Windows Basics:
Help

We all need help from time to time. No one can remember all the tricks to working with Windows, much less all the other programs on your computer. In addition, things often change from version to version. The tricks and methods you learned may no longer work. The current trend is to put the resources for answering your questions directly on the computer or on the Internet instead of on paper.

In the next sections you will learn to use Windows Help and Help for an application.

Initial Help window for Win98 (style still used by some programs), WinXP, Windows Vista, Windows 7

Help Tools

No more thick user manuals! Help is available right on your screen.

Help may be supplied by topic, keywords, or search, plus interactive tour, tutorial, or demo.

• Contents: Lists topics in groups, like the table of contents for a book.
• Index: Is like the index in the back of a book. You can look up keyword(s) and see what topics contain the word(s).
• Find or Search: Lets you search all the text of the Help file. It can find places that a keyword is used that aren't in the Index.
• Tour, tutorial, demo: A walk-through of features and common actions. You may need the installation CD for the software since such tours/tutorials can be quite large.

Differences between Help versions

Win98 Help style:   Two panes. The list of topics is in one pane and the Help topic you picked is in another pane. Some programs may still use this format for their application help windows.
 

      WinXP Help:  Offers task-based groups of topics. Once you choose a topic, you have 2 panes: topics and articles.

Windows Vista & Win7 Help:  Uses a browser-type interface. The initial window has categories. A category link opens another list of links to topics. Win7's version is plainer than Vista's.

Because Help has different topics and methods in the different versions of Windows, there are separate sections for the versions covered here: Win98, WinXP, and Windows Vista/Windows 7. The Application Help lesson combines all versions because some programs use an older style for their own Help windows.  It actually is not as confusing as it sounds!

What you will need:

WinXP Tour:  Installed by default to your hard disk when you installed WinXP:
 C:\WINDOWS\Help\Tours\mmTour\default.htm (19.2 MB) for the multimedia tour
C:\WINDOWS\Help\Tours\htmlTour\default.htm (1.66 MB) for the plain pages tour (no Flash animations and no music).

Windows Vista demos: These should have been copied to your computer when Vista was installed.

Windows 7 video demos: Online

It's a good idea to be familiar with all types of Help windows in the lessons. An application may use an older style, even in Vista. If you don't have the latest operating system today, you will probably get there some day. Learn you way around now!

~~  1 Cor. 10:31 ...whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.  ~~

Last updated: 30 Apr 2012