WINDOWS  GLOSSARY  

(You can still learn from this glossary, even in 2005 :)

Desktop - The background area of the screen than contains the My Computer, Network Neighborhood, Recycle Bin, and other icons. 

Taskbar - The bar located at the bottom of the screen by default. 

Icon - The little pictures than represent a file or program. 

Scandisk - A utility used to repair common hard disk errors, such as cross-linked clusters and lost allocation units.  

Fragmentation - the process of spreading the extents of a file across the free space on a hard disk, rather than placing them in contiguous blocks. 

Defrag - (Disk Defragmenter) A utility that is run to defragment the hard disk.  Fragmentation happens as files are removed from the hard disk leaving blank areas that are noncontiguous.  Running defrag will repair this problem.  The new Defrag=Diskeeper

Device Driver - A program that provides an interface between a piece of hardware and the operating system. 

Bios (basic input/output system) - A program that is stored in the firmware of a computer that contains basic information and drivers needed to get the computer up and running. 

Batch - (Installation) The automated installation of Windows 95/98 using a batch file to input needed information, which is normally asked to be supplied by the user.Cache - Where commonly-used  data from one data storage medium, is stored on another faster medium (such as RAM). 

RAM - Random access memory 

ROM - Read-only memory.  Generally, read-only memory is nonvolatile, meaning that the information stored in it is not lost when the power is turned off as opposed to RAM, which is volatile. 

Control Panel - A software utility that allows you to modify the settings and behavior of Windows 95/98.  These settings and or properties are stored in the Registry. 

 Registry - A database that contains information used by the operating system and its applications, ranging from dynamic hardware configuration and system runtime information to application customization settings. 

General Protection Fault (blue screen) GPF - An error that occurs when a program tries to access the protected memory address space of another program.   

FAT (file allocation table) - A file system, originally developed for MS-DOS, which is still used by DOS, Windows/95/98, and Windows NT systems.  FAT indexes all files and extensions in a table, call the FAT.  Wastes disk space with inefficient block allocation, and suffers heavily from disk fragmentation. 

FAT32 - The new version of FAT that comes with OSR2 (Release 2) and Windows 98.  It repairs many problems and limitations of the original FAT but at the cost of compatibility.  You lose backward compatibility because Windows 95/98 are the only operating systems that support FAT32. 

CD-ROM - Round Disks that look like a music CD, but contain computer programs and games. 

CD-R & CD-RW - Round Disks that you can record on with a CD-Writer.

Floppy Disk - The Square disks that contain computer files and programs. 

Modem - A device (hardware) used to communicate between computers.  Different types of modems can be used such as dedicated line modems, cable modems, and so on.   The most common type of modem in use today is the analog modem that uses standard telephone lines. 

Start button - The button that is located in the lower left-hand corner of the Windows 95/98 desktop by default.  Most activities can be accomplished or initiated at the Start Button. 

Start Menu - The primary entry point into the operating system.  This is also where you SHUT DOWN your computer. 

Monitor - The television type screen in front of you to view your computer. 

Tower - The box that contains the guts (motherboard, peripherals, hard drive, memory, power supply) and also the CD-ROM drive and floppy drive and other various drives that can be added. 

Ctrl-Alt-Del - Also known as the three-finger-wave (bye-bye) All three fingers simultaneously press down on Ctrl, Alt, and Delete to free your computer when it freezes up.  This action will restart your computer and run scandisk automatically or you need to run manually to realign your files.  Also can bring up a screen to end task and possibly avoid restarting. 

Hard Drive - The non-removable disk located inside the tower that all programs reside on. 

CPU (chip) - Central Processing Unit located on the motherboard of the computer.  Largely determines the speed of the computer. 

Back up - The act of or utility used for copying files or a program (s).  Can be done on the hard drive, floppy disk, zip disk, and/or CD-ROM disk.  

Shortcut - A quick and easy way to reach commonly used folders, utilities, and files.  It is recognized by the curved arrow on the left bottom corner of an icon.  You may safely remove a shortcut without fear of removing a program.

Programs (Manager) - Located on the Start Menu, it lists and gives easy access to many of the programs on your hard drive   

Windows Explorer - Located in the programs (mgr), the Windows utility for managing the files and folders in Windows 95.   You may also get to this by right clicking on your start button, and click explore.

My Computer – is simply a picture of your computer.  You can double-click on any icon to get information about or use that particular part of your computer. 

Recycle Bin  - When you erase files, Windows Explorer doesn't always remove the files from your disk.  If you're erasing files from a hard disk, Windows Explorer moves these files to a special type of folder called the Recycle Bin.  It does this so that you can later restore the files if necessary.