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Welcome to the 'Windows laptop: Managing files' course. In this video, you'll learn how to organise your files and folders on your computer's desktop so you know where everything is. You'll also learn how to choose the background picture you see on the desktop, and how to change the profile picture you see when you sign into your computer. Each time you sign into your computer, you will see what's called the desktop. The desktop is the main screen of your computer and is a quick way to find the apps, files and folders you need. Your desktop will have icons on it, and these represent the different applications and files that you or your computer have stored on the desktop.
There are several different ways to organise and access the files on your computer, but files stored on the desktop can be quickest to see and open. However, lots of files on the desktop can make it feel cluttered and hard to use. You can tidy up the desktop using some helpful options. First, right-click anywhere on the desktop. You can do this wherever you like, as long as it's not on top of an icon. When you right-click with your mouse, a context menu will appear and show a list of options. Point the mouse to the View option, and after a moment, another panel will appear alongside the context menu. This is a list of the desktop's View options, and you can use these to tidy up.
The first three options change the size of all the desktop icons, and you can come back and experiment with them later. The remaining options change how the icons line up on the desktop. Each can be switched on or off and will show a tick to the left when they are on. The most useful is 'Auto arrange icons'. Click it once to turn it on. You'll see that the menu disappears and all the icons on your desktop moved to the far left and arrange themselves into rows and columns. If you prefer to place icons all over the desktop, just repeat the previous steps and click 'Auto arrange icons' again to turn it off. You can also organise files in order. Right-click on the desktop to open the context menu. Point the mouse to Sort by and hold it there for a moment.
Another side menu appears with four options for sorting your desktop icons. Name means alphabetical order. Size is how much space each file takes up on your hard drive. Item type will put all your documents together, all your photos next, and so on. Date modified will arrange all the icons newest to oldest. Try out each option to see how they work. When you're finished, you can prepare your desktop for the next step in this course by turning off the 'Auto arrange icons' setting. Right-click on the desktop to show the context menu, then point the mouse to the View option. Click 'Auto arrange icons' to turn it off. If you have lots of files to organise, you can group them together under one folder. For this demonstration, we'll organise some files into two separate folders, one labelled Gardening, and one labelled Medical. Right-click on an empty part of the desktop to show the context menu. Then, move the mouse pointed to New and hold it there for a moment. And a list will appear to the side. At the very top of this list, you'll see Folder. Click it and a new folder will appear on the desktop. The folder will be called New folder, and the name of the folder will be highlighted. You can just start typing now to change the name to Gardening. Press Enter to finish.
Your new Gardening folder is ready to use. Repeat these steps to create another folder. This time, let's call it Medical. You can now start organising your files into the folders. For this demonstration, we'll place gardening files into the Gardening folder. Use your mouse to click once and hold on a file. Now, move your mouse to drag the file to the Gardening folder. When it's over the folder, remove your finger from the mouse to release the file. When you let go of the mouse button, the file disappears. That's because you've dropped it into the Gardening folder. You can repeat these steps for all the files you want to organise on your desktop.
To see the files inside a folder, double-click on the folder. A panel will open, showing all the files inside. If the files appear in a list, like this, you can click on this button in the bottom right of the panel to show a tiny picture preview for each file. This is known as a thumbnail. A thumbnail helps you quickly see which file is which. Files that aren't photos or pictures will show an icon instead of a thumbnail. The icon will let you know what kind of file it is. To open a file within the folder, double-click on it. When you're done, click the X in the top right corner of the File Explorer panel to return to the desktop. Now your desktop is organised, you might like to personalise it a bit more. You can change the picture that takes up the whole background of the desktop. To change the background, right-click on the desktop. You can click anywhere except on an icon or folder. The context menu will open. At the bottom, click on Personalise. The Windows Settings panel opens. On the left, you can see a menu of Settings options, and Personalisation is already selected. The right-hand side of the Windows Settings panel shows all the personalisation options, with Background right at the top. Click on Background to see background options.
The right-hand panel changes to the Background options panel. Right at the top, you can see a small preview of your desktop. This might already show a photo, image, or it might be a solid colour. Under the background preview, you can see 'Personalise your background'. Next to this is a white box showing the background your desktop is using right now. If the box doesn't say Picture, click on it, and choose picture from the list that appears. You can now see some small square pictures under 'Recent images'. Click on one of the small square pictures to make it your background. You'll see the desktop change right away to show the new picture. You can also use a personal photo or another image that you have saved on your computer for a background. Click on the 'Browse photos' button to find it. You could use a picture of your garden, a flower, or even something you downloaded from the internet, like the New York skyline.
You can use any kind of image you like. Next up, you can learn how to change the profile picture that appears when you sign into your computer. Your profile picture appears in the circle on the sign-in screen above your name. It might also appear on emails you send to others in some applications and web browsers. It's safe to set a profile picture that's a photo of yourself. But if you're not comfortable with the idea, your computer will work just as well without one. Since Windows Settings is still open, find Accounts in the left menu and click on it. The right panel will show your name and sign-in email address at the top, as well as your current profile picture, if you have one. Under Account settings, find Your info and click on it. The right of the screen changes to show the Your info panel. To change your profile picture, look for 'Adjust your photo' right at the top. If your computer has a webcam, click the Open Camera button next to take a photo and a panel will appear to help you take a photo. If you don't have a camera or would rather not use your own face as the picture, click the Browse Files button to search for one. A File Explorer panel will open, and you can use the menu on the left to find the picture you'd like to use. When you found the picture, double-click to choose it.
Now, the Your info panel shows the new profile picture. To close the Windows settings, click the X in the top right corner. You've learned how to organise files and folders on your computer's desktop, how to change the background picture, and how to change your profile picture when you sign in. If you're unsure about any steps, you can rewind the video or click the chapter headings to jump to the start of a chapter. If you're ready to move on, there are many other courses to explore on Be Connected.