What’s new in Vista….Ron Purkhiser, Hernando Computer Club
1. Aero – Incorporates window open/close animations, semi-transparency for
certain areas of a window and easy switching between open programs.
Window key + Tab key
2. File Management – New ways or organizing and viewing your open
windows
3. Search – Much improved, all files (contents too) and folders are indexed for
almost instantaneous results.
4. Sidebar – A little utility you can keep on your desktop to organize your
“gadgets”. Thousands to choose from. Weather, Clock, News headlines, etc.
5. Taskbar – Now shows us previews of open documents as well as the icon.
6. Better Security Features
Backup Program – Start with full backup, then weekly backups of
anything new or changed
Windows Defender—Real time anti adware,spyware program
built right in for you
Parental Controls
Windows Firewall – Much improved
7. Better Applications
Windows Mail replaces Outlook Express, very easy to learn.
Windows Contacts, (your old address book).
(The above two are now linked throughout your computer.)
Windows Calendar – No more missed appointments, on-screen reminders
Windows Fax and Scanner, (only in Business Ed. And up)
Paint, improved – New features, unlimited undo’s, crop added, and
you can now resize photos here.
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Hernando Computer Club, Brooksville Florida, www.hcc.org
Ron Purkhiser. March 2008
WordPad, improved – Improvements including speech recognition
Speech Recognition – Control your computer with your voice.
8. Fantastic Help Section – More later
Look up, Speech Recognition -- Sidebar – Defender
At least 5 versions of Vista available, Home Premium will probably be the
most useful for most of us. (last page of this hand-out)
If you are thinking about upgrading your existing computer with Vista,
please run the Vista Advisor first. This will help you determine how well
Vista will work with your existing computer.
http://www.microsoft.com/, search for Vista Advisor
Start Menu
Click the Start Button, bottom left, and
you see the new start menu at right.
You see two columns as usual, but
notice My Computer, My Documents,
My Pictures, My Music are now simply:
Documents
Pictures
Music
Computer
Click “All Programs”
You see your complete list of
programs as usual, but no more
flyouts where you have to carefully
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Hernando Computer Club, Brooksville Florida, www.hcc.org
Ron Purkhiser. March 2008
move your mouse exactly sideways, to continue, simply move mouse
down to select.
Having any difficulty finding your
program in the list ?
Simply start typing the name in the
search box, and after just a couple of
letters you will see your program listed
at the top ready to click.
Amazing !
Search Box
To Turn Computer Off
You Click Here
Now you see this menu:
Switch user and log off are for when you have your
computer set up for more than one user.
Lock guards against unauthorized access.
Restart and Shutdown we are already familiar with.
Sleep saves a copy of your work in your PC’s memory,
then slumbers PC in a low power state.
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Hernando Computer Club, Brooksville Florida, www.hcc.org
Ron Purkhiser. March 2008
Hibernate, (usually laptops) saves your work and shuts off PC
Search – In the start menu, (and many other places)
We saw the “searching the start menu” now lets look at other general
searches.
Vista Indexes all files and folders in your computer. This is like an index in
a book. It makes for extremely fast searches.
Notice before searching, you can specify what to search for:
1. All, 2. Email, 3. Document, 4. Picture, 5. Music or 6. Other
Indexing makes things move so fast, I just use the “All” category.
I recall having some pictures of a kitty cat and some scanner information
saved somewhere in my computer, but can’t remember just where.
This will amaze you. Search for “scanner information”
Then kitty cat.
Leave window open
Let’s examine this new type Window we will now see in Vista.
Address Bar
Search Box
Tool Bar
Navigation Pane & Folders
Preview Pane
Details Pane
Where is our
“old” menu bar ?
Alt key brings it back
temporarily
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Hernando Computer Club, Brooksville Florida, www.hcc.org
Ron Purkhiser. March 2008
The Organize Button -- Look at all the choices, then
 Search Pane
 Details Pane
 Preview Pane
 Navigation Pane plus Folders section below
The View Button -- 7 ways to view your window, with a slider or just click.
Address Bar and Back & Forward Buttons --- Moving from location to location.
As you navigate further and further into your computer storage, (hierarchy)
to get to a file or folder, you can easily see your path in the new navigation
bar.
And you can go back anywhere in your path simply by clicking on it.
You can also use the Back and Forward arrows for this purpose.
Open Documents. (formerly my documents)
Click “Wolfgang ITC”
Click “ITC 1”
Click “Pictures”
Click “Cooking Files”
Look at address bar, and << symbol to the left of it. See your path.
Down arrow to the right of the address bar. Previous paths you’ve before this
current session.
Stacking – Sorting – Grouping, a new type of search.
(Must use “old style menu” for this new feature)
Press “View” and choose Sort by or Group by or Stack by.
Grouping organizes the listing into clusters based on the criteria
You specify.
Stacking is like grouping except that each group appears as a
single icon. Double clicking opens then.
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Hernando Computer Club, Brooksville Florida, www.hcc.org
Ron Purkhiser. March 2008
The Help Section




This is a fantastic help engine that has never failed me.
Start menu > help and support on the right.
Ask for help on anything you don’t understand.
Defender
Sidebar
Backup
System Restore, You name it, You’ll find it !!
The Control Panel
Vista is wonderfully customizable. If there’s something you don’t like about
the way it looks or how it operates, you can probably change it.
We find the control panel in the start menu on the right side.
There are two views as we saw in XP. The new view is called
“Control Panel Home”
In this Control Panel Home, many of the categories are grouped together.
You can easily change to the classic view by choosing it on the left side.
Appearance -- Change the desktop background, screen saver, and sidebar
properties just to name a few.
Change your keyboard and mouse settings.
Change Printer settings or defaults
Adjust the clock, time zone etc.
Very important that you uninstall programs from the uninstall in
the control panel, (Programs).
The Sidebar
The sidebar is a new feature in Vista. It enables you to add live gadgets,
(mini-applications) to the desktop itself. These gadgets can include clocks,
calendars, stock tickers, weather reports and so on.
It usually is installed when you start Vista, but if not you can go to the
control panes and start it. You can set it to run on top of your other
windows or below them so it doesn’t interfere with your work. You can
easily turn it off and back on from the Notification area.
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Hernando Computer Club, Brooksville Florida, www.hcc.org
Ron Purkhiser. March 2008
Notice plus sign at top left area of sidebar, you add gadgets this way.
Windows Media Player and Center. Manage your music, videos, and new
pocket devices, You can even install a TV tuner and use your computer for
a digital video recorder !
Backup program -- You do one initial full backup, the you can backup just
the changes, daily, weekly or monthly.
Calendar – Yes, a real personal organizer with reminders you set for you
Fax and Scan – Business and up
Movie Maker – All the Movie Maker features from XP but now you can burn
directly to DVD’s
Photo Gallery – You won’t need another photo program with this.
Organize and store
Fix problems
Print with many many page layouts for little paper waste.
Easy Transfer from your old XP computer.
Purchase Belkin Easy Transfer cable kit. Then just drag and drop
folders and files from your XP computer to your new Vista computer.
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Hernando Computer Club, Brooksville Florida, www.hcc.org
Ron Purkhiser. March 2008