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Windows Vista Tips and Tricks May 2008
After five plus years of working with and getting to know the ins and outs of Windows XP, sitting down with Windows Vista can seem like a hike through uncharted territory. Whether you've already made the move to Vista or are about to, here are a collection of Vista tips and secrets that may help ease the transition. We hope you find them useful. Find Applications Easily Through the Start Menu. Finding applications within the many layers of the XP Start Menu could be a huge hassle, but Vista's Start Menu greatly simplifies the task with a built-in search function. Just type an application name into the Start Search field, and as you type, matching programs — as well as files — will be displayed above. Get Some Data on the Side. With Vista's Sidebar feature, you can fill your desktop with "gadgets," mini applications that can deliver info on news, stocks, weather, or just about anything else you might want, right to your desktop. There are even gadgets that will help you keep tabs on system diagnostics like CPU or RAM utilization, and you can configure the transparency of any gadget so you can still see what's behind it. Although Vista only comes with a handful of built-in gadgets, you can download hundreds more gadgets at Microsoft's Windows Vista Sidebar site. Bring Back My Text Menus, Please. When you use Vista's built-in features and applications you may have noticed that most of them no longer display the traditional text menu (File, Edit, etc...). Although these menus have been hidden to streamline and improve the look of the UI, if you want a text menu back for a particular window, just press Alt and it will appear. Of course, once you make a menu choice or click anywhere on the window, the menu will go back into hiding. Restore a Previous Version of a File . Ever wish you could retrieve a previous version of a file without having to manually restore it from a backup? Vista offers a simple way to do it. Just right-click on a file in a folder or on the desktop and choose Restore previous versions. Highlight a file version and click Restore, and it will become the current version of the file. (Use this feature carefully, because all subsequent versions of the file will be lost.) Get More Process Information from Task Manager. It's not uncommon to use the Windows Task Manager to identify or end an errant application, but the Process tab in XP's Task Manager only displays cryptic filenames for running programs, which often means a trip to Google to figure out what program a file is associated with. Vista's Task Manager is much better, because its Process tab automatically displays a plain-English description for almost every entry, making it much easier to see what's what. Check Your System's Heath. Does your system feel a bit out of sorts? See what might be wrong with it by running a system health report. You can get one by accessing Control Panel | System and Maintenance | Performance Information and Tools, and then clicking the Advanced tools link. When you click Generate a system heath report, after about a minute or so Vista will display a comprehensive list of issues that might be negatively affecting your system, including missing hardware drivers or software (e.g. anti-virus) or things like high usage of system resources like CPU, RAM, or disk space. You can save the reports to track your system's performance over time. Enable Parental Controls. While XP completely lacks any built-in Parental Controls, Vista provides plenty of ways for parents to limit when and how their kids use the computer. Just look for Parental Controls from the Start Menu, and Vista will not only let you block Web sites and set limits on Internet and computer usage, but also restrict games based on the game's title or ESRB rating (or one of several other popular rating systems). Vista's Parental Control feature also lets you view account and Internet activity reports, including info on not just what was blocked, but also sites successfully visited and files downloaded. And unlike router logs, these reports don't disappear when the system is shut off or restarted. Despite its name, Vista Parental Controls' value certainly isn't limited to family use. Small business owners may also find Parental Controls useful in restricting their employees' access to certain sites and for monitoring Internet activity on a company computer. Check Your Memory. Sometimes when a system crashes a lot or behaves erratically, the cause may be faulty RAM. XP didn't offer a way to test system memory, but Vista does. You can use Windows Vista's Memory Diagnostics Tool to run a memory test that's far more comprehensive than the POST test done when the system boots. The only catch is that the test can only be run before Windows loads, so when you launch the Memory Diagnostic Tool you'll have the choice to restart the system immediately or have the test run the next time you restart. Resize Disk Partitions Without Data Loss. Unlike Windows XP, Vista will allow you to change the size of an existing disk partition without wiping out your data. From the Start menu, right-click Computer and choose Manage. Then select Disk Management and select the partition you want to change. You can then choose either Extend Volume or Shrink Volume and specify a new size. Quick Configuration on Notebooks. With Vista's Windows Mobility Center you can quickly and easily adjust laptop settings for power management, wireless networking, external displays, and more. If you're running Vista on a portable system, the Windows Mobility Center can put several important configuration options within easy reach. From the Windows Mobility Center you'll be able to view and adjust settings for power management, wireless networking, external displays, and synchronization to handheld devices. From here you can also conveniently put the notebook into presentation mode, which will do things like disable standby/hibernate modes (as well as disable the screen saver) and set the speakers to a predefined volume.
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