Unlike many websites with Windows 7 tutorials, we decided that we do not want to ignore Internet Explorer 9. There are plenty of people using it and well... we want to help them out with useful articles and tutorials about Microsoft latest browser. Therefore we continue our series of articles with a tutorial describing in detail the main interface elements of Internet Explorer 9 and what they do. If you are new to Internet Explorer 9, you will definitely find this tour very useful.

Where to Find Internet Explorer 9

After you install Internet Explorer 9, you can find its shortcuts on the taskbar or in Start Menu -> All Programs. As always, you can also search for Internet Explorer in the Start Menu search box and click on the appropriate search result.
If you cannot find it, you can manually start the program by browsing to ’C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer’ and running iexplore.exe.

Once you open it, the Internet Explorer 9 window should look similar to the screenshot below: one with very few buttons and elements and lots of real-estate for web-pages to be loaded.

One thing to note here is that the color of the Internet Explorer 9 window changes with the Windows 7 theme you apply, depending on the color used by each theme.

The Buttons on the Top Left

Let’s start with the buttons on the top-left side. The big arrows, as you might have guessed already, are for navigating Back and Forward between the web-pages you visited during the current session. If you have visited only one website, well... those buttons will be grayed out and won’t do anything.
Next is the Address bar. There you type the addresses of the websites you want to visit (like www.7tutorials.com). As with any other modern browsers, you can use it as a search box too. If you type any word and press Enter it will automatically search on Bing for that word and return you a page with search results.

Included in the Address bar, are a few symbols which function like buttons. Let’s take them in order, from left to right:

• The magnifier button is obviously for searching. If Bing Suggestions are turned on, it will return to you suggestions from the search engine as you type. If you click on any of the suggestions, it will open a page with search results from Bing.

  

• Next is an arrow, oriented downward. If you click on it, you will access a list with the most recent sites you visited plus some of your Favorites.

  

• The third button is to Refresh the web-page you currently have open.
• The X button is used to Stop a web-page from being loaded or refreshed.

Opening New Tabs

Immediately after the Address bar, you will find the open tabs. If you are like me, you might consider this “ugly” and a bit too crowded. However, Microsoft wanted to offer as much screen space as possible for viewing web-sites. And they did!

If you want to open a new tab, simply click the small New Tab icon, highlighted below.

When a new tab is opened, you will see a list with your most popular sites (I’m hoping 7tutorials.com is one of them). You can simply click on one of them, if that’s what you want to view or simply type the address in the Address bar.

Top Right Buttons: Home, Favorites, Tools

Let’s talk about the last three buttons, found on the top-right side of the Internet Explorer 9 window.

When pressing the first button, it takes you to your Home page, if you have one set. If you don’t, it will simply open a blank page.

The second button, in the shape of a star, is about viewing your Favorites, Feeds and History. If you click on it, a menu shows up, with three tabs, each with its specific type of content.

Last but not least, there is a ‘wheel like’ button. If you click on it, you will access the Tools menu. It provides access to lots of features and configuration menus: it allows you to print, save a web page, zoom, access safety features, view your downloads, manage your add-ons, access developer tools and configure tons of Internet options.

What’s Next

This is only the beginning of our series on Internet Explorer 9. We will continue to come back with articles until we have covered this browser in a complete manner. For more, always check out the articles recommended at the end of this article. Also, if you have any questions about Internet Explorer 9, don’t hesitate to ask using the comments form below.

Related articles:

Demystifying Internet Explorer 9 Add-Ons
Internet Explorer 9 - Showing Tabs on a Separate Row
The Complete Guide to Pinning Websites with Internet Explorer
Managing Downloads in Internet Explorer 9