A number of laboratory exercises will use software running under the Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 system. The exercises for the CS1311 course, in particular, make use of Microsoft Office 97 components - Word, Excel, Access and Explorer. The purpose of this introductory lab is to ensure that you are familiar with the basics of logging in, manipulating your desktop environment, launching application programs, managing files, logging out. It's all pretty basic stuff - especially if you are already familiar with Windows.

If you are an expert, then you'll probably only need to pay attention to the preliminary sections of this document dealing with access to file servers. You can spend the remainder of the session customizing your set up and making sure that you're happy with it.

Most books about Windows seem to be about 800 pages long and are difficult to use as a reference. They weigh too much to carry around! Under Windows NT there is an extensive Help system which you can invoke if you aren't sure how to do something. When you are using specific programs such as Word there's also an Assistant (incarnate as an animated paper clip) who provides help, and can also show you how to perform tasks. So, if you haven't used Windows before, then you should use this session to begin to find your way around, and using the Help system is an essential part of this.

Find a machine not being used by someone else. It should be showing the Windows NT start-up screen. To log on, simultaneously press the <Ctrl><Alt><Delete> keys. This will bring up a dialog box (excuse American spelling) in which you can type your username and password. You should use the same username and password that you were initially assigned for the Unix systems. By default, your password will be your Registration Number on your Student Card. Once you have logged in, you should change your NT password to be the same as your Unix/Linux password. Not only is this easier to remember, it simplifies logging in during subsequent sessions.

In the Department, the Windows NT computers are configured so that your personal files can be stored on a central computer, known as a file server. This server, called jeeves (droll, eh?), is the same computer on which all of your Unix files are stored. When you log on, Windows has been configured so that it attempts automatically to mount your file store. What this means is that your jeeves files are visible on the PC - you can open these files, and save new work directly on jeeves as well. The files on jeeves appear on your PC on the device (disk drive) lettered P:.

The first time that you log on you will get a screen with several windows. One of these will probably be the Windows welcome screen. If you don't want to see this every time you log on, then click the little box asking you about this. You'll probably also get a similar window for Microsoft Internet Explorer - you can also check the box for that if you don't want to be pestered by this each time you log on. For the moment, if you wish, you could use these windows to try a bit of preliminary exploring. Otherwise, close the windows by clicking on the button containing an `X' in their top-right corners.

Also, the first time that you log on you will see a window with a black background called something like \\Pnn\NETLOGON\logon.bat. This window is used to run a logon script - a set of commands which gets executed automatically when you log on - to link your computer to other directories, such as your home file store on jeeves. The first time you log on you must type your (Unix) password in this window. (To make sure the window is active, click on it first.) As well as mounting the P: drive, the logon script will mount other directories containing software and files you'll need to access during the CS courses. When you log on during later sessions the \\Pnn\NETLOGON\logon.bat may appear briefly, but it should disappear automatically once execution of the script is completed. You will not be asked to type your password during subsequent sessions, provided that your PC and Unix passwords are the same.

To see these files you can open the `My Computer' icon by double clicking it with the mouse. Then double click again on the icon labeled P: to see all of the files in your home directory on jeeves. You can move through your directory hierarchy on jeeves by double clicking on the individual directory icons.

Try practicing this to make sure you understand how to access the P: drive and the files on it.

Saving your lab work on the P: drive

It is important that you always use the P: drive to save your lab work. This will ensure that your work is safely stored in the central file system; this is automatically backed-up overnight so that you will not lose work in the event of a system failure. In fact, it's a good idea to make back-up copies of your work regularly, by saving your files as you progress. From within applications such as Word you can do this by selecting the `Save' option from the `File' menu, or clicking on the short-cut button for saving files. The first time that you save a file you need to use the `Save As' option in order to ensure that the file is saved to the correct directory on the P: drive.

The reason why you should save work to the P: drive is that any work stored only on the local disk drive (the internal hard disk called C:) may be lost after you log off. Also, files stored on the local disk will only be visible on that particular PC. (They may also be visible to other students who use that machine, which is not a good idea if you want your innermost thoughts, and lab work, to remain private!) Your files on the P: drive will be visible - but only to you - from other PCs in the department when you log on to them. If you wish, you can also make copies of work on floppy disk (drive A:) to transfer them to other machines, or as an additional backup. Remember, however, that Unix and Windows are different operating systems. They use different formats for storing disk files, so that in many cases files created under Windows will only make sense to other Windows applications, and the same with Unix. So, although you use the same file store on jeeves for all your files you should use different directories to segregate and manage the Windows and Unix files.

Logging off

To log off, you should quit any active applications and then click on the `Start' button at the bottom-left corner of the screen. This will bring up a menu, from which you should select the `Shut Down' option, followed by the `Close all programs and log on as a different user?' option, then `Yes'. You should always log off through this route because it will ensure that your work is correctly saved before quitting. It will also save your `roaming profile', a file which records any preferences you have selected, such as the layout of your screen, and short cuts. Don't worry about these for the moment - you can deal with them later when you have gained more familiarity with the system.

This section is aimed mainly at students who have no prior experience of using Microsoft Windows. If you've used Windows before then you can probably skip this section, or maybe just read through it quickly. It is certainly not a guide to the things you may need to learn, but is enough to get started. Once you begin you can use the Help system and the Assistants for the programs you want to run.

The basic screen layout

Figure 1 shows what a typical Windows screen will look like. In fact, this is the screen of the PC in my own office, so its appearance will be a bit different from that on the lab machines. On the lab machines you will initially see a window containing a simple interface to the Departmental Message of the Day system, and the previously mentioned MS-DOS window called something like \\Pnn\NETLOGON\logon.bat. You may also have a copy of Microsoft's Internet Explorer, and a welcome message from Windows! I'm assuming here that you have closed these other windows.

Down the left side of the screen are several icons (buttons) which can be used to access other information, or to launch application programs such as Internet Explorer. By double clicking on the button labelled `My Computer' you can open the window of that name seen at the top in Figure 1. In that window you can see a networked disk called `Hubbold on `jeeves' (E:)', which is my file store on jeeves. (In your case the drive will be P:, as mentioned previously.) Double clicking on this icon opens a further window showing the contents of my home directory on jeeves. By clicking on the different sub-directories I can access one called `intro-lab', also seen in Figure 1. At the top-left corner of this window is a Word file called CS1011-lab, which is the document you're reading right now!

For files created previously with Windows programs (such as CS1011-lab in this case), you can open the document by double clicking the file's icon. So, double clicking the CS1011-lab icon starts Word and brings up the document on screen, as seen in Figure 2. The Word window has a number of buttons and a menu bar, which can be used to control it. At the right side of the screen is Word's Assistant (the paper clip cartoon). Clicking on this brings up help tailored to Word.

Opening, closing and re-arranging windows

We won't bother with the details of Word at this point. You can see that the windows overlap each other. Clicking on a window brings it to the top and makes it active. Try opening some directories of your own and practice this. To move windows around, move the mouse pointer over the title bar (along the top edge of the window), press the left button down and then drag the window. Release the button to fix the window in its new position. To resize a window, you can point at its border, or its corner, (the cursor should change shape to a double-ended arrow when you do this) and drag it with the mouse.

Along the bottom of the screen is the taskbar. In Figure 2 this contains buttons labelled `Start', `intro-lab', `Microsoft Word', and `My Computer'. With the exception of the Start button these show the different windows and activities you're working with. You can switch between windows and programs by clicking on the buttons on the taskbar. This provides another way to bring windows to the top of an overlapping stack - try it.

When opening different directories you can quickly end up with a screen full of windows! At the right-hand end of the title bar belonging to each window (along its top edge) are three buttons, which can be used to control windows:

To have a look at your directory structure without opening lots of windows, try right clicking a directory and then selecting `Explore'. Then you can roam around the hierarchy of directories by clicking on the folders.

Another way to prevent lots of windows being opened, when you explore directories, is to tell the system to change its default, so that it uses the same window each time you move up or down the directory hierarchy. You can do this by clicking on the View menu at the top of the `My Computer' folder, selecting `Options!', followed by selecting the option to use a single window for folders. This is just one example of customization. There are many, many ways in which Windows and its applications can be customized.

As you become more expert, you may prefer to use keyboard short cuts to select from menus, rather than fiddling around with the mouse. There's nothing wrong with the mouse - it's easier to learn and remember, but it's slower. With most menus you can type a letter to select the command. To do this, look at the menu to find the short cut letter; it's the one underlined in the command name. For example, in Figure 2 you can see that the short cut key to select Word's `File' command is `F'. To execute a short cut, you hold down the <Alt> key and type the letter. So, in that case, to select `File' you would just type <Alt><f>.

The Start menu and on-line help

The `Start' menu, located at the left-hand end of the taskbar, provides instant access to a number of the system's capabilities. Clicking on Start brings up a menu from which you can select programs to run, start the on-line help and so forth. Under `Programs', for instance, you can start Word, Excel, and Access, which you will need in the CS1311 labs. At this point, click on `Help' to start up the on-line help system. Figure 3 shows an example of the Help system window.

Use the Help system to explore different facilities. For example, you may want to check out ways to copy files, to move files between directories, to delete files, to rename files, and to print them. Take a look at how to do these things.

One of the problems with Windows is that there are many different ways to do the same thing, which can be confusing at first. Often, people new to systems learn one way to do something and then don't bother to search for alternatives. This can result in very inefficient methods, which become ingrained the more you use them. In most Microsoft programs there are shortcuts which provide quick ways to do things. It's worth spending time exploring these so that you can become proficient. For example, if you read the on-line help you will discover that you can delete a file by right clicking on a file's icon - placing the mouse pointer over the icon and then clicking the right mouse button - and then choosing the `Delete' command from the menu which pops up. However, you can also delete files by dragging and dropping them in the Recycle Bin (one of the icons at the left side of the screen). Use the Help system to find out what the Recycle Bin does. Similarly you can move files from one place to another by dragging them with the mouse from the directory they are in to the place you want to put them. Try it. And, you can copy files by dragging them with the <Alt> key depressed. Warning: if you drag files from your P: drive into the Recycle Bin, they are deleted immediately! You cannot get them back.

You may also want to try copying files on/off floppy disk. You can access the floppy disk drive (A:) via the `My Computer' button. If you aren't sure how to do this, use the Help system to get more information. Sometimes you need patience to find what you're looking for - like all systems, Windows has its own terminology. For example, to find information about copying, moving and deleting files using drag and drop you can try searching for information using the search work `drag' (see Figure 3).

On the Unix machines you will have used Netscape Communicator to explore the worldwide web. This is also available under Windows NT, but you may prefer to use Microsoft Explorer, if you are more familiar with it. Explorer can also be used to find files in your file store. Access to the Web in the University goes through a cache in Manchester Computing, the University's computer centre. The purpose of the cache is to keep copies of frequently accessed files so that they do not have to be fetched from their original source every time they are accessed by a user in the University. For example, certain sites in the USA are very popular, and the cache can save a lot of network traffic by keeping copies of these pages locally. You cannot access Internet files outside the University without going through this caching mechanism, and for MS Explorer you must configure it to use the correct cache. The caching service is provided by a proxy machine. To configure the proxy service:

1. Start up Explorer.
2. Click on the `Advanced' tab.
3. Click the `Use proxy server' check box.
4. Enter as the address of the proxy server `http://wwwcache.mcc.ac.uk:3128/'

An unfortunate side effect of this is that the set-up (configuration) files for Explorer and Netscape are different (after all, these programs come from commercial competitors!) so if you want to use both then you'll have to customize them individually.

If you find all of this incredibly simple, because you've used it all before, that's fine. But spare a thought for those who haven't yet been brainwashed by Microsoft and help them to find their way round the system as well. This is your chance to help others, including many members of the CS staff, as well as new students!

And, please be patient if things don't always go smoothly. We have hundreds of computers in the CS Department. Running a large network of computers is far more complicated than using a single desktop machine and teething troubles are bound to arise. Some of these problems are beyond our immediate control. Hopefully, after you graduate you will design and implement better systems!

If you have any suggestions about how to improve these notes, or if you find factual errors, please email me (email address: roger).