By Susan Hutton

If you're like most people, you treat your right mouse button the way non-smokers treat the cigarette lighter in their cars. You ignore it.  But like the non-smoking driver who gets a CD-player or a cellular phone and suddenly finds the lighter indispensable, once you learn how to use the right mouse button, you'll find you can't do without right-click either.

Despite what you might have thought in the past, the right button on your mouse is not, in fact, merely there for symmetry's sake. When you click it, which is what people mean when they say right-click, a menu of items pops up and tells you what actions you can perform, and shows you shortcuts you can use to breeze through everyday tasks.

Right-click: smarter than your average button
While the left button is limited to selecting an item or launching an program, the right mouse button is smart enough to tell you what you need to know when. The right-click menu is context sensitive; its menu of items changes depending on what you right-click and where you are when you right-click it. If you right-click the My Computer icon, for example, you'll get different options on the right-click menu than you will if you right-click a Web page or a blank part of your desktop.

Right-click is especially handy when you come across something unfamiliar or confusing because the right-click menu will usually tell you what you can do with whatever obstacle you come across.  And this makes right-click a good habit to develop. Don't worry.  Nothing will break. At the very worst, nothing will happen. At the best, however, you'll find the clue you need to get beyond feeling stumped, or a shortcut that makes it easier to get the things you want to do done.

How to make it quick with right-click
Here are some quick right-click scenarios to get you started:

You can use My Computer or Windows Explorer to copy, paste, or delete files.  Most people use the menus to do this work, but with right-click you can do the same things faster.  Here's how:

1. Right-click the folder in which you want to work.
2. Click copy, paste, or delete from the right-click menu.

If you've added a lot of folders or icons to your desktop, you know they tend to get cluttered and disorganized. You can fix that in a jiffy with right-click.

1. Right-click the desktop.
2. Click Arrange icons,
3. Do one of the following:
   Click by name
   Click by type
   Click by size
   Click by date
   then choose the way you want them arranged (by name, type, date, etc.)
   -or-
   Click Line up Icons.

On a Web page, you can use right-click to do a number of things--move forward and backward between pages you've browsed, print a page, or add it to your list of favorites.  Or, if you come across a graphic you like, you can save it as your wallpaper.  Here's how:

1. Right-click the Web image you want to use.
2. On the right-click menu, click Set as Wallpaper.

Once you get into the right-click habit, you'll settle into your favorite right-click scenarios, and you'll find you discover new ones along the way.