AdventuresInVista
Hints, Tips & Tricks for Microsoft Windows Vista

The All New Start Menu
20 February 2007 in General & Screens + Vids | Comments (1)

Windows Vista has an all new Start Menu. Well, almost new. It certainly looks a lot cooler (like most things in Vista it’s semi-transparent), but it also works differently, too.

The first you’ll notice is that MS have finally got rid of the stupid My prefix, so on the right hand side you now have “Computer”, “Documents”, etc. Far more sensible if you ask me. I never could quite work out why my my computer was talking to me as though it was my head?

As well as all the old right-hand side items, we now have a “Default Programs” item. This is quite a useful feature (I’ll cover it in more depth later), but in essence it allows you to change things like the default program used when you double click on a file, what happens when you insert a CD, etc.

The left hand column is again taken up with your Frequently Used Programs, and the good news is you can have a lot more now.

All Programs now opens in the left column with a scrollable list within the Start Menu, with a Back link to return to your Frequently Used list. This new system takes a bit of getting used to, and to be honest I find it easier to use the ‘Start Search’ facility. Click the Windows logo, and start typing. It searches everything… programs, documents, links, favourites.

Is it an improvement? Well, I think so. Let me know what you think in the comments.

So, what does it look like?
19 February 2007 in General & Screens + Vids | Comments (0)

Apparently I need to add some images to AdventuresInVista. Or at least, that’s what I’ve been told. So, here is a lovely picture of my Windows Vista desktop…

Click here to view larger version

Doesn’t it look lovely? First of all, we have the new Start button, which doesn’t say Start anymore - its just a big Windows logo.

Then we have the Windows Sidebar on the right. As you can see I’ve loaded it full of useful gadgets (it’s completely customisable), and in a dual-monitor setup you can move it to the second monitor out the way. You can see one “gadget” which just says “Service not available”. This is actually a stock quotes gadget, but I wasn’t connected to the net when I took the screenshot.

Finally, we have the Welcome Center. This pops up everytime you turn your PC on (until you switch it off) and gives you a brief overview of your system setup, plus links to some vaguely useful features.

There’s plenty of other improvements, which I’ll be discussing in future posts - stay tuned!