Windows Vista's installer can detect serial-ATA

Windows Vista's installer can detect serial-ATA (SATA) drives without the need to provide a driver diskette. Don't bother creating a diskette for your SATA drives before you install Vista.

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Prasanna Vignesh
MCPD | Web Developer

You can save your progress in most of the games included with Windows Vista—even the carry-overs from earlier versions of Windows.

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Prasanna Vignesh
MCPD | Web Developer

Create XML documents

You can create XML documents, which are more secure than regular text files or even word processor docs. Just create a document in a word processor, print it via the options menu, and select the XPS printer.

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Prasanna Vignesh
MCPD | Web Developer

If you upgrade your graphics card in preparation for Windows Vista


If you upgrade your graphics card in preparation for Windows Vista, be sure to get a new card with as much local memory as possible. Since Windows Vista renders everything—even the desktop and windows them-selves—as 3D surfaces, local 3D memory greatly improves performance...sometimes even more than a more powerful GPU.

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Prasanna Vignesh
MCPD | Web Developer

Help system

When using the Help system, it's usually advantageous to include Microsoft's online database in your search. The online/offline status of your search is located on the bottom right of the Help window. You can click it to toggle.

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Prasanna Vignesh
MCPD | Web Developer

Games folder is a powerful repository of all things gaming in Windows Vista

The Games folder is a powerful repository of all things gaming. From within, you launch games, update games with the latest patches, enable parental controls to protect younger users from harmful content, and more. Invoke it by clicking Start/Games.

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Prasanna Vignesh
MCPD | Web Developer

A quick double-click closes the window vista



Do you use the icon in the upper left corner of system and application windows? A quick double-click closes the window (instead of a single click on the X at the upper right). Though Microsoft left the icon out in Vista, the function remains

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Prasanna Vignesh
MCPD | Web Developer

Microsoft Windows Explorer in vista

In Microsoft Windows Explorer, you can use column headers (Name, Size, and so on) to sort files. Savvy users may right-click on a column head to remove items or add some—say, Dimensions for images. There are around 45 such columns available in Windows XP. Windows Vista has well over 250, covering a multitude of metadata.

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Prasanna Vignesh
MCPD | Web Developer

If you've become used to surfing your Program Menu to get to applications.

If you've become used to surfing your Program Menu to get to applications, you'll be in for a shock when you first use Microsoft Windows Vista. The new Program Menu shows you only recently used applications and requires extra clicks to navigate to submenus. This can be very frustrating but, thankfully, the Search box Microsoft has added to the Start menu is a great replacement—as long as you're an accurate typist. As quickly as you can type, it returns intelligent results in apps, files, even e-mail messages.

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Prasanna Vignesh
MCPD | Web Developer

Customize the size of desktop and file icons.

For some time, it has been possible to adjust font size in office documents and Web browsers simply by holding down the CTRL key while rolling your mouse wheel up and down. In Vista, the same action lets you tweak the size of your desktop icons. Just click on an empty area of the desktop, hold down CTRL, and spin your mouse wheel until the icons are the size you want. You can also adjust the size of your file or folder icons in Windows Explorer by doing the same thing. This is extremely handy for viewing thumbnails of images..

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Prasanna Vignesh
MCPD | Web Developer