Windows XP: A Guide for Beginners
How to Change your Desktop Wallpaper
How to Arrange your Desktop Icons
How to Create New Folders on your Desktop
How to Change the View of your Folders
How to Change your Screen Saver
How to Change the Text on your Desktop
How to Create a Shortcut on your Desktop
So Let’s Begin…
How to Change your Desktop Wallpaper in Windows XP
To change your wallpaper, right click anywhere on your desktop and select Properties in the drop down box. A dialog box will appear. At the top of your dialog box click on the Desktop Tab. That will bring up your wallpaper window. Under Background scroll through the backgrounds to choose the wallpaper that you want. Once you have chosen the one you like, click Apply, then OK. And that’s it. You have changed your wallpaper.
If you want to use an image that isn’t in your Background window, simply click on Browse. That will bring up the window for you to locate the image on your computer that you want to use. Once you have located your image click OK. Then click Apply and then OK.
If you see a wallpaper on the Internet that you want to use as a wallpaper, simply right click on the wallpaper and select Set As Wallpaper. That will place it on your desktop.
How to Arrange your Desktop Icons in Windows XP
Sometimes your desktop can become really crowded and you can’t find the icon that you are looking for. Not a problem. Simply right click on your desktop and select Arrange Icons By > Name. That will put them in alphabetical order. Or you can select Modified and that will put them in the order that they were created.
How to Create New Folders on your Desktop in Windows XP
Creating a New Folder can save space on your desktop or in other folders. For example, if you have a lot of word documents on your desktop, you can create a folders and place all your word documents in it. The same goes for images. If you have a lot of images, you can create a folder to put all your images in. To create a New folder on your Desktop, simply right click on your desktop and select New > Folder. A new folder will pop up on your desktop. You can right click on that folder and select Rename to rename the folder.
How to Change your Screen Saver in Windows XP
Surely you get tired of seeing the same old screen saver.. So how do you change your screen saver in Windows XP? Right click on your desktop and select Properties. A dialog box will pop up. In the top of the dialog box click on the Screen Saver Tab. Under Screen Saver, drop that box down and select the Screen Saver of your choice. Set the time on it. This is how long your mouse will need to idle before the screen saver comes on. To see what the screen saver will look like, click on the preview button. Click Apply and then OK.
How to Change the Text on your Desktop in Windows XP
Is that text just to small for you to see? Not a problem. Right click on your desktop and select Properties. When the Dialog Box pops up select the Appearance Tab. Click on the Advance Button. Drop down the Box under Item and select Icon. Now you can change the size and font of the icons. You can also make the font bold or italic. Click OK. Then click Apply in the Display Properties Box. Click OK when you are done.
How to Create a Shortcut on your Desktop in Windows XP
Are you tired of going through all of those folders to get to the program that you need? Create a shortcut on your desktop. To do so, find the program that you want to create a shortcut to. For example, we’ll create a shortcut to Wordpad. Go to Start > All Programs > Accessories > Right Click on Wordpad and select Send to > Desktop. That will create a shortcut to Wordpad on your desktop.
That’s all for this guide. This Windows XP guide should help you organize your desktop and customize it the way you want it.
