Q: My son has been playing with our computer and now the taskbar is hidden unless you move the mouse over it. How do I restore it so it is displayed all the time?

A: The taskbar properties can be set by right-clicking on the taskbar and selecting Properties. This will show a dialog box with a number of checkbox options, one of which is Auto Hide. Uncheck this and click OK. Your taskbar should now behave normally.

Q: The icons in my folders never seem to be auto arrange by default. How do I set up Windows so that this happens?

A: I have never understood why this option is not standard behaviour for files displayed in folders. I can tell you how to do this for Windows 2000, 98 and ME but I have not found a solution to this for NT (if anyone knows please email me). To set up the auto arrange as default for all folders, open a folder, right-click the background, select Arrange and ensure Auto Arrange has a tick next to it.

Then in Windows 98 and ME, select the Folder Options item from the View menu (in Windows 2000, it is found on the Tools menu). The Folder Options dialog should now be displayed, click the View tab, then click the Like Current Folder button. Confirm the action, then click OK.

Q: What is an AGP slot? Can you explain what it does and the advantages?

A: An AGP (advanced graphics port) slot is a recently-introduced standard for the computer to connect to graphics cards.

It is specifically designed to deal with the massive amount of graphical data that needs to be moved between the computer and many new 3-D cards. Benchmarking (speed tests) appears to show a clear speed increase for AGP-based cards over their PCI counterparts.

Q: How do I change fonts in Word when writing a letter?

A: Select the area of text you want to change by clicking the left mouse button at the start of the text you want to change then drag the mouse (while still holding down the mouse button) to where the text ends.

You should see the section of text highlighted in black. If you want to extend or change the highlighting after you have let go of the mouse button, hold down the shift key, then hold down the left mouse button (with the shift key still depressed) and you can adjust the selection.

When you have the text highlighted as you want, simply choose a new font from the font dropdown on the toolbar (the default is usually Times New Roman).