Right Clicking (using the right mouse button) brings up a box with a list of menu choices, these choices might be useful to you, look around (hover over the choices and read). If you choose to click one of the menu choices use your regular (left) mouse button, and click. Here are some things you can Right Click on in Windows for more options.

1) Right Click any blank area on your Desktop to control text size, background colors, background pictures, screen saver ect. After you Right Click (a blank spot, a place where there is no icon) choose Personalize, or Properties, from the list of choices – and look around.

2) Right Click the clock (far bottom right) and choose Adjust Time & Date (Double click for XP Computers). From that menu box you should check to make sure you have the correct Time Zone chosen, as well as the correct time, date, and daylight savings time setting for your region

3) Right Click the Windows Start Button for more choices (bottom left corner of Windows), then click the Properties choice in the list – read about your options – one possible change is to make your Start Menu appear the way you want it to – including the “Classic” or old look. Check out other settings in this box by clicking on the “tabs” at the top of the box to look around – if you make any change, and you want it to “stick” click APPLY – then OK.

4) Right Click to control Internet Explorer Toolbars – at the top of the window you are in when your are on the internet – Look Up… where there might be pictures that look like a Home, or a Printer, or other menu choices – these slightly off colored bars, are called toolbars, they are adjustable, you can choose which ones to display, hide the ones you don’t want, (Yahoo or Google) or ADD toolbars not shown (Menu is a common toolbar to add). So Right Click any toolbar and then put a check mark (or taking a check away) from anything in the list.

5) Right Click to Copy and Paste. Double clicking on any word or sentence in an email or word document selects that word, (triple clicking will select the whole sentence) after it is selected (it will look blue) just Right Click on that blue selection for more options (bold, underline, copy, cut) – if you want to Cut or Copy and then Paste for example; Right click a word – click Cut or Copy, move the mouse to a new location, right click that spot and Click Paste. This is much faster than typing it over.

6) Right Click any Picture (most) on the internet and choose Save As to put a copy of this picture on your computer (My Pictures is a good location) it is usually a good idea to rename the picture something descriptive. So, after Right Clicking and choosing Save as, the window that shows up gives you an opportunity to name the file (name will be in blue at the bottom), or you can keep the name it has, and choose OK to save in a folder of your choice) Now you have a picture of Merve Griffin on your computer, or your favorite dream car.

7) Right Click an e-mail name to see the actual e-mail address. You know how people’s names now show up in emails? Like – John Smith it says, instead of John@myemail.com? Well, to see someone’s email address, while the email is open, you can usually just hover over the name with your mouse, or you can right click and choose properties (it might say outlook or email properties) to see their actual address – FYI you can now right click and copy that address or choose “add to my Contact list” if you want to paste that person in your list of addresses.

Right click to find out how much hard drive storage space you have left. Open My Computer (on your desktop, or in your start menu) Right click your hard drive [Local Disk C:\] and choose properties from the gray menu – on one of the Tabs (first or second tab, but look around) you will see a Pie Chart type picture indicating Free Space left on your Hard drive. You can also check Free space on other drives, like CD ROMs, Flash drives, Camera Cards or Backup drives that are listed in my computer by Right Clicking them and choosing Properties.

9) Burn (copy) a file or a group of files (pictures for example) to a CD or Flash drive in your computer. Select a file (or a group of files) then Right Click and choose Send To: from the list of choices, from that sub list choose its destination and follow the instructions (for making a CD) – you can send it to any drive or folder listed, you can usually also e-mail the file (or picture) in this way.

10) Right Click for file / folder size, location and many other things – Click any Picture or file to find out about it. From My Computer or My Documents – Right click something of interest and choose properties from the menu that pops up. For example how large is the My Pictures Folder? In the real world this would be like walking out and Right Clicking your Truck, a gray menu would come up with properties; and it would tell you – Year, Make, Model, 2 door, 4wd, 350 engine, red in color, its weight, towing capacity, current licenses and registration info, date purchased, original purchase date … who put the dent in it… In the world of computers this is a very real and useful tool – so, Right Click away!!!

Any of these tips about Right Clicking don’t work as expected? Got a useful Right Click Tip? E-mail me Mark@TheTechPros.com – Thanks.