a little basic understanding is required. The dock

[StokeLee]

Hello,

if items are on the dock are they still up and running? for example, if i open my mail up, and then use the X to close it, does it still run in the background, like being minimised on windows, or do i need to hit the _ icon to minimise it and put it at the right hand side of the dock? Im asking this cuz the mail icon starting jumping and asked for my password,, (now added to my keychain?)
im asking this, because if you control and clock on something in the dock, it says quit,,,, im slightly confused...

 

[mad jew]

Closing an app using the red dot generally just closes the window rather than the entire program. You can tell if an app is running because it'll have a little triangle underneath it in the dock. The apps without these triangles are not running. Quitting will close the app and the window.

 

[StokeLee]

thankyou very much ,. that makes sense,

now ive installed msn messenger because all my friends are on it,, and i shutdwon my imac, had to come off the kitchen table, and turned it back on, and i cant find it. help please
ive tried searching for it, but all i find is the acutal downloaded installation file.???????

 

[mad jew]

Okay, I'm guessing that when you installed it, there was a white disk-looking thing on your desktop and inside was MSN. You probably double clicked on it and chatted away no problems. This is actually meant to then be dragged across to the Applications folder rather than be used from this temporary white disk. Then, if you want, you can drag it to the dock so you'll just be able to click on it from there and chat away.

Go back to the installer, double click on it. When the disk comes up, drag across the MSN icon to Applications on your computer, and your set.

Most apps are installed this way on OSX.

By the way, I forgot to welcome you in my first post. Welcome to MacRumors StokeLee. Feel free to ask any questions you want, no matter how stupid you think they are. Enjoy the Mac.

 

[StokeLee]

thankyou,,
i knew it was there,, but i never even read about the temp disc thing,,, sort of expect an installation to install it, like the update for itunes did, etc etc..
thank you very much for welcoming me these are my first posts from my new imac,,, its so coool, but ive got to the point of,,, oh my god, what do i do first,, theres too much and what to do everything right now.

thanks again

 

[mad jew]

Weird... I was just reading the Microsoft site and I think I might have been leading you down the wrong path. Sorry.

If the file you end up with is a .dmg then what I said holds true and everything's fine. However, it looks like the MSN app has its own installer which is weird because in that case, MSN must be somewhere on your hard drive, maybe in the Microsoft Office folder (which is in Applications) if you have one?

Did you follow the MSN installer guide?

Hopefully I'm just overcomplicating things and it'll be in the .dmg but who knows?

 

[StokeLee]

you were right first time, i had to go into the white disc thing that it made, and drag the msn icon to the apps folder, and now it all works, deleted the temp white disc thing for msn, the downloaded files, etc,,, and it still worked, emptied the trash bin, still ok, and rebooted,, just to make sure that im doing it right, and it still worked,,
so yep you were right, ive no idea what the msn installer does,,i followed it, but it stopped at opening messenger and making the white disc thingy,,

 

[mad jew]

I'm glad it worked. The Microsoft website is really far too confusing.