A Beginner’s Guide to Opening Applications

This guide is written for the New Beginners with particular reference to new Windows 7 Users.  In this post you will learn several different ways of opening software applications.

All installed application programs are listed in All Programs menu on the Start menu.

How Confusing!

When using Windows for the first time, one of the frustrations new users suffer from is coping with the many alternatives. There always seems to be a different way to perform a task. Accessing and opening an application is just one example.

I’ll take you through the different ways of accessing and opening applications. For the purposes of this exercise, we’ll concentrate on opening Microsoft Word 2007.

You have installed this popular Microsoft Word on your computer and wish to write a document, but how do you get into the program?

Method 1             Accessing Word’s startup icon.

1. Click the Start button.
2. When the Start Menu opens, select All Programs.
3. In the All Programs menu, scroll down and find Microsoft Office.
4. Select Microsoft Office.
5. Click Microsoft Word 2007.
6. Word opens.

Note:  Most beginners use this method to open their programs.

Method 2             A Breakthrough!

When next you open the Start menu you’ll see that elusive shortcut icon staring you in the face. Windows has added it to the lower left-hand side of the Start menu. Now all you need to do is to click on it and Word will open.

Note: This section of the Start menu, known as “ Recently Used Applications”, is where Windows lists recently used programs. It creates a list with the default size set to 10 applications. The limit, which can be modified, displays the last ten you have used. Earlier ones are removed.

Method 3             Pinning an Application to the Start Menu

Now Windows has another trick up its sleeve. You can add a permanent shortcut for a commonly used application in the upper region of the Start menu. This process is called “Pinning”.  This method is available in Windows XP, Windows Vista and in Windows 7.

The illustration below shows you how to do this in Windows Vista.

Method  4            The Next Breakthrough

Leaving the Start menu aside for a moment, the improvement is to add a shortcut icon for your favourite application to the Desktop.

Note:  Learning to do this gives you an even quicker access to your program.

The illustration below shows you how to do this.

Method 5             Using the Run Command

Here you will use the Run command in the lower right-hand side of the Start menu.

1. Select Run.
2. A small dialogue box opens.
3. Type winword.
4. Click the OK button.
5. Word opens.

Tip! To use the Run command box successfully, you need to know the EXACT command to open the application. Here are a few examples:

To open                       Type

• Word                             winword
• Paint                               pbrush
• WordPad                       wordpad

Method 6             Pinning to the Windows 7’s Taskbar

Along comes Windows 7 and provides a sixth way. You can pin a program icon to the taskbar itself.

Of all the methods described above, this new method is more effective giving you complete control over regularly used applications simply by adding them to the Taskbar.

Note: Not only can you add them but you can remove them when not wanted.

But, we have not finished yet. To further confuse you with the multiplicity of choices, here’s Windows last offer. This involves the updated Search features found at the bottom of the Start menu.

Method 7             Using Search to open applications or files

This powerful feature, a valuable feature of the new Windows 7, not only finds the application for you but also allows finds files (a JPG picture file for example), a Word document or any other file you create.

1. Open the Start menu.
2. In the lower left-hand section is the Search feature.
3. Type in “word”.
4. Search opens displaying any reference to “word”.

Note: There are many places where “word” is registered.

This feature is a Bonus!

Now an added additional benefit of using Search to find any references to the topic, in this case “word” is that it not only lists the application but also documents.

So you can open the application itself or open a document created in Word, the application.

Being able to open the file directly is a useful bonus.

Now having gone over all these methods, it’s up to you the user, to decide which method you prefer.