Chapter 4: Getting Help

Displaying Help Screens

To see the Help And Support Center window (shown in Figure 4-1), choose Start | Help And Support. The toolbar shows many of the same icons you see in any Explorer window, including Back, Forward, Home, Favorites, and History. You also see Index, Support, and Options commands. The Task pane (left side of the window) shows a list of topics from which to choose. The rest of the window displays the help information you request from the Task pane.

Figure 4-1: The Home page of the Help And Support Center

When the Help And Support Center window first appears, you see lists of help topics and tasks (click Home on the toolbar to return to it). Click a topic to see a detailed list of subtopics in the left pane. When you see a plus box to the left of a topic, click the plus box to see its subtopics. When you see a topic with a question-mark icon to its left, clicking the topic displays an explanation, and steps to follow, in the right pane. If a word or phrase becomes underlined when you move your mouse pointer over it, click it to see information about that topic.

If your computer is connected to the Internet, Windows automatically updates the home page of the Help And Support Center with news and updates, which appear in the lower-right corner of the window.

Finding Topics

When you click Index on the toolbar in the Help And Support Center, the left pane displays an alphabetical index of help topics, shown in Figure 4-2. The first time you click Index, you may see the Preparing Index For First Use window, which can take a moment to disappear.

Figure 4-2: Alphabetical index of help topics--click one and click Display to see information about that topic.

To find a topic in the index, you can scroll down the list, but the list is very long. Instead, you can type a word or phrase in the box above the list. As you type the word, Windows finds the first entry in the index that begins with the letters you typed. Scroll down the list to see all the entries that start with that word.

When you find a topic of interest, press ENTER, double-click the index entry, or click the Display button. If there is only one help topic about that index entry, Windows displays it in the right pane. If more than one help topic exists, you see a Topics Found window, with a menu of topics to choose from. Double-click or single-click a topic, and click Display.

You can search for words or phrases wherever they appear in the help text, whether or not an index entry exists for that word or phrase. Click the Search box in the upper-left corner of the Help And Support Center window, type a word or phrase in the box, and then press ENTER or click the green arrow button. A list of topics appears in the left pane (as shown in Figure 4-3) in three sections:

Figure 4-3: Searching for a help topic

• Suggested Topics Pages that Microsoft recommends about this topic.
• Full-Text Search Matches Pages that contain the word(s) in the Search box.
• Microsoft Knowledge Base Pages in the Web-based Microsoft Knowledge Base, which is a huge searchable database of articles about all Microsoft products, at http://support.microsoft.com.

Click the heading to see the list of matches in that category, and then click a match to display its information in the right pane.

Copying Help Information to Other Programs

You can use cut-and-paste to copy information from the Help And Support window to other programs. Select the part of the text in the right pane of the window that you want to copy. If you want to copy the entire help topic, right-click in the right pane and choose Select All from the menu that appears. Then right-click in the page and choose Copy from the menu that appears (or press CTRL-C). Windows copies the text to the Windows Clipboard. Now you can paste the text into a document by using the Edit | Paste command (or pressing CTRL-V) in the program you use to edit the document.

Taking Tours of Windows Features

The Help And Support Center can also display tours and tutorials about Windows. Click Home on the toolbar, click What's New In Windows XP, and click Taking A Tour Or Tutorial. You see a list of topics about which Windows includes tours and tutorials--click one to start the tour.

Getting Help from Microsoft or from a Friend

You can get helpful information over the Internet about Windows. Click Support on the toolbar to see a list of your options:

• Ask A Friend To Help Using Remote Assistance, you can ask a knowledgeable friend to take control of your computer via an Internet connection.
• Get Help From Microsoft If your PC is online, you can sign up for a Microsoft .NET Passport, which identifies you to Microsoft, and get information from the Microsoft Web site. Once you sign in with your .NET Passport name and password, you can contact a Microsoft support technician for help, check on the status of problems you've submitted, or download and install software that enables Microsoft to upload files from your computer to resolve a software issue.
• Go To A Windows Web Site Forum Participate in online newsgroups about Windows XP. Your browser runs and displays the http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/newsgroups site. For more information about reading newsgroups, see Chapter 23.

You must be connected to the Internet to use these Internet-based resources.

If you are asking for help from Microsoft or on a newsgroup, you may be asked for information about your computer system. In the Help And Support Center window, click Support and then click My Computer Information in the lower part of the Task pane to see information about your hardware and software.

Other Help Options

Here are other things you can do in the Help And Support Center window:

• Click the Back button on the toolbar to move to the previous topic you displayed, or click the Forward button to return to the next topic you displayed before clicking Back.
• To print a help topic, right-click in the right pane and choose Print from the menu that appears.
• To make coming back to the topic easy, add it to your Favorites list by clicking Add To Favorites. To see your Favorites list, click Favorites on the toolbar. Your favorite help pages are listed in the left pane: click one to display it in the right pane.
• You can choose whether to display Favorites and History buttons on the toolbar, the font size used in help pages, whether labels appear next to toolbar buttons, and how the Search box works. Click Options on the toolbar click Change Help And Support Center Options, and select the appropriate check boxes.
• If you want to see extra help information about using the keyboard, open the Accessibility Properties dialog box, click the Keyboard tab, and select the Show Extra Keyboard Help In Programs check box. Then click OK.