Clicking on an individual Favorites entry launches a browser window showing the target Web page - or alternatively a local file or folder, as Favorites can now point to local as well as Internet items (click here for more details on creating Favorites for non-Internet items).

It's essential to organise your Favorites into sub-folders (unless you've got very few of them) otherwise the Favorites menu fills the entire screen. You can't do any reorganising from the Start button Favorites menu, but it's easy to find the Organise Favorites dialog, as the Favorites menu is now on the menu bars of all filing windows (and the Windows Explorer).

Click here for more details on creating and using IE 4 Favorites.

Desktop Toolbars With IE4 installed, the Win 95 Task Bar becomes the launch-pad for a set of new Desktop Toolbars. IE comes with four pre-defined toolbars, and lets you create your own custom bar too (click here for details). To open a Desktop Toolbar, right-click on the Task Bar, choose Toolbars from the pop-up menu, and pick a toolbar from the list.

The Desktop Toolbar

This toolbar contains the same set of icons as your Win 95 desktop (My Computer, Recycle Bin etc). There's not a whole lot of point in putting it on the desktop, since it then sits next to the 'real' icons it's representing!

However, like all toolbars you can dock it to another screen edge, then place it in Auto Hide mode (right-click on the toolbar and choose Auto Hide from the pop-up menu). It will then disappear, leaving the screen free for applications, and appear again when you move the mouse pointer near the edge of the screen where it's docked. That way you can get at your desktop icons without minimising all you applications.

The Win 95 Desktop and Desktop Toolbar are automatically synchronised in both directions, i.e. if you drag an item (e.g. a folder) onto the toolbar, a button appears on it, and a shortcut to the item also appears on your desktop.

The Address Bar is the odd one out of the four standard toolbars - whereas the others contain links to local and Internet objects (see below), the Address Bar is a copy of the Address Bar from the standalone IE 4 browser. Type or paste in a URL (Web page address), and a browser window opens showing the page.

Because Win 95's local and Internet filing systems are now integrated you can type the name of a local folder and that will be opened instead.

You can even type the name of a document file into the Address Bar - if it's from a suitable application, it will be opened in the browser window in OLE in-situ editing mode (click here for more details).

Clicking the arrow at the right of the Address Bar opens a pop-up list showing the local and Internet locations you've opened from the bar. Choosing one of them takes the browser window directly to that item.