The desktop and the bar along the bottom

Name every part of your screen, and find Start and Settings on any computer.

You were halfway through a letter, you pressed something, and the letter is not on the screen any more. That moment happens to everybody, and it is the reason this lesson exists — because everything you can see up there belongs to one of only three things, and one of them is where the letter went.

That last one is the part almost nobody has had explained, and it is the part that answers the most common panic of all: my window has disappeared.

Key points

• Name the three parts of your screen: the desktop, the icons on it, and the bar along the bottom
• Get to Start and Settings from anywhere, on any computer
• Know that the Recycle Bin holds deleted things for weeks, not seconds

What to remember

• Every computer screen you will ever meet is these same few parts, arranged slightly differently.
• The desktop is the background of the screen. Everything else sits on top of it.

Try this

Look along the bar at the bottom of your own screen and count the buttons. Every one is either something you have kept handy or something that is open right now. Press one and see which.

Practice: The desktop and the bar along the bottom. Your first lesson is free, with no account or card; the rest are part of a Lantern plan. Interactive lessons require JavaScript.

Related guides

• Bring back a window that vanished
• Close a window without losing your work
• Have two things open at once
• Put your six things where your thumb lands
• Say what the desktop is