9 books in 1—your key to Windows Vista survival!
Your one-stop guide to new Vista features, video, music, networks, cool hardware, and more
Tame and tease Vista's new features with the expert advice in these handy minibooks. From gadgets to glass, desktops to downloads, backups to browsers, find what you need to know about Vista, iPods, free antivirus software, pictures, scumbusting, Windows renovation and resuscitation, and much more.
Discover how to
- Choose and install the right Vista version
- Rip and burn discs of data, music, or movies
- Organize your desktop files and folders
- Spruce up pictures in the Photo Gallery
- Play music and podcasts anywhere
Welcome to Windows Vista All-In-One Desk Reference For Dummies — the no-bull, one-stop Vista reference for the rest of us. Microsoft spent almost five years putting Vista together, and it shows. From a fervent (and frequently irritating) devotion to security at all costs, to a new user interface crackling with Hollywood glitter, to enormous strides in the parts of Windows that folks use most, Vista rates as a landmark achievement in the history of computing.
At the same time, Windows still throws conniption fits like an ornery little cuss, with pitfalls and pratfalls and utterly inscrutable shenanigans galore. If you think using Vista is easy, you haven’t tried hard enough.
If some of this sounds vaguely familiar, it should. Microsoft has touted “security” among the number-one reasons for upgrading Windows in each version over the past decade. User interface improvements have played a crucial role in selling Windows to the unwashed masses since the days when “overlapping windows” — the ability to put one window on top of another — counted as a major achievement.
But this version of Windows is different. No, really. Security improvements go down deep; they aren’t plastered in a thin layer over the top, as has been the case so many times before. The new Aero Glass interface qualifies as a “glittergrade” — a term of derision among propellerheads — to be sure, but being able to peek through the edges of your windows also helps you find the programs and data you want faster, easier, and more accurately. The Sidebar may bear more than a passing resemblance to Konfabulator (now known as Yahoo! Widgets) and a nearly identical Mac OS/X rip-off, er, feature, but Vista’s Sidebar beats the living daylights out of Windows XP’s Active Desktop, which never worked worth the powder to blow it to Redmond.
When it comes to music and movies and photos, Vista has run out far, far ahead of the parade, at least on the PC. If you do anything with any kind of media — which is to say, if you have a life — Vista rules.
