It's easy to open more than one program at a time in Win95, and it is equally easy to switch between them without closing any of them. We'll explain the three simple methods of moving between open programs.

The first and easiest method is to use the Taskbar. As each new program opens, a button for it is added to the Taskbar, which is along the edge of your screen (usually at the bottom). Thus, in the above scenario, you would have buttons for Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Exchange, and Internet Explorer on the Taskbar. So when you finish surfing the 'Net with Explorer and want to return to Word, all you must do is left-click the Word button on the Taskbar to activate that program and bring it to the front.

The second method is to type ALT-TAB. Hold the ALT key down while you press the TAB key. Each time you press TAB, a box will appear in the center of the screen, displaying the name of one of your open programs. When you see the name of the one you want to use, simply release both the TAB and the ALT keys, and it will be moved to the front.

There are only two ways to tile open programs on the Desktop— vertically and horizontally. Here, a MIcrosoft Word document and Paint document are tiled vertically.

Left-clicking the window itself is the third way to switch from one program to another. You can sometimes see the windows of the other open programs behind the one in which you are currently working. Just left-click a program window to activate it and bring it to the front, where you can work on it. If you can't see the window of another open program, you'll have to minimize the one(s) on top of it to access it with this method.

Pick A Program, Any Program.

There are ways of organizing the open programs on your Desktop to make them even easier to see and use. Simply right-click a blank spot anywhere along the Taskbar to open a pop-up menu. Here, you can choose to cascade or tile your programs. Cascading stacks the programs on top of each other, but offsets them so you can still see the edge of each window and the name of each program. This arrangement is similar to the way you would hold a hand of playing cards. Tiling can be done horizontally or vertically. Horizontal tiling stretches the programs across the screen from left to right, one above the other. Vertical tiling stretches them across the screen from top to bottom, one beside the other. If you don't like the arrangement you choose, simply right-click the Taskbar again and choose Undo Tile or Undo Cascade to return your screen to its previous look.

Read The Meter.

When you have multiple large programs running at the same time, you run the risk of depleting, or at least taxing, your computer's system resources. The Resource Meter monitors your computer's use of random-access memory (RAM). Win95's efficiency in allocating and consuming its resources often determines how well your system works.

Activate the Resource Meter by going to the Start menu and choosing Programs, Accessories, System Tools, then Resource Meter. A message appears on the screen, warning you that the meter, like anything else, uses system resources and could slow your system further. Left-click OK.

This places a tiny green icon next to your Taskbar clock. Double left-click the green icon to bring up the meter. The resource meter shows you the percentages of your System resources, User resources, and GDI (Graphics Device Interface) resources that are still free.

The percentage given for unused System resources is determined by the amount of User and GDI resources that have been consumed. Usually, this percentage will be the same as the one given for the User resources unless you happen to be running graphics-intensive Win95 programs.

User resources are devoted to user system components such as open windows, menus, dialog boxes, and running programs. The percentage given shows how much of these resources are still free. GDI resources are devoted to graphics such as icons or figures. Again, the percentage shows the amount that remains free.

If any of these resources falls below 35% unused, you may not be able to load another program or continue running one of the programs you already have open. You'll have to exit from the programs currently in memory.

Clicking OK closes the Resource Meter box, but it does not get rid of the green icon on the taskbar. To completely exit the meter, right-click the icon and choose Exit from the pop-up menu.

by Hannah Henry