Opening, moving and closing windows

In short: Every program runs in a window. You can move it, resize it, minimise, maximise and close it.

In more detail: At the top right of a window are three buttons: minimise (dash), maximise (square) and close (X). The title bar at the top is for moving. You drag the edges to make the window larger or smaller.

In Depth

• Minimise: The window disappears into the taskbar, the program keeps running.
• Maximise: The window fills the whole screen. Clicking again restores the previous size.
• Close: Ends the window (and usually the program). Unsaved work: save first!
• Move: Drag the title bar with the mouse button held.
• Side by side: Windows key + left/right arrow splits the screen into two halves.
• Switch between windows: Alt + Tab. Or click in the taskbar.

See also: Starting and quitting programs, The desktop and the taskbar