessary for a working Web: the first web browser (which was a web editor as well); the
first web server; and the first web pages, which described the project itself.

The first web page may be lost, but Paul Jones (computer technologist) of UNC-Chapel Hill in
North Carolina revealed in May 2013 that he has a copy of a page given to him by Berners-Lee
during a visit to UNC in 1991 which is the oldest known web page. Jones stored it on a magneto-
optical drive and on his NeXT computer.[14]

On 6 August 1991, Berners-Lee posted a short summary of the World Wide Web project on the
alt. hypertext newsgroup. This date also marked the debut of the Web as a publicly available
service on the Internet, although new users only access it after August 23. For this reason this is
considered the internet‘s day. Many news media have reported that the first photo on the web
was uploaded by Berners-Lee in 1992, an image of the CERN house band Les Horribles
Cernettes taken by Silvano de Gennaro; Gennaro has disclaimed this story, writing that media
were "totally distorting our words for the sake of cheap sensationalism The first server outside
133
Europe was set up at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) in Palo Alto, California, to
host the SPIRES-HEP database. Accounts differ substantially as to the date of this event. The
World Wide Web Consortium says December 1992, whereas SLAC itself claims 1991.This is
supported by a W3C document titled A Little History of the World Wide Web.

The crucial underlying concept of hypertext originated with older projects from the 1960s, such
as the Hypertext Editing System (HES) at Brown University, Ted Nelson's Project Xanadu, and
Douglas Engelbart's On-Line System (NLS). Both Nelson and Engelbart were in turn inspired by
Vannevar Bush's microfilm-based "memex", which was described in the 1945 essay "As We May
Think".[21]

Berners-Lee's breakthrough was to marry hypertext to the Internet. In his book Weaving the Web,
he explains that he had repeatedly suggested that a marriage between the two technologies
was possible to members of both technical communities, but when no one took up his invitation,
he finally assumed the project himself. In the process, he developed three essential
technologies:

1. a system of globally unique identifiers for resources on the Web and elsewhere, the
universal document identifier (UDI), later known as uniform resource locator (URL) and
uniform resource identifier (URI);
2. the publishing language Hypertext Markup Language (HTML);
3. The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP).[22]

The World Wide Web had a number of differences from other hypertext systems available at the
time. The web required only unidirectional links rather than bidirectional ones, making it possible
for someone to link to another resource without action by the owner of that resource. It also
significantly reduced the difficulty of implementing web servers and browsers (in comparison to
earlier systems), but in turn presented the chronic problem of link rot. Unlike predecessors such
as HyperCard, the World Wide Web was non-proprietary, making it possible to develop servers
and clients independently and to add extensions without licensing restrictions. On 30 April 1993,
CERN announced that the World Wide Web would be free to anyone, with no fees due.[23]
Coming two months after the announcement that the server implementation of the Gopher
protocol was no longer free to use, this produced a rapid shift away from Gopher and towards
the Web. An early popular web browser was ViolaWWW for Unix and the X Windowing System.

Robert Cailliau, Jean-François Abramatic of IBM, and Tim Berners-Lee at the 10th anniversary of
the World Wide Web Consortium.

134
Scholars generally agree that a turning point for the World Wide Web began with the
introduction[24] of the Mosaic web browser[25] in 1993, a graphical browser developed by a
team at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign (NCSA-UIUC), led by Marc Andreessen. Funding for Mosaic came from the U.S.
High-Performance Computing and Communications Initiative and the High Performance
Computing and Communication Act of 1991, one of several computing developments initiated by
U.S. Senator Al Gore.[26] Prior to the release of Mosaic, graphics were not commonly mixed with
text in web pages and the web's popularity was less than older protocols in use over the
Internet, such as Gopher and Wide Area Information Servers (WAIS). Mosaic's graphical user
interface allowed the Web to become, by far, the most popular Internet protocol.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was founded by Tim Berners-Lee after he left the
European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in October 1994. It was founded at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Laboratory for Computer Science (MIT/LCS) with support
from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which had pioneered the
Internet; a year later, a second site was founded at INRIA (a French national computer research
lab) with support from the European Commission DG Info; and in 1996, a third continental site was
created in Japan at Keio University. By the end of 1994, while the total number of websites was
still minute compared to present standards, quite a number of notable websites were already
active, many of which are the precursors or inspiration for today's most popular services.

Connected by the existing Internet, other websites were created around the world, adding
international standards for domain names and HTML. Since then, Berners-Lee has played an
active role in guiding the development of web standards (such as the markup languages in which
web pages are composed), and has advocated his vision of a Semantic Web. The World Wide
Web enabled the spread of information over the Internet through an easy-to-use and flexible
format. It thus played an important role in popularizing use of the Internet.[27] Although the two
terms are sometimes conflated in popular use, World Wide Web is not synonymous with
Internet.[28] The web is a collection of documents and both client and server software using
Internet protocols such as TCP/IP and HTTP.

Tim Berners-Lee was knighted in 2004 by Queen Elizabeth II for his contribution to the World
Wide Web.

Function

The terms Internet and World Wide Web are often used in everyday speech without much
distinction. However, the Internet and the World Wide Web are not the same. The Internet is a
135
global system of interconnected computer networks. In contrast, the web is one of the services
that run on the Internet. It is a collection of text documents and other resources, linked by
hyperlinks and URLs, usually accessed by web browsers from web servers. In short, the web
can be thought of as an application "running" on the Internet.[29]

Viewing a web page on the World Wide Web normally begins either by typing the URL of the
page into a web browser or by following a hyperlink to that page or resource. The web browser
then initiates a series of communication messages, behind the scenes, in order to fetch and
display it. In the 1990s, using a browser to view web pages—and to move from one web page to
another through hyperlinks—came to be known as 'browsing,' 'web surfing,' or 'navigating the
web.
Intranets

An intranet is a set of networks that are under the control of a single administrative entity. The
intranet uses the IP protocol and IP-based tools such as web browsers and file transfer
applications. The administrative entity limits use of the intranet to its authorized users. Most
commonly, an intranet is the internal LAN of an organization. A large intranet will typically have
at least one web server to provide users with organizational information. An intranet is also
anything behind the router on your local area network that uses necessary Internet
Technologies starting from browser.
Intranet Benefits

The chief advantage of using an intranet for a small or large business is that they're cheap to
implement and run, greatly increasing the return on investment (ROI) [source: Net Access]. In
the modern office, most computers are already equipped to connect to the Internet and browse
the Web. With an intranet, there's no need to buy new equipment for the end user or
significantly restructure the corporate network. The only thing that needs to be purchased and
configured is a Web server (hardware and software) to host the intranet. And the most popular
Web server software, Apache, is free.

Another benefit of using an intranet is improved information sharing and collaboration across an
organization [source: Digital Web Magazine]. Let's use the example of a sales department in a
software company. Instead of each salesman maintaining his own sales lead lists and saving
them on his own computer, all sales leads can be posted and tracked on a central Web site on
the corporate intranet [source: Intranet Roadmap]. Salesmen can post and share product pitch
scripts, training videos and industry reports. Instead of sending hundreds of different group e-
mails, all of the information lives at one central location. This saves time, which in turn saves
money.

136
Intranets become even more powerful when they're linked to corporate databases. Suddenly, all
of the information on the corporate network is searchable and accessible through a simple Web
interface. This can be another money saver for a company. Instead of buying and licensing
software for each and every desktop in the office, the company can switch to Web-based
applications that are accessed through a Web browser People soft is a Web-based application
that can be hosted on a corporate intranet. Human resources can maintain employee records
and customer service reps can track help requests all through an intranet Web site.

Another financial benefit of intranets is that they're scalable and flexible [source: Intranet
Roadmap]. A small company can turn a simple desktop PC into a Web server, build some basic
HTML Web pages and be up and running at practically no extra cost. As the company grows, it
can invest in a more robust Web server, hire a Web developer to design more dynamic intranet
Web pages and make more and more information and software available online.

Beyond their tangible, financial benefits, intranets can also help develop and reinforce the
corporate culture of a business [source: Intranet Roadmap]. Executives can maintain blogs on
the company intranet site alerting employees to new and exciting developments. Employee
relations specialists can post newsletters, maintain event calendars and organize volunteer
groups through the intranet site. And employees themselves can start blogs and build Wikis that
explain every facet of corporate life.

For companies that also maintain well-trafficked, dynamic Internet Web sites, the corporate
intranet Web site can be a place to test out new ideas and emerging Web 2.0 features
[source: Information Week]. Maybe a company is toying with the idea of launching its own online
social network or Internet television channel. All of the technical quirks and usability issues can
be worked out on the in-house intranet site so that everything runs smoothly when the new
features are unveiled to the public.

Now that we've covered some of the advantages of using an intranet, let's talk about how an
organization plans for and develops its intranet.

Extranet

An extranet is a network that is also under the administrative control of a single organization, but
supports a limited connection to a specific external network. For example, an organization may
provide access to some aspects of its intranet to share data with its business partners or
customers. These other entities are not necessarily trusted from a security standpoint. Network
connection to an extranet is often available via internet through a secured tunnel.
E-Mail

137
The word mail comes from the Medieval English word ―male‖. This term is used to describe a
traveling bag or pack. In the 17th century the word ‗mail‘ began to come into view as a reference
for a bag that contained letters

In 1961 using Compatible time sharing system multiple users of IBM 7094 log in to store file
online on the disk. This encouraged users of Time-sharing mainframe computers to
communicate among themselves and thus in 1965 e-mail emerged

Mail or Post is a government system or a private system of carrying and delivering document
and package.

E-mail, Electronic mail, is a system of sending and receiving any communication in the digital
form over internet. Compared to government / private system mailing, electronic mailing system
is faster. In this context, government / private system mailing is also called SNAIL Mail.

According to Darwin Magazine: the first e-mail message was sent in 1971 by an engineer
named Ray Tomlinson, using the @ sign to designate the receiving machine

Requirement for E-mail

A mail server – a Computer on Internet

An e-mail client – a software in our system or a software provided by the email Service provider.

To own an e-mail
Step 1 : Find out a web mail service provider
Step 2: Create an account
Step3: Use the email id given at the time of account creation to access email.
E-mail account: To send and receive digital mail, an e-mail account has to be created in the e-
mail service provider‘s server. E-mail account means a space reserved under a unique name in
the mail server where mails both received and sent are kept.

E-Mail ID: It is the e-mail address provided by the webmail service provider. It is an unique
address offered by the mail service provider. This ID has a standard format. This format has
four portions.

1.Username

2. @ symbol

3. E-mail provider name or Domain name

4. E-mail provider‘s top level domain name

[email protected]

User E-Mail 138

uniqu provider E-mail
e or domain provider’s
name name Top level
@ domain
Symbol name
E-Mail service provider: An organization that provides mail server and space for the user to
keep the outgoing and incoming mails. All internet service providers make available e-mail
services also. But it is not used by many users. Some private organizations, schools and
institutions afford email facility. The following are the well-known free e-mail service providers.

Google‘s gmail.com

Yahoo‘s Yahoo.com or Yahoo.co.in

Additional services made available by the e-mail service provider.

Address book facility is offered by the email service providers in order to keep all the email
addresses of other users. The name and their corresponding e-mail ID are stored in the address
book. The user while sending mails can select the required email address from the address
book. The user need not maintain an address book physically.

Calendar is also supplied to enable the user to keep track of the tasks and schedules

Instant Messaging service allows the user to have informal text based conversation with other
user.

Access to other web sites such as Face book account, Amazon to order products are made
possible.

Tools to search prioritize and group emails are also made available to manage the mails
received.

TELNET

Telnet is a network protocol used on the Internet or local area networks to provide a
bidirectional interactive text-oriented communication facility using a virtual terminal connection.
User data is interspersed in-band with Telnet control information in an 8-bit byte oriented data
connection over the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP).

Telnet was developed in 1969 beginning with RFC 15, extended in RFC 854, and standardized
as Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Internet Standard STD 8, one of the first Internet
standards.

Historically, Telnet provided access to a command-line interface (usually, of an operating

system) on a remote host. Most network equipment and operating systems with a TCP/IP stack
support a Telnet service for remote configuration (including systems based on Windows NT).
However, because of serious security issues when using Telnet over an open network such as
the Internet, its use for this purpose has waned significantly [ in favor of SSH.

139
USENET NEWS

Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It was developed from the general
purpose UUCP dial-up network architecture. Duke University graduate students Tom
Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980. Users read
and post messages (called articles or posts, and collectively termed news) to one or more
categories, known as newsgroups. Usenet resembles a bulletin board system (BBS) in many
respects, and is the precursor to Internet forums that are widely used today. Usenet can be
superficially regarded as a hybrid between email and web forums.

One notable difference between a BBS or web forum and Usenet is the absence of a central
server and dedicated administrator. Usenet is distributed among a large, constantly changing
conglomeration of servers that store and forward messages to one another in so-called news
feeds. Individual users may read messages from and post messages to a local server operated
by a commercial Usenet provider, their Internet service provider, university, employer, or their
own server.

FTP

File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard network protocol used to transfer files from
one host to another host over a TCP-based network, such as the Internet.

FTP is built on a client-server architecture and uses separate control and data connections
between the client and the server.[1] FTP users may authenticate themselves using a clear-text
sign-in protocol, normally in the form of a username and password, but can connect
anonymously if the server is configured to allow it. For secure transmission that hides (encrypts)
the username and password, and encrypts the content, FTP is
often secured with SSL/TLS ("FTPS"). SSH File Transfer Protocol ("SFTP") is sometimes also
used instead, but is technologically different.

The first FTP client applications were command-line applications developed before operating
systems had graphical user interfaces, and are still shipped with most Windows, Unix, and Linux
operating systems. [3] Dozens of FTP clients and automation utilities have since been developed
for desktops, servers, mobile devices, and hardware, and FTP has been incorporated into
hundreds of productivity applications, such as Web page editors.

140
 12. Creating your Document in Word 2007
MICROSOFT WORD 2007

Introduction

Microsoft Word is a word processing program you can use to write letters, resumes, reports,
brochures and more. Anything you can create with a typewriter, you can create with Word.
You can make your documents more appealing and easier to read by applying formatting to
text. It is the part of MS Office Suite.

Microsoft Word 2010 is a word-processing program that can be used to create professional-
looking documents such as reports, resumes, letters, memos, and newsletters. Word 2010
includes many powerful tools that can be used to easily format and edit documents as well as
collaborate with others. In addition, Word 2010 includes many desktop publishing features
that can be used to enhance the appearance of documents so that they are visually appealing
and easy to read. This handout provides an overview of the Word 2010 user interface and
covers how to perform basic tasks such as creating a new document, saving, editing,
formatting, printing, and getting help.

Benefits of using MS Word

• It is easy to create document of any type.

• Compatible with large number of document formats.
• Easy to use dialog box and menu options.
• Increase efficiency.
• Allow saving of document in different file formats.

Starting Microsoft Word - To load Microsoft Word:

1. Click on the Start menu in the bottom left
corner of the screen
2. Choose All Programs then Microsoft Office
(from the sub-menu which appears)
3. Finally click on Microsoft Office Word 2007

141
Word 2007 - Creating a New Document

In addition to working with existing documents, you will

want to be able to create new documents. Each time
you open Word, a new, blank document appears;
however, you will also need to know how to create new
documents while an existing document is open.

To Create a New, Blank Document:

 Click the Microsoft Office Button.

 Select New. The New Document dialog box appears.

 Select Blank document under the Blank and recent section. It will be highlighted by
default.

 Click Create. A new, blank document appears in the Word window.

Word 2007 - Formatting Text

To create and design effective documents, you need to know how to format text. In addition to
making your document more appealing, formatted
text can draw the reader's attention to specific parts of the
document and help communicate your message. To
Format Font Size:

 Select the text you wish to modify.

 Left-click the drop-down arrow next to the font

size box on the Home tab. The font size drop-
down menu appears.

 Move your cursor over the various font sizes.

A live preview of the font size will appear in the
document.

 Left-click the font size you wish to use. The font size will change in the document.

To Format Font Style:

 Select the text you wish to modify.

 Left-click the drop-down arrow next to the font style

box on the Home tab. The font style drop-down menu
appears.
142
  Move your cursor over the various font styles. A live preview of the font will appear in the
document.

 Left-click the font style you wish to use. The font style will change in the document.

To Format Font Color:

 Select the text you wish to modify.

 Left-click the drop-down arrow next to the font color

box on the Home tab. The font color menu appears.

 Move your cursor over the various font colors. A live

preview of the color will appear in the document.

 Left-click the font color you wish to use. The font color will
change in the document.

Your color choices aren't limited to the drop-down menu that

appears. Select More Colors at the bottom of the list to
access the Colors dialog box. Choose the color that you want and click OK.

To Use the Bold, Italic, and Underline Commands:

 Select the text you wish to modify.

 Click the Bold, Italic, or Underline command in the Font group on the Home tab.

To Change the Text Case:

 Select the text you wish to modify.

 Click the Change Case command in the Font group

on the Home tab.

 Select one of the case options from the list.

To Change Text Alignment:

 Select the text you wish to modify.

 Select one of the four alignment options from the

Paragraph group on the Home tab.
 Align Text Left: Aligns all the selected text to the left margin.

 Center: Aligns text an equal distance from the left and right margins.
 Align Text Right: Aligns all the selected text to the right margin.

143
 Justify: Justified text is equal on both sides and lines up equally to the right and left
margins. Traditionally many books, newsletters, and newspapers use full-justification.
Formatting Paragraphs
Formatting paragraphs allows you to change the look of the overall document. You can access
many of the tools of paragraph formatting by clicking the Page Layout Tab of the Ribbon or
the Paragraph Group on the Home Tab of the Ribbon.

Indent Paragraphs
Indenting paragraphs allows you set text within a paragraph at different m argins. There are
several options for indenting:

 First Line: Controls the left boundary for the first line of a paragraph
 Hanging: Controls the left boundary of every line in a paragraph except the first one
 Left: Controls the left boundary for every line in a paragraph

 Right: Controls the right boundary for every line in a paragraph

How to use the save and save as commands, how to save as a Word 97-2003
compatible document, and how to save as a PDF.
How to Save Documents
To Use the Save As Command:
 Click the Microsoft Office Button.
 Select Save As Word Document. The Save
As dialog box appears.
 Select the location you wish to save the
document using the drop-down menu.
 Enter a name for the document.
 Click the Save button.

144
To Use the Save Command:

 Click the Microsoft Office Button.  Select Save from the menu.

Using the Save command saves the document in its current location using the same file name.
If you are saving for the first time and select Save, the Save As dialog box will appear.

To Save As Word 97 - 2003 Document:

 Click the Microsoft Office Button.

 Select Save As Word 97-2003 Document.
 Select the location you wish to save the document using the drop-down menu.
 Enter a name for the document.
 Click the Save button.

To Download the PDF Extension:

 Click the Microsoft Office Button.

 Select Save As Find add-ins for other file formats. This will open your web browser to
the Microsoft site.

 Follow the instructions on the Microsoft site for downloading the extension.

To Save As a PDF:

 Click the Microsoft Office Button.

 Select Save As PDF. The Save As dialog box will appear.

 Select the location you wish to save the document using the drop-down menu.

 Enter a name for the document.

 Click the Publish button.

Compatibility Mode

Sometimes, you may need to work with documents that were created in earlier versions of
Microsoft Word, such as Word 2003 or Word
2000. When you open these kinds of documents,
they will appear in Compatibility mode.

Click the Microsoft Office Button.

 Select Save As Word Document.

Use the Cover Letter or any other Word
document you choose to complete this challenge.

145
 Open an existing Word document.
 Save the document with the file name trial.
 Save the same document as a PDF file.
 Close the document.
 Open another existing Word document.
 Save the document so that it is compatible with
Word 2003.
 Close the document.
Spell Check in Microsoft Word 2007:

The Spell Check function in Word can help you

quickly find out the spelling and grammar mistakes
in the Word document. There are four simple ways
to call Spell Check function in Word 2007, 2010 and
2013.

A: Activate the Spell Check Setting

The automatic Spell Check function might be disabled sometimes and users could reactivate it.
Please click File tab in Word 2010 and 2013 (or click the Office button in Word 2007) > Word
Options > Proofing. If you are using Classic Menu for Office, click Tools > Word Options >
Proofing.

See following:

B: Using the Keyboard Shortcut

If you need, just press F7 to call Spelling and Grammar function.

146
If you want to locate its position on ribbon, please see following content.

C: If the Classic Menu for Office installed

If you have installed Classic Menu for Office to bring back the familiar user interface and make it
look like Word 2003/XP(2002)/2000, just click Tools > Spelling and Grammar.

D: If the Classic Menu for Office not installed

If the Classic Menu for Office is not installed, please click Review tab > Proofing group >
Spelling and Grammar.

How to Run a Spell Check in Word 2007

Use the built-in Word 2007 spell checker after you create a
document to proof it for typos, spelling errors, and repeated

147
words. Then decide on a word-by-word case — or globally — whether you want Word 2007 to
make spelling corrections.

1. On the Review tab, click the Spelling & Grammar button.

a. The Spelling and Grammar dialog box opens and takes you to the first item that
Word 2007 thinks is misspelled.
b. Tell Word 2007 how to treat each item it finds misspelled.

Choose from these actions:

• Ignore Once: Click this button to tell Word 2007 that this entry is fine.
• Ignore All: Click this button to tell Word 2007 that every same spelling of this word is fine.
• Add to Dictionary: Click this button to have Word 2007 add the word to its internal
dictionary.
• Change: First choose (click) a word from the Suggestions panel at the bottom of the dialog
box. Then click this button to have Word 2007 insert the corrected word.
• Change All: This works like Change but changes every instance of the misspelling in the
document. You must choose a spelling from the Suggestions panel.
• AutoCorrect: Clicking this button tells Word 2007 to insert the top-ranked word listed in the
Suggestions panel.
1. Click Close to exit the dialog box.

148
Click the Change All button of the spell checker only if you‘re completely positive that you
want a global spelling change made. Otherwise, you run the risk of introducing more spelling
errors.

How to Use the Thesaurus

The built-in Word 2007 Thesaurus enables to look up synonyms, antonyms, word
substitutes, and alternative spellings. Word can help you increase your writing abilities and
vocabulary when you use this Microsoft feature as a handy reference.

The Synonyms submenu displays a list of synonyms for the

word you chose.

Replacing a word with a synonym in a Word 2007

document

If you want to replace the word in your document with a

Word synonym suggestion, just choose it (click it) from the
submenu. The new word replaces the old word.

To accept an antonym suggestion, just click it from the

list.

149
If you don‘t want to use any of Word‘s synonym suggestions, simply move your cursor into a
blank part of the document and click. The Thesaurus menu disappears.

Sometimes, the thesaurus also shows you at least one antonym (a word with the opposite
meaning).

Creating a new character style

A style is nothing more than a collection of Word 2007‘s formatting commands all stuffed
into a single container. By combining various text and paragraph formats into a style, Word
saves you a lot of time and effort.

Without styles, every time a part of your document — say, a main heading — needs to be
formatted, you have to apply the same font, size, bold, paragraph-spacing, and other
attributes again and again, every time it appears. That can be a pain.

With styles, you simply apply the style and Word applies all of these formats at once. And, if
you change your mind, you can instantly update all the text formatted with the same style.
Such is the beauty — and power — of the style.

Choose Home tab. Click Styles to open the Styles window.

Click New Style.

All text in Word has a style. By default,

Word uses the Normal style to format
your text. Unless you specify otherwise,
the Normal style is typically 11-point
Calibri font, with left-aligned
paragraphs, line spacing at 1.15, and
no indenting.

150
Borders and Shading

Borders and shading is always used to decorate a text, which makes a plain article seems
highlighted and well-organized. To apply the border in Word 2007, 2010 and 2013 may be
simple, but still be hard for user who recently upgrade from Word 2003 to 2007/2010/2013.

You can add borders to pages, text, tables and table cells, graphic objects, pictures, and Web
frames. You can shade paragraphs and text. You can apply colored or textured fills to your
graphic objects.

Types of Borders

1. Page borders
2. Text borders and shading
3. Table borders and shading
4. Web frame borders
5. Graphic borders, colors, and fills

1.Page border

A page border can serve as a

graphic enhancement for a
variety of documents, such as
letters, flyers, notices and
signs. There are several ways
to add a border graphic to any
Microsoft Word document.

Method 1 of 2: Add a Border

to a Word Document Using the Page Borders Feature

Method : 1

Choose the borders settings. Open the document you wish to add a border to and click the
Page Layout tab. Select the Page Borders button, located in the Page Background menu on
the toolbar. The Borders and Shading dialogue box will open. Click the Borders tab and choose

151
1 of the 4 different border setting options from the settings menu, which is in the column located
on the far right side of the dialogue box. The border settings have been selected.

Click Home tab

• Move to Paragraph group

• Find out the Border and Shading button, and click the down arrow next to it

• Choose the Border and Shading option, or specify the different border style

You can add a border to any or all sides of each page in a document, to pages in a section,
to the first page only, or to all pages except the first. You can add page borders in many line
styles and colors, as well as a variety of graphical borders.

Page with graphical border

You can set apart text from the rest of a document by adding borders.

152
You can add borders to a table or individual table cell.

You can add borders to drawing objects and pictures. You can change or format the border of
an object in the same way that you change or format a line.

Add a border to a picture, a table, or text

1. Select the picture, table, or text that you want to apply

a border to.

To apply a border to specific table cells, select the cells,

including the end-of-cell marks.

NOTE Press CTRL+* to turn on Show/Hide paragraph marks and view the end-of-cell marks.

2. On the Page Layout tab, in the Page

Background group, click Page Borders.
3. In the Borders and Shading dialog box, click
the Borders tab, and then click one of the border
options under Settings.
4. Select the style, color, and width of the border.
5. Do any of the following:
• To place borders only on particular sides of the selected area,
click Custom under Setting. Under Preview, click the diagram's sides, or click the
buttons to apply and remove borders.

153
 • To specify the exact position of a paragraph border relative to the text,
click Paragraph under Apply to, click Options, and then select the options that you
want.
• To specify a cell or table that you want the border to appear in, click the option that you
want under Apply to.
Add a border to a page

1. On the Page Layout tab, in the Page Background group, click Page Borders.

Make sure you are on the Page Border tab in the Borders and Shading dialog box.

2. Click one of the border options under Settings.

To specify that the border appears on a particular side of a page, such as only at the top,
click Custom under Setting. Under Preview, click where you want the border to appear.

3. Select the style, color, and width of the border.

To specify an artistic border, such as trees, select an option in the Art box.

4. Do any of the following:

• To specify a particular page or section for the border to appear in, click the option that
you want under Apply to.
• To specify the exact position of the border on the page, click Options, and then select
the options that you want.
You can see the page borders on your screen by viewing your document in Print Layout view.
Add a border to a drawing object

NOTE To add a border to a drawing object, you must place the drawing object in a drawing
canvas.

1. On the Insert tab, in

the Illustrations group, click Shapes,
and then

2. click New Drawing Canvas. Office Word 2007 adds a drawing canvas.
3. Right-click the drawing canvas, and then click Format Drawing Canvas on the shortcut
menu.
154
 4. On the Colors and Lines tab, under Line, choose a color, line style, and line weight.
5. Add any drawing objects that you want to the drawing canvas.

Closing of the File, Save as option, Open File (From File menu, From Open Icon), Printing
Your Document.

Once Word is open, you can begin creating documents. The following instructions will guide you
through the basics of creating, saving, opening, printing, and closing out of documents in Word
2007.
Creating a New Document
You can create new documents by using the menu option or the keyboard shortcut. The menu
option gives you more options for choosing your new document, but the keyboard shortcut is the
faster and easier way of getting a blank document on your screen.
Creating a New Document: Keyboard Option
1. Press [Ctrl] + [N]
NOTES: A new blank document appears.
This can be done under any command tab.
Creating a New Document: Menu Option

1. From the OFFICE BUTTON , select New

The New Document dialog box appears.

2. From the Blank and recent section, click BLANK DOCUMENT

A new blank document appears.

155
 Opening an Existing Document
Follow these instructions to open already existing documents.

1. From the OFFICE BUTTON , select Open

OR
Press [Ctrl]+[O]
The Open dialog box appears.
2. From the Look in pull-down list, navigate to and select the desired file
HINTS:
All Word document files are displayed.
If the desired file is not listed, it may have another file extension. From the Files of type pull-
down list, select All Files.
3. To open the file, click OPEN
The document is opened.
Saving a Document
The Save and Save As commands are located within the File menu. If you are saving a
document for the first time, both selections will take you to the Save As dialog box.
Saving a Document: First Time
Use this option if you are saving your document for the first time or if you are saving an already
saved file under a new name.

1. From the OFFICE BUTTON , select Save As

NOTE: Do not click on the side arrow as it will not allow the Save As function to occur.

156
The Save As dialog box appears.

2. From the Save in pull-down list, make the appropriate selection:

To save to your H: drive or another network drive, select (H:) or another network drive
HINT: For a quicker way to find files, use the Places Bar. For more information, refer to The
Office 2007 Environment.
3. In the File name text box, type a filename
HINTS:
To help you locate the file in the future, use a descriptive filename.
Do not include a file extension; Word automatically adds a .docx extension.
4. OPTIONAL: From the Save as type pull-down menu, select the type of file
NOTE: To share this file with users who have a previous version of Word, save as a Word 97-
2003 file.
5. Click SAVE
The document is saved.
Saving a Document: Subsequent Times
Use the Save command to save a document that has already been named and saved. If you
select the Savecommand and you have not saved the document before, the Save As dialog box
will appear. Use the Savecommand frequently to save changes to your document.
1. Press [Ctrl] + [S]
OR

From the OFFICE BUTTON , select Save

OR
On the Quick Access Toolbar, click SAVE
The document is saved under the current filename.
157
Printing a Document

When you want to print your document, you can use Print Preview, under the file menu, to see
how your document will be printed. When you are ready to print, you can print directly from
the Print Preview screen, or use the Print menu option. You can also change the default
printer for future documents.
Printing a Document: Using Print Preview
The Print Preview feature is useful for viewing your document prior to printing. You can also
print directly from thePrint Preview screen.

1. Click the OFFICE BUTTON

The OFFICE BUTTON menu appears.

2. From the OFFICE BUTTON menu, click the next to PRINT

The Preview and print the document submenu appears.

3. In the Preview and print the document submenu, click PRINT PREVIEW
4. To return to your document without printing, on the Print Preview command tab,
click CLOSE PRINTPREVIEW
Print Preview closes.

To print, on the Print Preview command tab, in the Print group, click PRINT
The Print dialog box appears.
5. From the Name pull-down list, select the desired printer
6. In the Page range and Copies sections, make the desired selections
HINT: For more information about page range options, refer to Printing Options for Specific
Pages.

Printing a document

There are plenty of options to choose from when printing Word 2007 documents. You can print
the whole document, specific pages or the selected text.

You can also select the printer you wish to use and the number of copies of the document you
want to print.

Change the Print Settings

1. Click the Office button and then Print Or Press Ctrl + P

158
 2. Select the printer you want to use from the Name: box
3. Select the pages you want to print from the Page range panel

You can print the whole document, current page or a specific range of pages

4. Enter the Number of copies: you want to print

5. Click Ok

Print the Selected Text Only

1. Select the text in the document you want to print

2. Click the Office Button and then Print or press Ctrl + P
3. Click the Selection option in the Page range panel of the Print dialogue box
4. Click Ok

Using headers and footer

Headers and footers allow you to add information to appear at the top (Header) and bottom
(Footer) of every page of a Word document. Popular uses include inserting page numbering,
filename and path and the authors name.
Headers and footers can be added to different pages of a document by using sections.
Insert a Header and Footer
1. Click the Insert tab on the Ribbon
2. Click the Header or Footer button in the Header & Footer group

159
 3. Click on one of the header or footers in the list, or click Edit Header or Edit Footer to be
taken to the header or footer area
The Print Layout view is shown and you are taken to the appropriate area. The Design
contextual tab appears under Header and Footer Tools on the Ribbon allowing you to easily
insert and format header and footer content.
4. Enter the text you want to use for your header or footer
5. Click the Close Header and Footer button on the Design tab to return to the document
Insert Page Numbers
The most popular reason for using footers in a document is to insert page numbering.
1. Click inside the footer where you want to add the page numbering
2. Click the Page Number button in the Header & Footer group of the Design tab under
Header and Footer Tools on the Ribbon

3. Selection the position and style of numbering you want to use

Insert the Date and Time
The date and time can be inserted into a header or footer. The date can be set to update
automatically or remain fixed.

160
 1. Click inside the header or footer where you want to add the date and/or time
2. Click the Date & Time button in the Insert group of the Design tab under Header and
Footer Tools on the Ribbon

3. Select the date and time format you want to use

4. Optionally check the Update automatically checkbox
5. Click Ok
Setting a Different First Page
It is possible to display a different header and footer on the first page, or even remove it
completely.
The first page of a document may be a cover page and page numbering etc is not a
requirement.
Click the Different First Page checkbox in the Options group of the Design tab under Header
and Footer Tools on the Ribbon

Save a Header or Footer

Headers and footers can be saved for use in future documents. This can help ensure
consistency across all company documentation and also save a lot of time
1. Select everything in the header or footer
2. Click the Header or Footer button on the Design tab under Header & Footer Tools on
the Ribbon
3. Click the Save Selection to Header Gallery or Save Selection to Footer
Gallery option

161
1. Type a Name for the header or footer
2. Click Ok
The saved header or footer will appear at the bottom of the gallery when inserting a header or
footer to a document.

Changing Page Settings

Change page settings such as orientation, margins and vertical alignment to control how the
document looks when printed.
Page formatting can be applied to the whole document or to sections within a document.
Change Page Orientation
Page orientation is the direction that the paper is facing. Pages can be set as portrait
or landscape.
1. Click the Page Layout tab on the Ribbon
2. Click the Orientation button in the Page Setup group

3. Select the Portrait or Landscape orientation option

Adjust Page Margins
The margins of a page can be adjusted to increase or decrease the space around the edges of
a page.
1. Click the Page Layout tab on the Ribbon
2. Click the Margins button

162
 3. Select the margins you want to use from the list, or click Custom Margins and enter the
desired margin sizes in the Top, Bottom, Left and Right boxes
Align Text Vertically
Page content can be aligned in relation to the top and bottom margins of a page.
1. Click the Page Layout tab on the Ribbon
2. Click the Dialogue Box Launcher arrow in the bottom right corner of the Page Setup
group
3. Click the Layout tab
4. Select the required option from the Vertical alignment list box

5. Click Ok

163
Using Print Preview
Print Preview is used to see what a document would look like when printed. You can view
multiple pages and change the zoom level.
1. Click the Office Button > Print > Print Preview

2. Print Preview is displayed and the Print Preview Ribbon appears

Use the buttons on the Ribbon to change page setup and print settings and zoom in and
out of the document
3. Click Close Print Preview to return to the normal document

Printing a Document

1. From the OFFICE BUTTON , click PRINT

OR
Press [Ctrl] + [P]
HINT: Do not click the Print options arrow, which brings up only the Quick Print or Print
Preview options.
The Print dialog box appears.
2. From the Name pull-down list, select the desired printer
164
3. In the Page range and Copies sections, make the desired selections
HINT: For more information about page range options, refer to Printing Options for Specific
Pages.
4. To print your document, click OK
The document is printed.
Printing a Document: Quick Print Option
WARNING: When you use this option, all pages of your document are printed. This print
process does not take you through the Print dialog box, so you cannot select any print options.

1. Click the OFFICE BUTTON

The OFFICE BUTTON menu appears.

2. From the OFFICE BUTTON menu, click the next to PRINT

The Preview and print the document submenu appears.

3. In the Preview and print the document submenu, click QUICK PRINT
Your document prints instantly.
Printing a Document: Setting a Default Printer
To make printing faster and easier, you can set a default printer that will automatically be used
every time you print.
1. Click the Windows Start button, select Printers and Faxes
The Printers and Faxes window appears.
2. Right click the desired printer » select Set as Default Printer
The default printer is set.
3. To save the changes, close the window
Closing a Document
When you are finished working on your document, you have two options, depending on whether
you are finished using Word or not.
Closing a Document: Continuing Word

1. From the OFFICE BUTTON , click CLOSE

If you have made changes that have not been saved, a prompt appears asking you if you want
to save the document.
2. To save the document, click YES
To close without saving, click NO
To continue working, click CANCEL
3. Open another document or create a new document
Closing a Document: Exiting Word

165
 13. Proofing Your Document in Word 2003 /2007
Introduction:
MS-Word 2003 / 2007 have an important facility to correct typing mistakes / errors in the
document and format document with different types of attributes / scales. When finalizing your
MS Word 2003 / 2007 document, proof it to catch text or formatting errors. Word offers a
numbers of proofing tools, including a spelling and grammar check, viewing styles, and using
Print Preview. Before starting editing of documents, start to review the document by scrolling of
pages up and down.

Proofing:
This feature allows you personalize how word corrects and formats your text. You can
customize auto correction settings and have word ignore certain words or errors in a document.

Review Word document styles

Starting at the document‘s beginning, page/scroll down and review document styles, such as
headings and bullets. With the style area pane enabled, view style names in Draft or Outline
view.

1. Click the Office button, click the Word Options button, and click the Advanced
button (Word Options).

166
 Open the style area pane.

2. Scroll to the Display section. Then set

 Show Measurements in Units Of: Choose a measurement standard here, such

as picas or inches.

 Style Area Pane Width in Draft and Outline Views: Enter a number relative to
the measurement unit. For example, if you chose Inches, enter .5 for one-half inch.

Exit Word Options.

167
 In Outline or Draft view, the style area pane appears on the left.

Editing Tools:
Editing means you can change your typing mistakes / errors with the help of editing tools like,
Auto Correct (spelling & grammar), Auto Text Entry, Find & Replace Text, Auto Format etc. Let
us, start with auto correct tools…

Customize Auto Correct

You can set up the AutoCorrect tool in Word to retain certain text the way it is. To customize
AutoCorrect:

 Click the Microsoft Office button

 Click the Word Options Button
 Click the Proofing tab
 Click AutoCorrect Options button

168
  On the AutoCorrect Tab, you can specify words you want to replace as you type

Check spelling and grammar:

There are many features to help you proofread your document. These include: Spelling and
Grammar, Thesaurus, AutoCorrect, Default Dictionary, and Word Count.
169
To check the spelling and grammar of a document,

1. Using the buttons of the Spelling and Grammar dialog box, review each
suggestion.

 Place the cursor at the beginning of the document or the beginning of the section that
you want to check
 Click the Review Tab on the Ribbon
 Click Spelling & Grammar on the Proofing Group.

 Any errors will display a dialog box that allows you to choose a more appropriate spelling
or phrasing.

The Spelling and Grammar dialog box opens and takes you to what Word 2007 sees as
misspelled or a grammar error.

If you wish to check the spelling of an individual word, you can right click any word that has
been underlined by Word and choose a substitution.

170
 Accept or deny each suggested correction.

Thesaurus:
The Thesaurus allows you to view synonyms. To use the thesaurus:

 Click the Review Tab of the Ribbon

 Click the Thesaurus Button on the Proofing Group.
 The thesaurus tool will appear on the right side of the screen and you can view word
options.

You can also access the thesaurus by right-clicking any word and choosing Synonyms on the
menu.

171
Auto Text:
Create a New Default Dictionary:
Often you will have business or educational jargon that may not be recognized by the spelling
and/or grammar check in Word. You can customize the dictionary to recognize these words.

 Click the Microsoft Office button

 Click the Word Options Button
 Click the Proofing tab
 Click the When Correcting Spelling tab
 Click Custom Dictionaries

 Click Edit Word List

 Type in any words that you may use that are not recognized by the current dictionary.

172
Typing and inserting Text:

To enter text, just start typing! The text will appear where the blinking cursor is located. Move
the cursor by using the arrow buttons on the keyboard or positioning the mouse and clicking the
left button. The keyboard shortcuts listed below are also helpful when moving through the text of
a document:

Selecting Text:
To change any attributes of text it must be highlighted first. Select the text by dragging the
mouse over the desired text while keeping the left mouse button depressed, or hold down the
SHIFT key on the keyboard while using the arrow buttons to highlight the text. The following
table contains shortcuts for selecting a portion of the text:
Selection Technique

Whole word double-click within the word

Whole paragraph triple-click within the paragraph

Several words or drag the mouse over the words, or hold down SHIFT while using
lines the arrow keys

Entire document choose Editing | Select | Select All from the Ribbon, or press
CTRL+A

Deselect the text by clicking anywhere outside of the selection on the page or press an arrow
key on the keyboard.

Inserting Additional Text

Text can be inserted in a document at any point using any of the following methods:

173
  Type Text: Put your cursor where you want to add the text and begin typing
 Copy and Paste Text: Highlight the text you wish to copy and right click and click
Copy, put your cursor where you want the text in the document and right click and click
Paste.
 Cut and Paste Text: Highlight the text you wish to copy and right click and click Cut,
put your cursor where you want the text in the document and right click and click Paste.
 Drag Text: Highlight the text you wish to move, click on it and drag it to the place where
you want the text in the document.
You will notice that you can also use the Clipboard group on the Ribbon.

Rearranging Blocks of Text:

To rearrange text within a document, you can utilize the Clipboard Group on the Home Tab of
the Ribbon. Insert picture of clipboard group labeled

 Move text: Cut and Paste or Drag as shown above

 Copy Text: Copy and Paste as above or use the Clipboard group on the Ribbon
 Paste Text: Ctrl + V (hold down the CTRL and the ―V‖ key at the same time) or use the
Clipboard group to Paste, Paste Special, or Paste as Hyperlink

174
Deleting Blocks of Text - Use the BACKSPACE and DELETE keys on the keyboard to delete
text. Backspace will delete text to the left of the cursor and Delete will erase text to the right. To
delete a large selection of text, highlight it using any of the methods outlined above and press
the DELETE key.

Search and Replace Text – To find a particular word or phrase in a document:

 Click Find on the Editing Group on the Ribbon

 To find and replace a word or phrase in the document, click Replace on the Editing
Group of the Ribbon.

Undo Changes - To undo changes:

 Click the Undo Button on the Quick Access Toolbar

Check Word Count

To check the word count in Word 2003 / 2007 look at the bottom left corner of the screen. It will
give you a total word count or if you have text highlighted it will tell you how many words are
highlighted out of the total.

175
Word 2003 / 2007 offers a wide range of customizable options that allow you to make Word
work the best for you. To access these customizable options:

 Click the Office Button

 Click Word Options

Auto Format:
Auto format facilitates about auto format as you type, font, color, size and about font style in the
document. It gives the features of Popular, Display, save and print preview etc.

Popular

These features allow you to personalize your work environment with language, color schemes,
user name and allow you to access the Live Preview feature. The Live Preview feature allows
you to preview the results of applying design and formatting changes without actually applying
it.

176
Display
This feature allows you to modify how the document content is displayed on the screen and
when printed. You can opt to show or hide certain page elements.

Save
This feature allows you personalize how your document is saved. You can specify how often
you want auto save to run and where you want the documents saved.

177
Customize
Customize allows you to add features to the Quick Access Toolbar. If there are tools that you
are utilizing frequently, you may want to add these to the Quick Access Toolbar.

Styles:
A style is a format enhancing tool that includes font typefaces, font size, effects (bold, italics,
underline, etc.), colors and more. You will notice that on the Home Tab of the Ribbon, that you
have several areas that will control the style of your document: Font, Paragraph, and Styles.

 Change Font Typeface and Size: To change the font typeface,

178
 Click the arrow next to the font name and choose a font.

 Remember that you can preview how the new font will look by highlighting the text, and
hovering over the new font typeface.

 To change the font size:

 Click the arrow next to the font size and choose the appropriate size, or
 Click the increase or decrease font size buttons.

 Font Styles and Effects:

Font styles are predefined formatting options that are used to emphasize text. They
include: Bold, Italic, and Underline. To add these to text:

 Select the text and click the Font Styles included on the Font Group of the Ribbon, or
 Select the text and right click to display the font tools

179
  Change Text Color - To change the text color:

 Select the text and click the Colors button included on the Font Group of the Ribbon, or
 Highlight the text and right click and choose the colors tool.
 Select the color by clicking the down arrow next to the font color button.

 Highlight Text:
Highlighting text allows you to use emphasize text as you would if you had a marker. To
highlight text:
 Select the text
 Click the Highlight Button on the Font Group of the Ribbon, or
 Select the text and right click and select the highlight tool
 To change the color of the highlighter click on down arrow next to the highlight button.

 Copy Formatting:
If you have already formatted text the way you want it and would like another portion of
the document to have the same formatting, you can copy the formatting. To copy the
formatting, do the following:
 Select the text with the formatting you want to copy.
 Copy the format of the text selected by clicking the Format Painter button on the
Clipboard Group of the Home Tab
 Apply the copied format by selecting the text and clicking on it.

 Change Paragraph Alignment:

The paragraph alignment allows you to set how you want text to appear. To change the
alignment:

 Click the Home Tab

 Choose the appropriate button for alignment on the Paragraph Group.
 Align Left: the text is aligned with your left margin
 Center: The text is centered within your margins
 Align Right: Aligns text with the right margin
 Justify: Aligns text to both the left and right margins.

180
  Indent Paragraphs:
Indenting paragraphs allows you set text within a paragraph at different margins. There
are several options for indenting:

 First Line: Controls the left boundary for the first line of a paragraph
 Hanging: Controls the left boundary of every line in a paragraph except the first one
 Left: Controls the left boundary for every line in a paragraph
 Right: Controls the right boundary for every line in a paragraph

To indent paragraphs, you can do the following:

 Click the Indent buttons to control the indent.
 Click the Indent button repeated times to increase the size of the indent.

 Click the dialog box of the Paragraph Group

 Click the Indents and Spacing Tab, Select your indents

 Clear Formatting: To clear text formatting:

 Select the text you wish to clear the formatting

 Click the Styles dialogue box on the Styles Group on the Home Tab
 Click Clear All

181
Formatting paragraphs allows you to change the look of the overall document. You can access
many of the tools of paragraph formatting by clicking the Page Layout Tab of the Ribbon or the
Paragraph Group on the Home Tab of the Ribbon.

Add Borders and Shading:

You can add borders and shading to paragraphs and entire pages. To create a border around a
paragraph or paragraphs:

 Select the area of text where you want the border or shading.
 Click the Borders Button on the Paragraph Group on the Home Tab
 Choose the Border and Shading
 Choose the appropriate options

182
Apply Styles:
Styles are a present collection of formatting that you can apply to text. To utilize Quick Styles:

 Select the text you wish to format.

 Click the dialog box next to the Styles Group on the Home Tab.
 Click the style you wish to apply.

 Create Links
Creating links in a word document allows you to put in a URL that readers can click on to
visit a web page. To insert a link:
 Click the Hyperlink Button on the Links Group of the Insert Tab.
 Type in the text in the ―Text to Display‖ box and the web address in the ―Address‖ box.

183
Change Spacing Between Paragraphs and Lines:
You can change the space between lines and paragraphs by doing the following:

 Select the paragraph or paragraphs you wish to change.

 On the Home Tab, Click the Paragraph Dialog Box
 Click the Indents and Spacing Tab
 In the Spacing section, adjust your spacing accordingly

 Modify Page Margins and Orientations

The page margins can be modified through the following steps:

 Click the Page Layout Tab on the Ribbon

 On the Page Setup Group, Click Margins
 Click a Default Margin, or
 Click Custom Margins and complete the dialog box.

184
 I

To change the Orientation, Size of the Page, or Columns:

 Click the Page Layout Tab on the Ribbon

 On the Page Setup Group, Click the Orientation, Size, or Columns drop down menus
 Click the appropriate choice

 Apply a Page Border and Color

To apply a page border or color:

 Click the Page Layout Tab on the Ribbon

 On the Page Background Group, click the Page Colors or Page Borders drop down
menus

 Insert Common Header and Footer Information

To insert Header and Footer information such as page numbers, date, or title, first,
decide if you want the information in the header (at the top of the page) or in the Footer
(at the bottom of the page), then:
 Click the Insert Tab on the Ribbon
 Click Header or Footer
 Choose a style

185
 I

 The Header/Footer Design Tab will display on the Ribbon

 Choose the information that you would like to have in the header or footer (date, time,
page numbers, etc.) or type in the information you would like to have in the header or
footer

Find text:
You can quickly search for every occurrence of a specific word or phrase.
1. On the Home tab, in the Editing group, click Find.
2. In the Find what box, type the text that you want to search for.
3. Do one of the following:
To find each instance of a word or phrase, click Find Next.
To find all instances of a specific word or phrase at one time, click Find All, and then
click Main Document.
Note To cancel a search in progress, press ESC.
 Find and replace text
You can automatically replace a word or phrase with another — for example, you can replace
Acme with Apex. The replacement text uses the same capitalization as the text that it replaces
unless you select the Match case check box. For example, if you search for AKA and replace it
with Also known as, the result is ALSO KNOWN AS.
If the Match case check box is selected, Office Word 2007 searches only for words that match
the case of the word or phrase that you typed in the Find what box. For example, if you search
for AKA, the result includes AKA but not aka.
Note, If you don't see the Match case check box on the Replace tab, click More.
1. On the Home tab, in the Editing group, click Replace.

2. Click the Replace tab.

3. In the Find what box, type the text that you want to search for.
4. In the Replace with box, type the replacement text.
5. Do one of the following:

186
 To find the next occurrence of the text, click Find Next.
1. To replace an occurrence of the text, click Replace. After you click Replace, Office Word
2007 moves to the next occurrence of the text.
To replace all occurrences of the text, click Replace All.
Note To cancel a replacement in progress, press ESC.
 Word 2007 makes it easy to add footnotes and endnotes when you're creating
documents in which you want to credit the original sources of information.

 Put the insertion point where you want the little footnote reference number to
appear in your text.
Word will insert a sequential number here that syncs automatically with the footnote number.

 On the References tab in the Footnotes group, click the Insert Footnote button.
 The footnote reference is added to the text, and the footnote itself is placed at the
bottom of the page. To create an endnote instead of a footnote, click the Add Endnote
button instead of the Add Footnote button. An endnote, like a footnote, has text following
the little number, except it appears at the end of the document.


 Type the footnote or endnote.
 Word automatically numbers footnotes for you, adding a little footnote reference number
in the text that‘s paired with a number in the footnote. If you go back later and insert a
new footnote in front of an existing one, Word automatically juggles the footnote
numbers to keep everything in sync.

187
 
 To make changes, launch the Footnote and Endnote dialog box.
 Use the dialog box launcher (a little box with an arrow) at the lower-right corner of the
Footnotes group of the References tab.

 Tweak your footnotes and endnotes.

This dialog box gives you more control over endnotes and footnotes.

Change footnotes to endnotes or vice versa as needed.

To convert your endnotes to footnotes (or vice versa) call up the Footnote and Endnote dialog
box and click the Convert button. This brings up the Convert Notes dialog box. Click OK to
convert your footnotes to endnotes, and then click Close to dismiss the Footnote and Endnote
dialog box.

To delete a footnote, select its footnote reference number in the text and press Delete.

Add a space if you need to. Meanwhile, at the bottom of the page, the typed footnote
disappears and the remaining numbers adjust automatically to stay in sequence.

188
 14. Microsoft Power point Environment
PowerPoint 2007 overview
Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 software, a part of MS-Office 2007 software suite is a presentation
software. PowerPoint 2007 allows us to easily create many types of high-impact, dynamic
presentations. These include:

On–Screen Each individual page you design is a slide. When you

”Slide Show” group several slides together, you can deliver a
Presentations colourful, professional presentation that includes
clipart, sound, animation and video clips. This
presentation can be output on screen as an electronic
slide show, as overhead transparencies, or as
hardcopy (paper) in the form of handouts.

Paper Posters You can create colourful and professional looking

posters and banners using PowerPoint 2007.

Web You can publish a presentation on the Web.

Presentations PowerPoint 2007 comes with some online templates
that help you design your presentation for viewing on
the Web.
PowerPoint is able to share information freely with Word, Excel and Access. PowerPoint is able
to share information freely with Word, Excel and Access. InPowerPoint 2007, Microsoft has
made it even easier to locate the features you wish to use by re-designing the entire user
interface. This new interface has a tabbed toolbar called the Ribbon. Even if you have
experience using PowerPoint 2003 you will find that this new version may seem unfamiliar at
first. Don‘t panic, this new interface will become intuitive after following the instructions in this
guide.

PART One - Getting started

In this part, you will learn how to start PowerPoint 2007.

Before starting PowerPoint, you will need to create a folder into which you will save your work
during this course.

 Double left click on the My Computer icon on your desktop (if you do not have the My
Computer icon on your desktop, right click on the Start button and select Explore).
Navigate to your M: drive. Create a new folder on your M: drive called PowerPoint
Training. To do this, from the main menu, select File | New | Folder. A new blank folder
will be created and will wait for you to give it a name. Type PowerPoint Training into
the folder name area and press Enter.

189
 Naming your new folder PowerPoint Training

Starting PowerPoint
There are two ways to start PowerPoint 2007. Either:

 Double left click on the PowerPoint 2007 icon that is on your desktop, or

The Desktop PowerPoint 2007 icon

 Left click the Start button in the Task Bar at the bottom left of the screen

 Point to Programs, then to Microsoft Office

Select Microsoft Office PowerPoint2007

PowerPoint 2007 via the Start button

 If you are presented with a dialogue box asking for your full name and initials, enter the correct
details and click OK.

PART Two - Creating a basic presentation

In this Part, you will create a presentation using the AutoContent Wizard. You will use the
exercises in this chapter to learn to navigate around your presentation, look at your content in
different views and save your work.

When you start PowerPoint 2007, the presentation window is displayed and a new blank
presentation with a single Title Slide is created

190
The
Ribbon

PowerPoint 2007 at startup, showing the Microsoft Button and the Ribbon

Your screen may differ from the one above. A different view of the presentation may be
displayed. The ribbon may have different buttons visible etc.

You will now quickly create a presentation by downloading an online template. This
exercise shows just how easily and quickly you can create a dynamic looking
presentation.

Creating a presentation using office online templates

A template is a generic presentation file designed for you to reuse. A template already contains
background images and generic content (such as page numbers). They are perfect if
you need to create a presentation quickly.

 With PowerPoint open, left click the Microsoft Office Button which can be found at the
top left of the PowerPoint window

 Select New to open the New Presentation Wizard

On the left hand side of the New Presentation wizard you will see 2 categories: Templates and
Microsoft Office Online. Templates refer to those templates which are installed on your
machine when PowerPoint was installed, or those which you have previously created.
Microsoft Office Online refers to all additional templates which have been made
available online for you to download. In order to make use of Microsoft Office Online,
your machine needs to be connected to the Internet. These online templates are
categorised.

 Under Microsoft Office Online, selectPresentations. PowerPoint will quickly search

Microsoft Office Online and return all items in the Presentations category. A subcategory
will be displayed in the middle pane of the New Presentation Wizard. Select Design from
this subcategory

191
 The New Presentation Wizard, showing all Design Presentations available via
Microsoft Office Online. The Download button is highlighted.

 Select any one of the Design templates and click the Download button, bottom right of
the New Presentation wizard.

A Microsoft Office Genuine Advantage window will appear This is a warning to tell us that only
users with a genuine version of Office are allowed to download online templates. Click
the Continue button to continue the download of your chosen template.

The Microsoft Office Genuine Advantage window.

A new presentation will now open with your chosen design template applied. On the left hand
side of the PowerPoint window you can quickly seethe different slides which make up your
presentation in the Slides Quick View section

View these slides in turn by selecting(left-clicking) each to open them in the presentation
window. Use the slider (only shown if there is not enough room to display all slides within the
presentation) to scroll up and down through each slide.

Slides Quick View

Slider

Selecting a slide using the Slide Quick View

192
With this demonstration you can see how easy it is to create a professional looking presentation
quickly, through the use of the online templates. We will not be working on this
presentation any further so we need to close it without saving.

A corporate University PowerPoint template is also available for staff to download from the
University website at: https://www.liv.ac.uk/intranet/identity/templates/

Closing a presentation
 Left click the Microsoft Office Button and select Close. Click the No button if asked
whether you want to save your changes.

We will now create a brand new blank presentation.

 Left click the Microsoft Office Button and select New. The New Presentation Wizard
will open. Under Templates select Blank and recent. From the subcategory select
Blank Presentation.Click the Create button at the bottom right of the window to create
our blank presentation.

Creating a Blank Presentation

A blank presentation is now open in the presentation window. Technically this presentation isn‘t
blank at all as it contains placeholders for the first slide‘s title and subtitle. Before we add any of
our own content we will choose a theme for our presentation.

Choosing a theme for your presentation

You can add or change a presentation‘s theme at any time; it doesn‘t even matter if you have
created your presentation brand new or from a template. Changing themes allows you to quickly
change the complete look of a presentation with one click.

A theme is a collection of styles that are applied to the entities which make up your
presentation. These include all colours, fonts and graphical effects. You can change
individual characteristics of a slide yourself (see Chapter Four – Editing Your Slides) but
applying a theme allows you to quickly change all attributes throughout all the slides and
guarantees a consistent-looking, readable presentation.

 Left click the Design tab on the Ribbon.

193
 Select the More arrow at the bottom-right of the Themes section Additional themes will
appear in the Themes gallery

The Design Tab

The Themes Gallery

 Place your mouse cursor over each of the themes, one at a time. You should see that
PowerPoint is providing a preview of each theme on your blank presentation. This allows
you to see how each theme will look if applied to your presentation‘s layout.

This preview technique you are seeing is called Live Preview and is one of the new features
across all applications in Office 2007. It speeds up document creation as you no longer
have to click preview or apply and wait for your document to be updated to see if you
like the changes. We will discuss Live Preview further in Chapter Four.

You can find additional themes on Microsoft Office Online by selecting More Themes on
Microsoft Office Online and using the same techniques you have already used when
creating a Presentation using Office Online templates.

 Once you have found a theme you like, left click on that theme to apply it. PowerPoint
applies the selected theme to all existing slides in your presentation (currently one),
together with all new slides you will add in the future.
194
Adding text to your slides
 On your slide, left click anywhere inside the Click to add title textbox. You will now see
a flashing cursor, when you type this is where your text will be inserted. Type in the title
An Introduction to PowerPoint 2007.

Some themes only allow upper case text to be inserted into the Click to add title textbox.

 Repeat this process for the Click to add subtitle textbox, typing your name for the
subtitle

 Using your mouse cursor, left click and highlight all of the An Introduction to
PowerPoint 2007text. Once highlighted you will notice a formatting toolbar will begin to
fade into view just above the highlighted text. If you move your mouse over this toolbar
you will see it comes into full view

 This toolbar can be used to quickly edit the highlighted text. Feel free to
experiment by changing the formatting of this text using this toolbar

Adding text to you slide and highlighting the text to show the formatting toolbar
Change Font Size Increase/Decrease Font Change Background Colour
Change Outline Colour

Change Font Copy Formatting

Bold Italic Add Bullet Points

Text Align (Left | Middle | Centre) Change Font Colour Outdent Indent

195
 The Formatting toolbar explained

 Left click anywhere on the An Introduction to PowerPoint 2007text. A feint dotted box
with white circular corners, white square sides and a green circle at the top appears
around the text (see Figure 2-10).

 The feint dotted line shows the location, size and alignment of the text box. It is possible
to move, resize and rotate the text box. Doing this will move, resize and rotate the
contents of the text box.

 Place your mouse over any of the 8 white resize handles. The mouse cursor will change
into a 2-way arrow. It is now possible to resize this text box by holding down the left
mouse button and moving your mouse. With the mouse button held down you will see a
highlighted preview of the new size the text box will become. Drag any of the 8 white
resize handles to resize the text box. Release the mouse button to set the text box to this
new size.

 Place your mouse cursor over the green transform handle. The mouse cursor will
change into a circular arrow. Hold down the left mouse button and drag the circular
transform handle to rotate the text box. Once again you will see a highlighted preview of
the new alignment of the text box. Release the mouse button to set the text box to this
new alignment.

 Place your mouse cursor over one of the dotted-line edges of the text box. The mouse
cursor will change into a 4-way arrow. Hold down the left mouse button to drag this text
box to a different area of your slide. Release the mouse button to set the text box to this
new location.

Resize and Transform Handles

196
Adding more slides to your presentation
When you create a blank presentation, PowerPoint only provides one slide initially. When
adding additional slides, PowerPoint gives you two options: adding a slide with the identical
layout to the current slide, or specifying a new slide layout for the new slide.

 A slide layout is a description of how the content should appear on a slide. For example
the slide currently in your presentation has a Title Slide layout. This positions both a title
and subtitle text box at a set location on the slide.

 These title and subtitle text boxes are in fact content containers set to be text boxes by
default. Content containers are specific areas of your slide which can contain various
types of content, such as text, images, sounds, videos.

Different slide layouts contain combinations of content containers, some set to a default type,
such as text box. You will see evidence of this shortly.

 Add a slide with the same layout as the current slide: From the Ribbon, select the Home
taband then click the New Slide button A second slide is now added to your
presentation. You can see this new slide in the Slides Quick View.

By default, PowerPoint adds a Title and Content slide. This is because PowerPoint believes
your presentation would only want to have a single title slide. Therefore the slide you
have just added has the Title and Content layout.

Adding a new slide with the same layout as the currently selected slide

 Add a slide with a new layout: Select the Home tab and click the down arrow next to
New Slide. This will open a menu similar to the one you can see in Click to select the
Two Content slide. PowerPoint adds this new slide after the current slide.

197
 Adding a new slide with different layout

 The appearance and number of slides in the new slide menu depends on the theme and
template already selected.

Deleting slides from your presentation

We will not be using the second Title and Content slide (slide no. 2 in the Quick Slide View) so
we will delete it.

 From within the Quick Slide View, select the second slide in your presentation. This will
highlight the chosen slide. Select the Home tab and from the Slides area select Delete
to delete this slide

Deleting a highlighted slide

198
Navigating around your presentation
Once you start to add more and more slides to your presentation you will want to quickly move
between different slides. For example you may want to edit the first and last slides only or jump
to a specific slide to add content.

 Navigating with the Scroll Bar –On the right hand side of your screen you will see a
scroll bar . Left click and hold on this scroll bar and drag it up to scroll to the beginning
of your presentation or drag it down to scroll towards the end. As you scroll, PowerPoint
will display each slide in turn (note, you currently only have two slides to scroll between).

Scroll Bar

Previous Slide
Next Slide
Navigating with the scroll bar

 Navigating with the Slides Tab – On the left hand side of your screen you have the
Slides and Outline Tabs area. With the Slides Tab selected (default), left click each of
your slides within the Slides Tab to jump to that specific slide. The Slides Tab area also
has a scroll bar (when needed) which you can use to scroll through your slides.
You can close the view pane altogether by
clicking the X in the upper-right corner.

You can resize the view pane by simply dragging

the resize handle on the right hand side of the
pane. PowerPoint will not allow the View pane to
be larger than one-quarter of the total interface.

199
 The Slides Tab

 Navigating using the Slide Sorter – At the very bottom of your screen you will see the
Slide Sorter icon .Left click this to go to the Slide Sorter View. From here you can see
all of your slides laid out in numerical order. Double left click on one of your slides to
open it up in normal view.

Normal View Slide Show View Fit Slide to Current Window

Slide Sorter View Zoom

The Slide Sorter Icon

It is possible to zoom into your slides using the Zoom interface found next to the Slide Sorter
icon. You can either drag the Zoom arrow left and right or click the Zoom Out (–)and
Zoom In(+) icons to decrease and increase the zoom levels on the currently selected
slide. It is also possible to zoom by a set amount by selecting the Zoom Level icon
(100%)and entering your own amount into the text box or selecting one of the given
options and clicking OK. To reset the zoom amounts, select the Fit Slide to Current
Window icon.

Saving and closing a presentation

It is advisable to save your work at regular intervals to prevent any unwanted loss. To save your
presentation:

 Left click the Microsoft Office Button and move your mouse cursor over Save As to
open the Save As menu. Select PowerPoint Presentation.

 The Save As dialog box will open. Select your M: drive from the Save In drop down
box.

 Navigate to the folder you created in Chapter One, PowerPoint Training. In the File
name field, PowerPoint will suggest a name for your presentation An Introduction to
PowerPoint 2007.pptx. This name is suitable as it is the title of your presentation. Click
Save to save your presentation.

200
 Saving your presentation

 Close your presentation by select Microsoft Office Button and Close.

 If you had not just saved your presentation, PowerPoint would have presented a pop up
box asking you to save the changes you have made. Click Yes to display the Save As
dialog box and repeat the steps above.

 You may have noticed the option to save your presentation as a PowerPoint 97 – 2003
Presentation in the Save As menu. Due to the complete overhaul of the underlying
architecture with Office 2007 applications, there is a compatibility issue between
PowerPoint 2007 and previous versions. Therefore if you wish to open a PowerPoint
2007 presentation in a previous version on PowerPoint you can save it as a PowerPoint
97 – 2003 version.

 It is, however, possible to open, edit and save 2007 presentations in earlier versions of
PowerPoint without first saving the presentation as a PowerPoint 97 – 2003 version. To
do this you must install the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack on the machine which is
not running the 2007 version of PowerPoint. This Compatibility pack can be installed on
MWS machines via:

Start | Install | Office | Office 2003 / 2007 Compatibility Pack

It can also be downloaded for free from the Microsoft website at:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/products/HA101686761033.aspx

Creating PowerPoint shows

It is possible to save your presentation as a PowerPoint show. This allows people to run your
presentation without the need to have a copy of PowerPoint installed on their computers.
201
Instead all they need is a copy of PowerPoint viewer which is a freely available to download
from the web.

The PowerPoint show is saved in a special format (.ppsx, .ppsm or .pps). The difference
between a PowerPoint show and a standard PowerPoint presentation is that opening the show
file runs it in slideshow mode. Opening the presentation file runs it in editing mode.

 To create a PowerPoint show:

o Select the Microsoft Office Button | Save As.
o From the Save as type drop-down menu, choose PowerPoint Show (*.ppsx).
Type the name you wish to give the show. Click Save.

Packaging presentations onto CD

If you wish to save your presentation to a CD for easy distribution, PowerPointgathers up all of
the files you need to run your slideshow, together with a copy of PowerPoint viewer if required
and puts them in a single folder. This folder can then be burned to a CD.

 To package a presentation for CD:

o Select the Microsoft Office Button | Publish | Package for CD. The Package for

CD window appears,

The Package for CD window

o In the ―Name the CD‖ text box, type the name you want to give your CD.
o Click the Optionsbutton, this will open the Options window .From here you can
tell PowerPoint how you want your audience to run your package.
o The Viewer Package option tells PowerPoint to include a copy of Power Point
viewer in your package, together with an executable file which launches the
viewer preloaded with your presentation as soon as your CD is inserted. This is
the most popular option when packaging to a CD.
o If you select Viewer Package you have a further 4 options allowing you to select
how the presentations will play in the viewer. These are "Play all presentations
automatically in the specified order," "Play only the first presentation

202
 automatically," "Let the user select which presentation to view," or "Don't play the
CD automatically."
o If you wish you can have a case-sensitive password to restrict the display and
editing of your presentation.

Select to include
PowerPoint Viewer in
your package

Add Password protection here

The Package for CD Options window

o When finished with the additional options, click OK to close the Options box.
o In the Package for CD window, choose the Copy to CD option. You will need a
CD burner attached to your computer to continue. If you do not have a CD
burner, you can select the Copy to Folder option. This will copy your
presentation files to a named folder on your computer. You can then copy this
folder to a CD at a later date.
o Click Close.

Placing your presentation on the web

It is not always possible to deliver your presentation in person, therefore a suitable workaround
is to create web pages from your presentation and place them online for people to view. It is
important to remember that PowerPoint is able to convert your slides into the necessary HTML
code to create slides for the web; however it will not upload them and make them available
online. You will need to do that yourself once your presentation has been converted.

 To convert your presentation to a web page:

o Select the Microsoft Office Button | Save As.
o From the Save As window which appears, select the drop down arrow next to
the Save As type. Choose either:
 Single File Web Page (*.mht, *.mhtl) – creates one single, very large file
containing all of your slides. As it is only one file, it is easier to upload to

203
 your web server. However remember that your audience would need to
download the entire file before viewing.
 Web Page (*.htm, *.html) – creates a master HTML file together with an
accompanying folder. This folder contains a file for each slide, together
with files for images and animations etc. Select this option to ensure
maximum compatibility for people viewing online.
o Select the Change Title button, the Set Page Title dialog box appears. Provide
a title which will appear at the top of each web page then click OK. Choose a title
that contains as many clear, descriptive words as possible. This will better enable
search engines to locate your page during a search. It will also be used if
somebody wishes to bookmark your presentation.
o Click the Publish button to open the Publish as Web Page window

The Publish as Web Page options window

The options are as follows:

o Complete presentation – publishes all slides to the web page.
o Slide number – choose a subset of your slides to publish to the web page.
o Custom show – allows you to add a subset of slides to the web page, within a
custom show setting (not covered in this document).
o Display speaker notes – displays your speaker notes alongside your slides.
o Browser support – allows you to optimise your web page for a specific browser.
It is recommended you select All browsers listed above for maximum
compatibility.
o File name – tell PowerPoint what to call your master file and in which folder you
wish to save it.
o Open published Web page in browser – once generated, your web page will
be opened in your default web browser. You should select this to make sure the
web page you have created looks as you expect.
o Click Publish.

204
Reference Books:
1.Computer Fundamentals : V.Rajaraman

2. Computer Fundamentals : Pradeep. K.Sinha

3. Computer Networks : Andrew. S.Tanenbaun

4. Office XP Inside out : Michel Halvorson

5. Introduction to Computer, MS office & C Programming : Sanjay Saxena

6. Easy Windows 2000 : Siso Books

7.Networking : Dong Lowe

205