Vista Tips

Parts From Paul Thurrott's winsupersite.com, ZDNet and my observances

Installing In the past, Microsoft allowed upgrade versions of Windows to install on a fresh machine so long as the customer could provide proof of possession of the old software. Vista Upgrade DVDs will lack the ability to install on a system unless Windows XP or 2000 was present. This means anyone looking to do a fresh install for any reason will not be able to. Someone who is doing disaster recovery after a hard drive failure or a virus infection won't be able to wipe their hard drive and install Vista, they'll have to install XP first and then install Vista on top of XP.
Note: There is a trick. The secret is that the setup program in Vista's upgrade version will accept an installed copy of XP, W2K, or an unactivated copy of Vista itself as evidence of a previous installation.

This enables you to "clean install" an upgrade version of Vista to any formatted or unformatted hard drive, which is usually the preferred method when installing any new operating system. You must, in essence, install Vista twice to take advantage of this trick. But Vista installs much faster than XP, so it's quicker than installing XP followed by Vista to get the upgrade price. See Complete Text

Before you install Vista on a machine that you don't know is 100% compatible, you should run Microsoft's free Upgrade Advisor. This program — which operates only on 32-bit versions of XP and Vista (plus Vista Enterprise) — reports to you on any hardware or software it finds that may be incompatible with Vista.

Upgrade at your own risk: You have three choices when you run Vista setup:

Boot from the DVD and do a clean install to a fresh partition. Your new installation is assigned drive letter C: when you boot into Vista

Launch Setup from Windows XP and do a clean installation. Your new copy of Windows Vista is assigned the next available drive letter and your existing Windows installation keeps drive C:.

Launch Setup from Windows XP and choose the Upgrade option. I don’t recommend this option unless you have a full image backup to restore as needed.

If you’re planning to evaluate Windows Vista in a dual-boot setup, be sure to use a separate partition or physical disk, and allow at least 20GB for testing purposes. Allow more, much more, if you intend to really use Windows Vista.

Make text easier to read

There's a strong correlation between high display resolutions and eyestrain. The solution is not to dial back screen resolution but rather to increase text size intelligently.
Start in Control Panel and type Adjust font size in the Search box at the top right, which will take you directly to the link for the DPI Scaling utility.
The preset value of 120 DPI is too big for my taste, so I click the Custom DPI button and use the slider control to bump the size up to a more restrained 110 DPI. Feel free to experiment.

Get a quick system checkup Windows Vista has no shortage of diagnostic tools. The System Health Report is one of the most useful. It takes input from the Performance and Reliability Monitor and turns it into a well-organized, information-packed report that does a good job of spotlighting potential problems. To run this report, open Control Panel, click System and Maintenance, and then click Performance Information and Tools. In the Tasks list along the left, click Advanced tools. The last item on the resulting list is Generate a system health report.

Each report gathers information for roughly 60 seconds, so it's easy to run several reports. To establish a baseline, run a report immediately after startup, with no programs running except those that start up automatically. You can run additional reports while you run particularly stressful programs to see whether the load is overtaxing your system.

Master the Quick Launch bar The Quick Launch bar has been around forever, but it's a little more useful in Vista. For starters, it's much easier to add programs to the Quick Launch bar, thanks to the new Add to Quick Launch shortcut menu option. First things first, though: Make sure the Quick Launch bar isn't hidden; if you can't see it, right-click any empty space on the taskbar, choose Toolbars, and click Quick Launch. Don't feel like aiming at those tiny icons with the mouse pointer? Use the shortcut keys instead. Each of the first ten shortcuts on the Quick Launch bar has its own custom keyboard shortcut. Press the Windows key plus the number 1 to launch or switch to the first item on the Quick Launch bar. Press Windows key+2 for the second, and so on. For shortcut number 10, use Windows key+0.

Pump up the volume

If your PC is built using an Intel motherboard with High Definition Audio support, you can take advantage of some cool enhancements. Open the Sound option in Control Panel, select the Speakers icon on the Playback tab, and click the Properties button. The Enhancements tab includes a set of options you can use to control bass levels, create virtual surround sound on a two-speaker system, correct for crummy room acoustics, and change loudness settings.

Adjust the border thickness of all windows You can alter how thick the borders are in each application or window you open up, and it’s really easy to do. The default value of 4 looks good as it is, but if you’re a die-hard Windows XP fan then you can easily change it to look thinner or thicker if you so choose.

Right click your desktop and click Personalize.
Click on Windows Color and Appearance, then “Open classic appearance properties for more color options”.
Click Advanced at the classic Appearances properties dialog.
Under Item, select “Border Padding” then decrease or increase the value as you please.
The default value is 4.
Click OK, then Apply and OK, then close the Personalization window.

Switching between Windows Aero and Standard Aero
It’s easy to switch from Standard Aero to Windows Aero (provided you have a supported graphics card to display Windows Aero). Simply press Ctrl + Shift + F9 anywhere in Vista and you can switch. It may take a second or two and your monitor may go black for a moment, but afterwards you will have a different theme, depending on what you had before.

Windows Aero can sometimes take up a lot of system resources, so if you are running low on memory, turn Windows Aero off for a while and let the system recuperate. However, without Windows Aero you cannot use taskbar thumbnailing (enabling you to hover over a taskbar item and see it’s preview in a thumbnail window), you cannot use Flip3D and also Flip gets reduced to the standard Alt+Tab feature.

Back it all up

The Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions of Windows Vista include the Complete PC Backup feature. It allows you to save an image backup of your system drive (and, optionally, other drives as well), which you can restore in a matter of minutes if you need to recover from a hardware failure or a software mess.

Data file backups: Windows Vista gives its new Backup utility star billing. For Home Basic and Home Premium editions, you can choose file-based backups based on file types and save your selection for reuse.

Back up on a schedule: The final step of the Backup program encourages you to create a schedule for automated backups. The first one you create is a full data backup; subsequent runs are incremental, backing up only files that are new or changed since the last backup.

Enable Aero Some people have reported some problems with Windows Aero not being enabled the first time you install Vista. This can usually be solved by checking to see whether you have the necessary WDDM drivers installed first.

To check whether your WDDM drivers are installed:
Click Start , then Run (or press Windows key + R) and type in compmgmt.msc.
Click the Device Manager in the left hand pane, then expand the Display adapters in the right hand pane.
Your card will be displayed there, and if it says LDDM or WDDM then it means that Windows Aero is capable of being enabled.

To start Windows Aero manually:
Right click the Desktop and select Personalize from the menu.
Click on Theme (Note: if Windows Aero is already enabled, it’ll display fine tuning for Aero instead.)
In the Color scheme box with all your themes in, select Windows Vista Aero then select Apply.
You should be greeted with a “Please Wait” dialog, but then click OK afterwards and Windows Aero should be working.

Change the Product Key

A Windows Vista installation disk essentially has all of the various editions of Vista included on that one disk. Which version gets installed is dependent on what product key you enter during the installation process. At some point you may want to upgrade your current version to a version with more bells and whistles, which would require a new Product Key.

Or you may want to Activate your Windows Vista under a different Product Key for some reason. The easiest way to change your Product Key is through the System applet in the Control Panel.

Under the Windows Activation section there is a link: Change Product Key. Clicking that link brings up the screen where you can enter in a different Product Key.

Get Flip3D to stay on-screen Instead of pressing Windows key + Tab to display Flip3D (of which once you let go of the Windows key, it zooms back in), simply press Ctrl + Windows key + Tab and scroll through as and when you feel like it. Simply press Esc to exit.

Aero Glass - Flip 3D
Cycle through your open applications

Vista System Restore Windows Vista has a feature called System Restore that automatically backs up registry and system files whenever you install new software or drivers. This feature is useful when you install software that makes your computer run badly.

Using System Restore in Windows
There are two places that you can use the system restore feature. Within Windows, you can just type restore into the Start menu search box, and you’ll immediately see System Restore at the top of the start menu. Or you can type rstrui into the search box and hit enter.

You will immediate see a screen where you can choose to roll back the system to the last restore point. You can select “Recommended restore”, and just click next, or you can choose a different restore point.

If you do choose a different restore point, you will see a list of restore points that you can choose from. Click one of them, and you will have to confirm and then restart your computer to roll the system back.

If your system won’t boot
If you can’t even get into windows, you can boot off the installation dvd, and choose the “Repair your computer” option on the lower left hand side. Click next on the next screen.

Now choose System Restore from the System Recovery dialog. It will take a few seconds to come up, and you will see the same screen that you would see in Windows: Click next, and on the next screen select the drive that your copy of Windows Vista is installed on. Click Finish, and Vista will roll back to the previous restore point.

Make Security Center go away

The Security Center icon in the notification area is a nag. There's just no other word for it. And if you're confident that your security settings are in order, you really don't need the nagging. To make Security Center disappear into the background, open its icon in Control Panel and click Change the way Security Center alerts me in the Tasks pane on the left. In the resulting dialog box, choose Don't notify me and don't display the icon (not recommended).

For the brave - Note this will disable many of Vista's security enhancements.
Don't like the Secure Desktop? Here's How to Turn it Off

One of the things beta testers have complained about most in Vista is the intrusiveness of some of the new security features. For example, if you try to install a program or perform other tasks that require elevated privileges, your screen goes dark and the rest of the desktop locks until you complete the dialog box asking you to enter admin credentials or, if you're logged on as an administrator, asking if you want to continue. This is called the secure desktop, but if you don't like it, you can get rid of it without getting rid of those dialog boxes themselves.

In the Administrative Tools menu, select Local Security Policy (you'll get the security prompt). In the left pane of the console, expand Local Policies and click Security Options. Scroll down in the right pane to the item labeled "User Account Control: Switch to the secure desktop when prompting for elevation" and double click. This policy is enabled by default; click Disable to turn the behavior off.

Setting up ReadyBoost

Want to improve the performance of your system? Put some flash memory into service. You can use a USB flash drive, a Compact Flash card, or a Secure Digital card, as long as there’s at least 235 MB of free space. From the Computer window, right-click the flash drive icon, choose Properties, click the ReadyBoost tab, and enable the options.

Troubleshooting ReadyBoost: If you see an error, don’t assume you’re out of luck. Some flash drives are indeed too slow, but others just need to convince Windows Vista they’re OK. Try copying a few small files to the drive and then retesting. If that doesn’t work, try inserting and reinserting the drive. As a last resort, consider reformatting the drive and then retesting. Finally get a better flash drive.

Skip the product ID: One of the very first steps in setting up Windows Vista is this prompt to enter a product ID. If you’re familiar with Windows XP, you probably enter this reflexively. But in Vista you can leave the product ID box blank. If you do this, you’ll see a stern warning that says you better input that ID if you know what’s good for you. You can safely skip it if you know you have (or will have) a legitimate product ID but it isn’t at hand, or if you are planning to evaluate Windows Vista for 14 days or less.

Pick your Vista version: A single Windows Vista DVD contains the code for every version. Normally, you unlock the version you plan to use by entering a product ID that is specific to that version. If you leave out the product ID, the Setup program has no way to know which version you own. So you get to choose your version. This is an ideal way to test different versions for up to 14 days, after which you have to either enter a product ID or do another clean install.

Advanced power management in Control Panel
You can tweak the settings of the predefined power plans or create your own custom plan (use the Create a power plan link on the left). Many Vista users are annoyed by the behavior of the new power button on the Start menu, which puts the computer into sleep mode instead of shutting it down. To fix this annoyance, click Change advanced power settings

Vista's rollback feature

is more capable, as it allows you to recreate older states of individual files or folders. Simply right-click on the document that you would like to recreate, and check out the "Previous Versions" tab.

Wireless Networking

Some third-party wireless networking software is incompatible with Windows Vista. Windows Vista includes functionality that lets you connect to wireless networks.

To connect to a wireless network by using the wireless networking functionality in Windows Vista, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, and then click Connect to.

2. Click the wireless network to which you want to connect, and then click Connect.
Note During the connection process, you may be prompted for a Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) key.

What you need to know about product keys When you buy a retail copy of Windows Vista, the most important part of your purchase is the product key that comes with it. That 25-character key determines which Vista edition you're allowed to install and activate, and it also tells the Setup program whether you've purchased a full or upgrade license. (That detail is important)

Vista keeps track of licensing details using a service called Software Licensing. Slmgr.vbs, a VBScript file included with all Vista editions, allows you to query the current installation and see details about your installation and your licensing status. To run the script, open a Command Prompt window (click Start, type cmd in the Start Search box, and press Enter). Here are two things you can do with this script file:

1. Check your activation status.
From a command prompt, type slmgr -xpr and press Enter to see whether your installation is activated or not. The details appear in a separate information box, not in the Command Prompt window. The information you see will tell you whether your copy is activated. If it's not, you'll see the deadline when you're required to activate.

2. Sort out product IDs.
If you have two or more computers running the same edition of Vista, you might lose track of which product key you used for each machine. The solution? Open a Command Prompt window on each machine and type the command slmgr -dli. The -dli switch stands for "display license information" and shows the last five characters of your license ID. Assuming you have the product keys written down, you can use these details to see which key is in use on each machine.

If you want more information, use the -dlv ("display license, verbose") switch instead.
By Posted by Ed Bott at ZDNet
February 12th, 2007

Vista Sidebar

How to get to the Vista Sidebar quickly
Sidebar covered up by open windows?
There's a way to quickly bring the sidebar and detached gadgets to the foreground: just press the Windows logo key plus the space bar.

If you have closed it and want it back
To start the Sidebar manually, left-click on the Windows button, then All Programs, Accessories and finally Windows Sidebar.

Want more Gadgets?
Right-click the Sidebar & Add Gadgets.

Enable Games in Vista Business Edition

Vista Business people need their games too.
1. Click Start
2. Click Control Panel
3. Click Programs
4. Click Programs and Features
5. Select Windows features on or off from the left column
6. Accept the Account Control
7. Check the Games checkbox
8. Hit OK (Stand-by while they load)

Full path to a file

Have you ever been frustrated when you needed to know the full path to a file, but were spelunking deep inside a tree of directories and there was no easy way to find the full path? Windows Vista includes a new feature, called copy as path, which eliminates this hassle and makes getting the full path as easy as one button and one click.

Here's how to use this feature:

1. Click on the file for which you want to know the full path.
2. While holding the Shift key down, right click on the file, and choose Copy as path from the pop-up context menu.
3. Paste in your destination.

You'll automatically see the full path to the file you selected.

Change file extension associations in Windows Vista

The Windows Vista tool you use to change file associations in located in the Control Panel under the Default Programs icon.

Oddly enough, searching the "association" in the Vista search tool off of the Start Menu returns no results -- at least for me. Once on the
Default Programs screen you have two choices for changing file associations:

1. Set your default programs
2. Associate a file type or protocol with a program

You can also change AutoPlay settings for CDs and DVDS for this screen, as well as set program access settings.

The first selection on the Default Programs screen is "Set your default programs." On this screen you can select a program and give it either
complete control as the default program for all file extensions it can handle or you can choose the file extensions you want individually.
How the list of programs was formed for this tool is not explained, but there are a few programs missing from the list. The one program that
comes to mind almost immediately is Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Clicking the "Choose defaults for this program" on the Set Default Programs screen shows you a list of potential file extensions that can be
associated with the particular chosen program. From here you can check additional file extensions you would like Windows Vista to associate
with the program.

The second selection on the Default Programs screen is "Associate a file type or protocol with a program." On this screen of the tool you get
a very long list of file extensions, including a description and the name of their associated program if it is known. To modify the program
associated with a particular extension you select the extension and click the "Change program" button.

Example: I have chosen the .inf extension, which is currently associated with Notepad. From this screen, I can choose to change the
association to another available program.

If another viable program is not listed on the screen, you can browse your system for programs. Note, it is generally not a good idea to
associate a file extension with a program that is not capable of reading or otherwise acting on it. Once your file extensions are selected
you click Save and then OK to apply your changes to Windows Vista.

From ZDNet
http://content.zdnet.com/2346-9595_22-60478.html

Vista Shortcuts & Customizations

Launching your favorite applications with the [Windows] key
Windows Vista provides you with a better way to quickly access your favorite applications.

To take advantage of this hidden trick, all you have to do is add the shortcuts to your favorite applications to the Quick Launch toolbar, which you can do with a simple drag and drop operation. You can have up to 10 shortcuts on the Quick Launch toolbar to use with the [Windows] key. By default, the Show Desktop and the Switch Between Windows/Flip 3D shortcuts are already on the Quick Launch toolbar, so with the idea that you’d leave them there, you can add up to 8 additional shortcuts.

Moving left to right, the first shortcut on the Quick Launch toolbar is automatically assigned to [Windows]+1, the second shortcut to [Windows]+2 and so on. The tenth shortcut on the Quick Launch toolbar is automatically assigned to [Windows]+0. By unlocking the Taskbar (via a simple right-click on the Taskbar and clicking Lock the Taskbar) and expanding the Quick Launch toolbar you can use drag and drop to arrange the shortcuts in any order that you want.
Resize the Quick Launch toolbar to its default size and relock the Taskbar. This lets you use the all the space on the Taskbar as you normally would and still be able to launch any of your applications with a simple [Windows] keystroke.

Other Win Key combinations
[Windows] key shortcuts:

[Windows]+T: Cycles through programs using the Live Taskbar feature.
[Windows]+[Spacebar]: Brings the Windows Sidebar to the foreground.

Views menu
If you’re using Windows Explorer to work with your files and folders, you’ve probably already discovered the new Views menu. You just click the arrow next to the Views icon on the toolbar to bring up the Views menu and then drag the slider up or down to change the size and appearance of the file and folder icons.
The slider on the Views menu has seven settings that range from Extra Large Icons to Tiles.
While clicking the icon and dragging the slider is simple enough there is an easier way. Simply hold down the [Ctrl] key and scroll your mouse wheel up and down to resize the icons from Tiles to Extra Large Icons.

Using the [Ctrl] key and the mouse wheel combination also works on the Desktop. While the Desktop is selected, just hold down the [Ctrl] key and scroll your mouse wheel up and down to resize the icons from a microscopic 16 x 16 all the way up to huge 256 x 256 renditions.

Reveal the Menu Bar in Windows Explorer
The Menu Bar in Windows Explorer is no longer visible. Just press [Alt] key to toggle the Menu Bar on and off.
If you’d rather have the Menu Bar visible all of the time, just click the arrow next to the Organize icon on the toolbar, open the Layout submenu and select Menu Bar.
Reveal the Menu Bar in Internet Explorer 7
Just press [Alt] key to toggle the Menu Bar on and off.
If you want the Menu Bar visible all of the time, pull down the View menu, open the Toolbars submenu, and select Menu Bar.

Instantly copy a path to the Clipboard
Have you ever wanted to obtain a copy of the path of a file nested deep down in your hard drive’s organization structure? If so, you know the drill, launch Windows Explorer, traverse the directory to the file, select the contents of the address bar, copy the path, paste it in Notepad, and then type the filename itself.
Fortunately, with Windows Vista, you no longer have to perform such acrobatics just to get the path to a file. All you have to do is hold down the [Shift] key, right-click on the file or folder, and select the new command titled Copy as Path, as shown in Figure G. When you do, the path to the file or folder is copied to the Clipboard and you can simply paste it anywhere you want.

Parts From Paul Thurrott's winsupersite.com, ZDNet and My Observances

Tips Index
Installing	Upgrade	Make text easier to read	Get a quick system checkup
Quick Launch bar	Pump up the volume	Adjust the border thickness of all windows	Switching between Windows Aero and Standard Aero
Back it all up	Enable Aero	Change the Product Key	Get Flip3D to stay on-screen
Vista System Restore	Make Security Center go away	Setting up ReadyBoost	Skip the product ID
Advanced power management	Vista's rollback feature	Wireless Networking	What to know about product keys
Enable Games in Vista Business Edition	Vista Shortcuts & Customizations	Full path to a file	Change file extension associations
Vista Sidebar	Why do I get an Access Denied error when trying to save my files?	Did Microsoft Go Too Far with Vista Security?