Windows Vista? Tip Sheet Tips and Tricks

[sridefender 0]

View: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

Taken from Microsoft Technology Playground

Windows Vista is designed for businesses of all sizes and across all industries. Windows Vista will make a difference in any business setting. Windows Vista also helps PC users to be more effective in their work by offering improved connectivity with advanced integration across technologies, networks, and systems, as well as providing them with quick access to better organized information.
Tips & Tricks

Folder Navigation

1. Getting around your PC - Folders look visually different, but with more choices navigation is even easier. Using the Navigation pane you can visually see the folder hierarchy and quickly find your destination.

2. Address bar - The arrows on the Address Bar open a fly-out to specific folders on your PC or network.

3. Classic Menus – If need you can return to the classic views just hit the ALT key. However, stay with the Windows Vista default configuration for better productivity.

Running you Applications

1. Find them, and then run them – You might use the Start menu Search box to type an application’s name, and then press enter to run it, no need to go looking.

2. MS-DOS command prompts – Type ‘command’ in the Start menu Search box, press Enter and you can return to command land. You can also use the Start menu Search box in place of the Run dialog box.

Finding Your Files

1. Simple Search – Use the Start menu Search box to type part of a file’s name and see a list of the matching files. Use a similar Search box at the top right of every folder window to search down through sub folders.

2. Advanced Search – From the Start menu, choose Search, type what you need to find and Windows Vista will show you all the files matching your criteria.

3. Advanced Search Filters – Use + to add filters using keywords, author, title or just about any of the information available in properties.

4. Saved Search – A few clicks of the mouse and you can save a search to revisit later.

Control Panel

1. Search the Control Panel – Consistent with the other tools and folders, the Control Panel provides a Search box to quickly find available tools.

2. Classic View – Return to your glory days with just a click and you will find the familiar Control Panel View, however the updated Windows Vista Control Panel is so much more useful you may never need that Classic View.

3. Offline Files – Away from the network? You can take files with you and make sure you have the information you need.

4. Sync Center – Make sure you have the latest version of those offline files with the Sync Center; you can even make sure the files are up-to-date automatically and on a schedule.

5. Mobility Center – Windows Vista does a better job of collecting resources that are appropriate for certain tasks; the mobility center is just one example. Here you will manage the resources appropriate for laptops, such as battery status, wireless network, external monitor, and presentation settings.

Internet ExplorerŽ 7

1. IE Appearance – IE allows you to zoom in or out on web-pages – use Ctrl+(+) and Ctrl+(-), You can even generate a print preview that scales the page to your paper size.

2. Classic Menus – To stick with tradition, the ALT key or the Tools menu provides easy access to those familiar classic menus of IE.

3. Web Search – Use the search engine you prefer through one familiar search box, and change search providers on the fly from a handy drop-down menu.

4. Tabbed Browsing – How often do you open a number of web pages with a similar theme? Well you can group these together under the same Internet Explorer window with tabbed browsing. A simple ctrl-click will open a link in your current window to a new tab.

5. Quick Tabs – Once you have the tab group, Quick Tabs allows you to view all your tabbed pages as thumbnails, allowing you to quickly pick the page you want.

6. Favorites (Groups) – Favorites are even easier, and you can even save those same tab groups you created for later use. Simply use the star to access saved pages or tab groups, or + to add the page or tab group to favorites.

Changes to Discover

1. WindowsŽ Shared View – Windows Shared View is easier to connect with others, share information and collaborate on projects.

2. Windows Defender – To ease the worry about viruses and other malicious software, Windows Defender increases the security level for your PC.

3. Windows Sidebar – You will see a new generation of applications, more accurately called gadgets. These gadgets can be used on the desktop or with the Windows Sidebar, a desktop location or corral to access them.

4. Turn off and start up more quickly. When you click the power button on the Start menu, Windows saves your work and programs just as they are, and then puts the computer to sleep. When you use Sleep, your computer typically wakes up in one or two seconds.

Notice from rvalkass:

Any material you copy from elsewhere needs to be put in QUOTE tags.

[caz2406 0]

All the people i know that has vista on their pc hate it and i see a lot of negative reviews about it, is it really as bad as people say?, has anyone got anything good to say about it?.Caz

[ronelm2000 0]

I do!Except for its Parental Controls, it a 9/10 performance!

[Saint_Michael 3]

Meh its ok, not to keen about it eating my hard drive space in the winsxs folder. Wasn't to keen on the folder set up either, and of course going to classic view defeats the purpose of the Aero design. Which reminds me I still have to get a gfx card for that computer so I can get that going. It does do some spiking in the CPU usage though but that if your having several programs loading at one and stuff.

[heavensounds 0]

Well I am another person who just loves Vista! I uninstalled it the first time I got it, because there were too many flaws and I didn't like it at the beginning, but now I have it installed for about half a year and I recently upgraded my laptop so that now i have 2gb of ram and everything is running smoother than ever before in windows XP. My biggest support-comment for Vista is that everything JUST WORKS! You plug-in something and it works, there are literally no hang-ups (don't remember if i had a serious one in half a year!). When a program stopes responding it is completely seperated from other processes so you can do anything you want, while the program takes it's time to respond again - it goes the same for computer games (they are completely seperated from anything else so whatever happens to them does not affect your system at all). Plus all this stuf Vista also has many other new nice features as you can see from the tips above...I really don't know why people hate Vista - I think it is because they hate Microsoft or because they can't use it because their computer is not good enough!

[odomike 0]

Windows Vista is simply cool. I have been using it for more than 5 months now and I havent had too much problems with it except at an instance when it miscalculated my per user error message files after runing disc cleanup and went ahead to wipe off my programs in the programs filder.

 

I am still using it though and would continue to use it. My major problem with it at the moment is the RAM utilization. I have 1.0GB of Dual Channel DDR2 667 and yet the damn thing is still complaining that my laptop aint got enough memory to carry the load. Oh well, I guess I have to upgrade to a minimum of 1.5GBs for it to run much more smoothly.

 

Apart from this, it is just cool

[iGuest 3]

I recently bought my FIRST computer so bear with me. Its great when it works. I have HP Compaq Presario Windows VISTA Qwest DSL 1.5. IE 7 CONSTANTLY hangs freezes crashes. I must close w/ Task Manager or reboot. I delete browsing hx (websites, temp internet files etc). I run Windows Live Care One One Webroot Spy Sweeper Trend Micro Anti Virus. I install Windows Updates go to Problem Reports HP updates etc. I runs great then freezes locks and crashes. I love having a computer but it is fustrating.