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Chapter 2. A Field Guide to Windows XP > Making It Legit: Activating Your Copy ... - Pg. 16

A Field Guide to Windows XP Windows XP has all kinds of keyboard combo shortcuts, so they pop up regularly throughout the book. Because I'm way too lazy to write out something like "Hold down the Ctrl key with one hand, use your other hand to tap the Esc key, and then release Ctrl" each time, however, I use the following shorthand notation instead: "Press Hold+Tap," where Hold is the key you hold down and Tap is the key you tap. In other words, instead of the previous long-winded sentence, I say this: "Press Ctrl+Esc." (On rare occasions, a third key joins the parade, so you might see something like "Press Ctrl+Alt+Delete." In this case, you hold down the first two keys and then tap the third key.) 16 · The Esc key--Your keyboard's Esc (or Escape) key is your all-purpose get-me-the-heck-out-of- here key. For example, you just saw that you can get rid of the Start menu by pressing Esc. In many cases, if you do something in Windows XP that you didn't want to do, you can reverse your tracks with a quick tap (or maybe two or three) on Esc. · The numeric keypad--On a standard keyboard layout, the numeric keypad is the separate col- lection of numbered keys on the right. The numeric keypad usually serves two functions, and you toggle between these functions by pressing the Num Lock key. (Most keyboards have a Num Lock indicator light that tells you when Num Lock is on.) When Num Lock is on, you can use the numeric keypad to type numbers. When Num Lock is off, the other symbols on the keys become active. For example, the 8 key's upward-pointing arrow becomes active, which means you can use it to move up within a program. Some keyboards (called extended keyboards ) have a separate keypad for the insertion point movement keys, and you can keep Num Lock on all the time. Making It Legit: Activating Your Copy of Windows XP NEW!After you've had Windows XP (or a new computer that came with Windows XP) for a short time (a day or two), one of two things will happen: