Windows Vista is an astonishingly complex piece of software, with hundreds of hidden features. But it's not hard to uncover its secrets; you just need to know where to look.
If you have bought a PC at any point over the past 18 months, it's likely you have already experienced Windows Vista. Its the operating system (OS) that comes installed on the most new PCs (and has also been available as an upgrade) since after few months of its release. That might make it sound like an old news, but since the lifespan of Microsoft's previous OS - Windows XP - covered more than six years (and counting), Vista is still very much the new kid in town.
Now that the initial fuss has died down, however its plain to see that, while Vista is, on the surface, disarmingly simple to use, it still has plenty of surprises up its sleeve. In addition to the software's well-documented selling points, there are many , many more features to uncover, including entire alternative methods to control your PC, help solving technical problems, and a virtually limitless number of ways to tweak or combine various settings in order to get your computer to look, sound and act the way you want it to.
Over te next 150 or so pages, we'll be uncovering many of these lesser-known features and functions, revealing things you may not even have known your PC could do. We'll be also examining the hidden flaws that lurk within Windows and demonstrating how, with the help of our cover CD, you can plug some of the gaping holes left in the OS.
But before we do any of that, it's important to establish the basics. And to do that we need to go right back to the beginning.
World domination
Today, Windows is the worldwide dominant OS. According to estimates, roughly nine out of computers have a version of Windows installed on them. There are other operating systems in existence – MAC OS X and Linux into a few, – though no other OS enjoys anything like the success of Microsoft’s Software. But what exactly is an OS and why do we need one in the first place?
The answer is simple. For your pc to work, it is necessary to have some software that ties together all the various hardware components inside your computer (and out). The OS also provides a user interface of some kind, so that it’s possible for people to find your way around, run applications and edit files.
Windows first started appearing on computer screen in 1985. Its name described the way in which the then revolutionary graphical user interface (or GUI) presented window-like pane in which you could organize and navigate your programs and files. We take that for granted these days, but before windows 1.0, most operating systems simply provided you with a blank screen and a command prompt.
Windows 3.1 was the foundation stone for future OSs
With the launch of windows 3.1 in 1992, Microsoft coalesced many of its ideas into an OS that is easily identifiable as the foundation stone for the windows we know and use today. By the stage, Windows was already developing into something more that just a straightforward OS, providing a suite of useful software tools as part of the package. Windows 3.1 came with a file manager for browsing files and folders, as well as an early version of Windows Control Panel for customizing settings and the modest collection of built-in mini-applications and utilities, including a text editor, a clock, a print Manager and some familiar games – specifically Minesweeper and solitaire.
Full of features
As windows grew, it expanded on the range of built-in applications – known by many as applets. By the time Windows 95 came on the scene three years later, it was positively bristling with extra features and handy tools. It was in Windows 95 that we first saw the start button and start Menu, for example – something relatively small but significant enough to remain a central part of Windows right up to Vista. Also included were Windows Explorer, a Search function, networking features, a media player, a sound recorder and a fully customizable desktop, all of which can still be found in Windows today.
Over the years, subsequent Windows releases have brought with them even more features. Windows 98 introduces USB support. Windows ME came with a broader range of internet and multimedia tools, including the video-editing application Windows Movie Maker. In 2001, Windows XP provided the biggest revamp of Microsoft’s OS till date. It was built using a completely different architecture to previous consumer editions of Windows and featured a radically overhauled graphical interface. Its also had a startling array of applets, features and options. XP’s control panel came with loads of tweaks and settings that allowed you to customize your experience. Its built-in Media Player was a proper grown-up music and movie program, with streaming capabilities, CD ripping and burning functions and a library-type interface. Crucially, XP was fully internet-ready – well, almost. Its arrival happily coincided with the proliferation of home broadband and connections and its built-in networking, web browsing and email functions made it easy for users to get online and make the most of what the net had to offer. However, early editions of XP were heavily criticized for their lack of security features. In order to protect their PCs against internet-borne threats such as viruses, hackers, spyware and other evils, XP users were forced to turn to third-party security software.
Customer Support
Microsoft went some way to making up for this by drip-feeding security updates and patches as free downloadable updates and by adding improved security features to XP via a downloadable Service Pack (SP2). This practice of continually adding features, functions and fixes via updates continues today and forms a large part of Microsoft’s strategy for Vista. Most of these downloads add small but important software updates to address specific security issues or bugs as they are discovered, but occasionally new or improved features are added too. Few years back Microsoft issued the first Vista Service Pack (SP1), which brought together all the updates and patches thus far and introduced a few new features, including enhanced hibernation and file copying.
Vista was released to a mixed reception in 2007. Much of the criticism centred on Vista’s increased system requirements and problems with backwards compatibility. The truth is, however, Microsoft has never built a safer, more flexible, better looking or more features-packed operating system than Vista.
Vista comes with almost all of the features from previous versions of windows – most of which have been radically overhauled and are either easier to use (such as Vista’s improved networking tools), much more effective (such as security center) or include vastly improved performance or more options (such as Windows Movie Maker). Not only that, Microsoft has added even more extras to Vista than it did with XP. Now there’s a proper photo Gallery, a built-in backup utility , an alternative Media Center Interface and those are just a few of the higher profile new arrivals. With Vista, the features list has spiralled out of proportion: so much so that it’s barely feasible to list each individual component that makes up the whole.
Indeed, if we were to take a critical angle for a moment, we would perhaps pick up Microsoft on the mixed messages Vista send out. On the one hand, it’s the simplest Windows release to date, thanks to features like instant Search which makes it easy to find anything – programs, files, settings – by typing a keyword into the start menu search box. At the same time, it’s also the most complex and unwieldy version of Windows till date, with too many tools to take in at once and dozens of options many users may never discover.
Why so secret?
Many of Vista’s features seems to be hidden away in the depths of the operating system, but why would Microsoft Intentionally make such things so hard to find? The answer is probably quite simple; unlike most software – or any other piece of technology for that matter – Windows doesn’t come with an instruction manual. And if it did, it would probably make war and peace look like a lightweight read. In place of a ‘hard copy’ manual, Vista comes with much improved, searchable Help and support Center built into the start menu. It’s very useful and comes with a selection of troubleshooting tools that can come in handy if you’re ever in a scrape. However, the plain fact is that it’s difficult to browse in the same way that a physical guide book a magazine is. But then that’s where we come in.
Windows Weaknesses
That’s not Vista’s only downside, either. Despite the huge influx of features and options, there are still many areas in which Windows is curiously lacking. The most obvious oversight is Vista’s absence of built-in anti-virus protection. Other areas, are still somewhat weak, too. On top of that, may of Vista’s much-touched cosmetic elements can slow down performance, especially on older PCs, while some peripherals and software that worked with XP may run into problems when used with Vista. In fact, with a little know-how it’s easy to plug these gaps and iron out performance and compatibility problem. We’ll be doing just that later on.
Other operating systems
There are two major alternatives to Windows, MAS OSX, available only for apple MAC Computers, and Linux, which is an open source OS available for anyone for download and install for free and comes in the shape of a number if different user interfaces – known as ‘distros’.
Both OSs easily equal Windows Vista in terms of the number of built-in features and functions. The latest version of OSX (OSX 10.9 or mountain Lion), for example, comes with some very handy extras, such as Time Machine (a visual backup utility) and Back to my MAC (Which allows you to access your home computer over the INTERNET). Linux Distros like Ubuntu go one step further, as well as including a vast number of utilities and applications from the get-go (including a full office suite), further features can be added at will - and for free .
With so many features, utilities, settings and options tucked away in every corner, it’s only natural that people coming to the PS for the first time might not initially recognize Vista’s full potential. And that’s precisely where we pickup the story. Its is our aim to both uncover Windows Vista features you may not know about and show how to get more from the features you already familiar with. We want to make sure you maximize your possibilities and put you charge of your PC, whether you’re exploring new avenues, getting to grips with the basics, sorting out a problem of just setting your computer up so it works the way you want it to.
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