By David A. Karp
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Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Get Started with Windows Vista

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Windows Vista is like a papaya: sleek on the outside, but a big mess on the inside.

Love it or hate it, Vista is what Microsoft is serving up right now. Whether it goes down smoothly or gives you heartburn is up to you.

On the plus side, Vista gives you a new, faster Search tool; the shiny, translucent "Glass" interface; and a revamped Windows Explorer. It's also the first version of Windows where you can get Tablet PC and Media Center in the same package, which means you can use it to build a DVR (Digital Video Recorder) without a keyboard. And Vista handles videos and pictures much better than earlier versions of Windows, with improved thumbnail and metadata support built right into Windows Explorer.

As for the minuses, Vista seems intolerably slow compared with its predecessors, and its reliability leaves something to be desired. The Green Ribbon of Death is an everyday occurrence, bringing down Windows Explorer if you so much as bat your eyes at it. And the horrendously annoying User Access Control (UAC) prompt forces you to endure repeated prompts for even the most mundane tasks in Control Panel.

Fortunately, you can deal with most of the minuses. For instance, to tame UAC, see . Or, to fix the Green Ribbon of Death (or the Blue Screen of Death for that matter), see . And to make Vista run faster, check out . But if you want to take stock of what you have and install the operating system on your PC, then is for you.

Internally, Windows Vista refers to itself as Windows 6.0. When held up against Windows 2000 (Windows 5.0) or XP (5.1), that means nothing more than the fact that Microsoft considers Vista to be a major milestone, and the basis for its operating systems for the next few years at least. (It's been seven years since Windows 2000.)

Windows Vista is available in several different editions, each of which is supposedly intended for a different market. They're all the same version—effectively, the same software—differing only in the toys included in the box.

The top of the line is the Ultimate edition, available at more than twice the cost of the baseline

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Editions of Vista

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Internally, Windows Vista refers to itself as Windows 6.0. When held up against Windows 2000 (Windows 5.0) or XP (5.1), that means nothing more than the fact that Microsoft considers Vista to be a major milestone, and the basis for its operating systems for the next few years at least. (It's been seven years since Windows 2000.)

Windows Vista is available in several different editions, each of which is supposedly intended for a different market. They're all the same version—effectively, the same software—differing only in the toys included in the box.

The top of the line is the Ultimate edition, available at more than twice the cost of the baseline Home Basic edition. The Home Premium and Business editions include most of the extras found in Ultimate, but at a cost only slightly higher than Home Basic. On the fringe, you'll find the Starter and Enterprise editions, as well as Windows Home Server. See the "" sidebar, next, for details on the 64-bit versions of Vista.

More bits gets you access to more memory. The processor inside your PC communicates with your system memory (RAM) with numeric addressing. Thus the maximum amount of memory a 32-bit processor can address is 2³² bytes, or 4 gigabytes. Newer 64-bit processors—not to mention the 64-bit operating systems that run on them—can address 2⁶⁴ bytes of memory, or 17,179,869,184 gigabytes (16 exabytes) of RAM.

(17 million gigabytes may sound like a lot of space now, but it won't be long before you'll be taking baby pictures with an 8-gigapixel digital camera.)

Windows NT, released in 1993, was Microsoft's first fully 32-bit operating system. But it took eight years before the platform, which had since evolved into Windows 2000 and then XP, became mainstream. (For those keeping track, Windows 9x doesn't count because it was a hybrid OS that ran 32-bit applications on a 16-bit DOS foundation, which was one of the reasons it was so unstable.) 64-bit Windows became a reality in XP, but Vista is Microsoft's first serious attempt to make 64-bit computing mainstream. But the question is, how mainstream is it?

While 64-bit Vista can run most 32-bit applications without a problem, it's not compatible with 32-bit hardware drivers or 32-bit utilities like Windows Explorer extensions (e.g., context menu add-ons). This means that you need a native 64-bit driver for every device on your PC. And since 64-bit Vista won't load

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Install Windows Vista

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Installing an operating system is not among the 10 "must have" experiences in your life. Rather, it can be a slow, agonizing process, and can be unceremoniously aborted for a variety of reasons.

Depending on your hardware, just booting up the setup disc can be a headache. You then must sit and wait... and wait... for Windows to copy some 2,000 files to your hard disk and then go through the excruciating process of "configuring" your computer. When it finally boots—assuming it even makes it this far—you then have the unenviable task of having to download and install more than a hundred megabytes' worth of updates and fixes. And when all is said and done, you still will need to go through and turn off all of the annoying "features" littered throughout the interface and then fix the myriad of problems that are sure to pop up.

But the worst part is the feeling you can't shake: that you chose to install Windows Vista on your machine, and now you've got to live with it. (Of course, this may not apply to you if you got Vista preinstalled on a new PC, at least not yet....)

Both the steps to begin the installation procedure and the procedure itself can vary, depending on what's already installed on your system (if anything) and how you choose to approach the task. If you're installing over an older version of Windows, use to cross-reference the old version with the edition of Vista you're installing and determine whether or not upgrading is an option.

Table : Vista upgrade compatibility chart; a checkmark (✓) means you can upgrade from within the older version, no checkmark means you need to perform a clean install

	Vista Home Basic	Vista Home Premium	Vista Business	Vista Ultimate
Windows XP Professional			✓	✓
Windows XP Home	✓	✓

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Migration to Windows Vista

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Migration is typically a term used by system administrators to describe the lengthy process of upgrading some or all the computers in an organization to a new software product, but nearly all of the issues apply to anyone upgrading to Windows Vista from an earlier version.

As you've probably discovered on your own, there are a number of hardware and software products that just won't work with Vista (particularly if you're using the 64-bit version). Some of these products are simply awaiting driver updates from their respective manufacturers, while others have been abandoned because their manufacturers don't want to invest the resources into supporting retired products.

If you haven't yet upgraded to Windows Vista, the easiest way to predict what will work and what won't is to use the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor (UA), available at http://www.microsoft.com/vista. Although UA is unlikely to give you any false positives—wherein it tells you something works with Vista when in fact it won't—it will construct a laundry list of potential problems with which you can follow up on your own. (Unfortunately, UA won't run on 64-bit XP.)

For instance, UA might bring to your attention that your printer, antivirus software, backup software, CD burning software, and perhaps your Bluetooth adapter are all unsupported on Vista. So, this means you'll definitely need new versions of your antivirus and backup software (see ) and your CD burning software (). You'll also need to check with the manufacturers of your printer and Bluetooth adapter to see whether they've released native Vista drivers; if not, and you don't want to wait, you'll need to replace those devices.

Disorientation is not an uncommon sensation among those users coming to Vista from earlier versions of Windows. Here's where you can find some of the more elusive entities you may have grown accustomed to in Windows XP:

Add or Remove Programs

This is still in Control Panel, but now it's called Programs and Features.

Address Bar

The path box in Windows Explorer doubles as an address bar, so if you want to type a path or copy the current path to the clipboard, click just to the right of the text, and Explorer will show you a familiar, backslash-equipped folder path.

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Chapter 2: Shell Tweaks

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What makes an ideal user interface? Of course, the phrase "easy to use" springs to mind, but that could mean anything. Some of us find large, friendly controls that need no explanation to be "easy," while those more experienced may consider smaller, less obtrusive controls to be easier to use on a daily basis. And some might argue that the best interface is no interface at all.

At first glance, it seems like Microsoft messed around with the shell—the desktop interface, including the Start menu and Windows Explorer—more than anything else when assembling Windows Vista. Sure, Microsoft made tons of changes under the hood (covered in subsequent chapters), but to those familiar with, say, Windows XP, the most immediately apparent changes to the operating system have been made to Windows Explorer and its cohorts.

As a result, the sensation most seasoned Windows users will likely experience when they open Vista's Explorer for the first time is... disorientation.

shows Windows Explorer as it appears right out of the box.

Figure : Windows Explorer may have been gussied up for Windows Vista, but everything you need is still within reach

The formal Windows Explorer shortcut is buried deep in the Start menu, under All Programs → Accessories, but you can open an Explorer window by double-clicking any folder icon on the desktop or selecting one of the locations on the righthand column of the Start menu (e.g., Documents, Pictures, Music, Games). Mercifully, Microsoft finally dropped the cutesy "My" prefix used in earlier versions of Windows, so the My Pictures folder is now merely Pictures.

While the basic layout is more or less the same as versions of Explorer dating back to 1995, the menu and the title bar are both gone, replaced with many subtle—almost hidden—controls that surprisingly offer more functionality than any previous version. But that's only the beginning. The righthand pane of the window more closely resembles a restaurant menu than a list of files, which does end up making it look more friendly, if a little weird. And to the left, where you'd expect to find the folder tree, resides the

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Customize Windows Explorer

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Many aspects of the way Windows works can be controlled by changing settings scattered throughout the interface. When it comes to the look and feel of Windows Explorer, and the way it displays and handles your files, the Folder Options window is a good place to start. In Explorer, open the Organize drop-down and select Folder and Search Options (or open Folder Options in Control Panel).

As explained in "," Microsoft didn't finish revamping Control Panel before shipping Windows Vista. As a result, we have windows like Folder Options filled with holdover features that aren't really applicable anymore, such as these found under the General tab:

Tasks

This misnamed option has nothing to do with the Tasks links shown in some Control Panel pages. Rather, choose Use Windows classic folders to turn on the menu bar that's hidden by default, and hide the Preview and Details panes. Of course, you can temporarily show the menu bar at any time by pressing the Alt key, and customize all of Explorer's panes by selecting Layout from the Organize drop-down.

Browse folders

It doesn't make any difference which option you select here, unless you hide the folder tree in Windows Explorer by opening the Organize drop-down and selecting Layout → Navigation Pane.

Use the Ctrl key when double-clicking folder icons to override your choice here. Or, right-click any folder icon and select Open (not the bolded Explore) to open the folder in a new window.

Click items as follows

Set this to Single-click to open an item if you like the idea of navigating most of Windows as though it were a web site—in other words, without ever having to double-click to open an item.

If you choose the single-click interface, you'll no longer be able to click an item twice slowly to rename it; instead, you must either right-click and select Rename or carefully move the mouse pointer so that it is hovering over the icon and press the F2 key.

The point of double-clicking is to prevent you from accidentally opening a program or folder when you're just trying to select, delete, move, copy, or rename the file. If you don't like double-clicking, but aren't comfortable with the single-click interface Explorer provides, most pointing devices (mice, styli, trackballs) with more than two buttons allow you to program the additional buttons to handle double-click duty.

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Working with Files and Folders

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What is Windows Explorer if not a file manager at heart? Sure, the Start menu is a home-base of sorts, but the desktop and your folders are basically there to store your stuff. When it comes to copying, moving, renaming, deleting, and opening files, Explorer is where it's at. The rest of this Chapter includes topics on tweaking Vista's file management features so you can work with your stuff without getting so annoyed.

Most people first realize that something is wrong with Vista when they try to copy or move files, and they see the little green progress window shown in . It'd be understandable to see this window on screen for a minute or two if you're copying a lot of data, but should it really take three full minutes to move one small file, or eight minutes to delete another?

Figure : Seen this window a lot lately? This tiny "" is one of the signs that not all is right in the world of Vista

This is one of two "Green Ribbons of Death" in Windows Vista, the other being the larger progress bar—the one dissected in —that appears at the top of the Windows Explorer window in the address bar/path box. So, what's going on?

It turns out that several things can cause Windows Explorer to take a long time copying, moving, or deleting files, and some of them are actually legitimate.

First, Windows Explorer takes time to examine the files and folders you're copying, moving, etc., and checks—ahead of time—to see whether there are any conflicts, such as existing files in the destination folder or security issues that need your attention. That's why you'll see Vista's nifty confirmation window () just once for 34 conflicts, rather than the 34 individual confirmations you'd have to endure in earlier versions of Windows.

Figure : This handy new confirmation window lets you deal with all the conflicts at once, rather than having to click through a bunch of windows, but it ends up causing other problems

The confirmation window in is actually quite nice because of all the choices you get. If you're copying media files (e.g., photos, videos, PDF documents), you'll see thumbnail previews to aid your decision; you can even right-click the thumbnails directly in this window if you want to work with the files without interrupting the file operation. What's more, you can choose to copy or move the file

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Chapter 3: The Registry

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The Registry is deceptive. At first glance, it's a massive collection of esoteric settings and cryptic codes. But once you get cozy with it, you'll find most of the Registry well-organized, in plain English, and with many of its components illustrating their own structure.

It's also deceptive in its scope. Much of what seems hardcoded in Windows Vista is indeed governed by data in the Registry: delete a certain key, and an icon disappears from the Computer folder. But as you dig deeper, you'll find certain things (like parts of the "file types" system) have been jury-rigged to act a certain way despite what's in the Registry.

In essence, the Registry is a database containing all the settings for Windows and most of the applications installed on your system. All of your file type associations—the links between your documents and the applications that created them—are built from Registry data. Your network settings, your hardware settings, each of your applications' customizable toolbars, and even Windows' own Control Panel settings are all stored in the Registry. And the various software components, the building blocks of nearly all your programs (not to mention Windows itself), are "registered" in your Registry.

But who cares? Is the storage mechanism nearly as important as the settings themselves?

The value of diving into the Registry is in discovering the things in the Registry that can only be changed by editing it directly. You can fix misbehaving applications, uncover hidden features, and turn off annoying habits of Windows you thought you had to live with. Indeed, a lot of the solutions in this book take advantage of a little Registry hacking.

Now for the obligatory warning. You can irreversibly disable certain components of Windows Vista—or even prevent Windows from loading altogether—by changing certain settings in the Registry. Sure, most modern software is designed to repair broken settings, but it's assured that very few software developers have taken the time to anticipate all the weird things you'll undoubtedly do to your PC. I'm certainly not suggesting that you run and hide, but rather that you employ some of the safeguards described on these pages—such as backing up—before you start hacking the Registry to bits. For instance, take a few moments to create a Registry patch—explained later in this chapter—

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The Registry Editor

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Most of the changes to the Registry are performed behind the scenes by the applications that you run, as well as by Windows—settings and other information are read from and written to the Registry constantly. But the primary means of editing Registry keys and values directly is the Registry Editor (open the Start menu, type regedit, and then press Enter), included with all editions of Windows Vista.

Although the Registry is stored in multiple files on your hard disk, it is represented by a single logical hierarchical structure, similar to the folders on your hard disk. When you open the Registry Editor, you'll see a window divided into two panes (as shown in ). The left side shows a tree with folders, and the right side shows the contents of the currently selected folder. Now, these aren't really folders—this is just a convenient and familiar method of organizing and displaying the information stored in your Registry.

Figure : The Registry Editor lets you view and change the contents of the Registry

Each folder-like object is called a key. Each key can contain other keys, as well as values. Values contain the actual information stored in the Registry, while keys are used only to organize the values. Keys are shown only in the left pane; values are shown only in the right pane (unlike Windows Explorer, where folders are shown in both panes).

To display the contents of a key (folder), just click the desired key name on the left, and the values contained therein will be listed in alphabetical order on the right side. To expand a certain branch to show its subkeys, click the tiny arrow to the left of any folder (or double-click the folder name).

Editing the Registry generally involves navigating down through branches to a particular key and then modifying an existing value or creating a new key or value. For instance, this following Registry path:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows

points to the location of the Windows key, which you can get to by expanding the HKEY_CURRENT_USER branch, then Software, then Microsoft, and then finally clicking

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The Structure of the Registry

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There are five primary, or "root," branches, each containing a specific portion of the information stored in the Registry. These root keys can't be deleted, renamed, or moved, because they are the basis for the organization of the Registry. They are:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT

This branch contains the information that comprises your file type associations and the registered software components (called classes) used by Windows and many of your applications.

This entire branch is a symbolic link, or "mirror," of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes, but is displayed separately here for convenience and, of course, to confuse you.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER

This branch simply points to a portion of the HKEY_USERS root key (later in this section) representing the currently logged-in user. This way, any application can read and write settings for the current user without having to know which user is currently logged in.

In each user's branch are the settings for that user, such as Control Panel settings and Explorer preferences. Most applications store user-specific information here as well, such as toolbars, high scores for games, and other personal settings.

The settings for the current user are divided into several categories, such as AppEvents, Control Panel, Identities, Software, and System. The most useful of these branches, Software, contains a branch for almost every application installed on your computer, arranged by manufacturer. Here and in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE (discussed later) can be found all of your application settings. As though Windows was just another application on your system, you'll find most user-specific Windows settings in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

This branch contains information about all of the hardware and software installed on your computer that isn't specific to the currently logged-in user. The settings in this branch are the same for all users on your system.

The sub-branch of most interest here is the SOFTWARE branch, which contains all of the information specific to the applications installed on your computer. Both this branch and the aforementioned

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Registry Tasks and Tools

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So, that's it for Registry basics. The real fun begins with the various Registry tools you can use, and what you can do with them.

The Registry Editor has a simple (to a fault) Search feature, allowing you to search through all the keys and values for text. Just select Find from the Registry Editor's Edit menu, type the desired text (), and click Find Next.

Figure : Use Registry Editor's Search feature to find text in key names, value names, and value data

The Registry Editor's Search feature is pretty terrible. For one, it's hopelessly slow, and doesn't show a history of past searches. But its biggest drawback is that it only shows one match at a time; you have to click Find Next repeatedly to cycle through all the search results, one by one. And if you accidentally double-click Find Next, there's no going backward. Finally, there's no search-and-replace feature, but more on that later.

Press Ctrl-F or select Edit → Find to begin a search at the selected key. (Scroll to the top and select Computer beforehand to search the entire Registry.)

In the Find window, make sure that all three options in the Look at section are checked, unless you know specifically that what you're looking for is solely a Key, a Value (value name), or Data (value contents). You'll also usually want the Match whole string only option turned off, unless you're searching for text that commonly appears in other words; searching for handle might otherwise trigger entries like PersistentHandler and TeachAndLearn.

The Registry Editor stops once it finds the first match to your search term; just press F3 to continue searching for the next match. If you want to show all the matches at once, use Registry Agent, introduced in the next section.

You may need to employ some tricks to find certain types of things in the Registry, such as:

Context menu items

Context menu items are usually stored in the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT branch (see "," later in this chapter). When searching for any menu items, keep in mind that most of them have underlined characters to signify keyboard shortcuts, even though, ironically, Windows Vista doesn't display them by default. For instance, the

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File Type Associations

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File type associations are the links between your documents and the applications that use them. The most apparent use of this feature is that, for example, Windows knows to open Notepad when you double-click a text document on the desktop or show you an online advertisement for anatomical enhancement if you click the link in a spam email message.

One might assume that the aforementioned text file somehow knows it's a Notepad document, but that isn't the case. Instead, Windows determines how to handle a file based solely on the filename extension. The extension is the group of letters—usually three—that follow the period in most filenames. For example, the extension of the file Readme.txt is .txt, signifying a plain-text file. Likewise, the extension of Resume.docx is .docx, which means it's a word processor document in the Microsoft Word 2007 file format.

There are a number of filename extension databases on the Web, which is useful if you encounter a file you can't open and don't recognize. Some of the better resources include http://wikipedia.org/wiki/list_of_file_formats and http://filext.com. Alternatively, you can double-click the unknown file and when Windows asks you what you want to do (), select Use the Web service to find the correct program, and click OK. Just don't be surprised if you don't get a satisfying response.

Figure : If you see this window, the selected file's filename extension isn't currently registered on your PC

It may seem silly that so much of Windows' ability to open files rests on something as easy to break as the filename, but the design does have its advantages. For instance, it's fairly easy to change the program used to open all your digital photos without having to modify all your .jpg files to do it.

The biggest flaw in the system is that Windows hides filename extensions by default, which is why Windows Explorer shows only Readme instead of Readme.txt. Fortunately, this is easy enough to change; just open Folder Options in Control Panel (or click Organize → Folder and Search Options in Windows Explorer). In the Folder Options window, choose the

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Chapter 4: Working with Media

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In the old days, media problems meant using a butter knife to pry a tape out of your VCR. Today, it means tracking down obscure drivers, repairing corrupt media files, hassling with overblown media players, and deciphering incoherent CD burning errors.

Microsoft wants you to think that Vista handles videos, pictures, music, and other media better than any previous version of Windows, and in some ways, it does. For one, Vista's hefty hardware requirements mean that your PC—should it be capable of running Vista—will have the power to handle any media task you throw at it. Windows Explorer recognizes photo, video, and audio files, and displays their embedded information alongside other details, like the file size and date. And Vista recognizes more media file formats and graphics hardware out of the box than, say, Windows XP. But as they say, the devil is in the details, and, as it turns out, in the codecs as well.

Ever encounter a video file Windows won't play? Unlike most other types of files, the filename extension alone doesn't dictate the encoding scheme. All .jpg image files use standard JPEG compression, but a given .mpg movie file may employ any one of dozens of available compression standards, called codecs. Without the proper codec for a video file, you won't be able to play the video or even convert it into another format.

A codec (which stands for compressor/decompressor) is software installed on your PC, akin to a device driver, with all the pitfalls and frustrations that implies. Codecs are frequently buggy, causing video distortion or even crashes. Vista only includes codecs for a few common standards; need anything else, and you're on your own. And, of course, the More Information link Media Player shows you when it can't play a video doesn't provide anything one would recognize as useful information.

To play a particular video, you need to install the same codec that was used to create (compress) the video in the first place, regardless of the player application you're using. To determine which codec was used, you'll need a program like GSpot (

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Playing Video

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Ever encounter a video file Windows won't play? Unlike most other types of files, the filename extension alone doesn't dictate the encoding scheme. All .jpg image files use standard JPEG compression, but a given .mpg movie file may employ any one of dozens of available compression standards, called codecs. Without the proper codec for a video file, you won't be able to play the video or even convert it into another format.

A codec (which stands for compressor/decompressor) is software installed on your PC, akin to a device driver, with all the pitfalls and frustrations that implies. Codecs are frequently buggy, causing video distortion or even crashes. Vista only includes codecs for a few common standards; need anything else, and you're on your own. And, of course, the More Information link Media Player shows you when it can't play a video doesn't provide anything one would recognize as useful information.

To play a particular video, you need to install the same codec that was used to create (compress) the video in the first place, regardless of the player application you're using. To determine which codec was used, you'll need a program like GSpot (http://www.headbands.com/gspot/) or AVIcodec (http://avicodec.duby.info), both of which are free. Just drag-drop the video file onto GSpot () or AVIcodec, and the program will display the file's video codec, audio codec, and other statistics.

Figure : Use GSpot to find the software necessary to play a given video clip

The codec utility may indicate that the required codec is already installed. As comforting as that may be, you might still need to download and install the latest version of the codec to play the troublesome video. Otherwise, you may not have all the latest bugs... er, fixes.

If one of these tools can't identify the codec, the file is probably corrupted or encoded with a nonstandard scheme. Provided you're not able to ask whoever created the file for information about the software used, the easiest trick is to open the file in a standard text editor and look for the four-digit 4CC code near the beginning. shows the code buried in a file,

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Handling Online Video

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Ideally, video should be no different than any other web content, but when was the last time you had trouble viewing static text and still images, or even hearing audio, in web pages? But videos are different, and for several reasons:

• The enormous size of video files forces web publishers to employ a series of tricks, such as nonstandard streaming protocols, dedicated video servers, and special browser plug-ins, to bring video to your desktop.
• The large number of competing formats means that you must have at least a half-dozen browser plug-ins—not to mention all the required codecs, described earlier in this chapter—in order to play most online video.
• The aforementioned plug-ins and codecs must be updated to keep up with the technology.
• Online video publishers—particularly news organizations—often jury-rig their content to make it difficult or impossible to download to your hard disk. This means they rely more heavily on special plug-ins, JavaScript, and other hand-waving, all of which increase the likelihood that you'll run into a problem when you watch their videos.

All of this simply means that playing and downloading online video can be a frustrating experience if you don't know about a few tools and tricks.

First and foremost, make sure you have the latest versions of these four major plug-ins installed in each web browser you use.

Plug-in	Download from	Filename(s) for IE	Filename(s) for Firefox and SeaMonkey
Quicktime	www.quicktime.com	qtplugin.ocx	npqtplugin.dll npqtpluginx.dll
RealPlayer	www.real.com

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Sound and Music

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Microsoft revamped the audio subsystem in Windows Vista in order to solve a series of problems it maintains caused stability and quality shortcomings in earlier versions. For one, Microsoft moved most of the code that handles sound out of the drivers and into another echelon of Vista's architecture. In short, this is why your sound doesn't work.

Next, Microsoft redesigned the tools you use to manage sound in Vista, such as the Volume Control and the Sound dialog in Control Panel. This is why you can't find anything.

As a result, manufacturers of sound cards simply discontinued their older products rather than trying to make them Vista-compatible. This is why you have to throw out your old sound card, and why you shouldn't spend too much on a new one.

Sound in Windows Vista is quite a bit more complicated than it needs to be, so troubleshooting sound problems is a real chore. The best way to fix a PC that won't play sound is with a systematic approach.

Start with the obvious. If you're using external speakers, make sure they're plugged in, turned on, and turned up. Try plugging the speakers into an iPod, home stereo, or other audio source to make sure they're actually working.

Using a laptop with integrated speakers? Most laptops have their own independent volume controls, and some are unlucky enough to have two or three. The first type is the old-school walkman-esque dial, usually found right next to the headphone/speaker jack (sometimes these dials only control external audio, but not always). The second type is usually found on the keyboard, accessed by holding the Fn key while pressing another key decorated with a speaker icon. The third type is found on newer laptops, in the group of media quick-access buttons. Make your best effort to turn all these controls up.

Sometimes the push-button volume controls on laptops operate the system volume directly, and sometimes they merely send signals to a Windows application that, in turn, controls the volume. If your laptop's volume controls don't seem to be working, the application with which they communicate may not be installed or running. You can usually download the media access software from the PC manufacturer's web site.

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Photos, Pictures, Images

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To Microsoft's credit, Vista's built-in support for photos is much better than XP's, and it's about time. It would be even better if it all worked properly.

For instance, Windows Explorer has a nifty thumbnail display, along with the handy Views pull-down that lets you quickly scale the thumbnails or switch to the Details view (). Now, Explorer is supposed to choose the default view for each folder based on its contents, but the chimpanzee who wrote the code should've been better trained. It's not unusual to see a folder full of Microsoft Access .mdb files shown as thumbnails, while a folder full of photos is shown in the Details view!

Figure : Vista has a much-improved thumbnail display but has trouble remembering when to use it

When Explorer gets it wrong, it's easy enough to click the Views button to cycle through the various display modes (or click the arrow to choose a view from the list), but it's more effective to change Windows Explorer's perception of the folder. Right-click the folder, choose the Customize tab (), and from the Use this folder type as a template list, choose one of the five available templates.

Figure : Use the Customize tab to choose a display template for the selected folder, but don't forget to customize the template

Here's where it gets a little confusing. First, a template is a collection of folder display settings that includes the view (e.g., Large Icons, Details, etc.), the sorting method, and the columns displayed. But you can't change any of these settings here. Nor can you add or remove templates or change the rules Windows uses when it picks a template automatically (hence the problems just outlined).

Next, the templates themselves don't make a whole lot of sense:

All Items

Basically the default view, Explorer uses this template when there's no specific reason to use one of the others. The columns shown by default are Name, Date Modified, Type, and Size.

Documents

Used for the Documents folder and all of its subfolders, this template is identical to the

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Media Center Annoyances

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If you have the Home Premium or Ultimate edition of Windows Vista, then you also have the Windows Media Center component, which allows you to use your PC and some sort of TV tuner card as a DVR (Digital Video Recorder). Commonly known as a TiVo? (just as a novelty flying disc is commonly known as a Frisbee?), a DVR lets you pause, rewind, and record live television broadcasts.

Of course, you don't have to stick with Media Center. If you don't like the program, if it crashes too often, or if you have only the Home Basic, Business, or Enterprise edition of Vista, you can try any of several alternatives.

Free DVR software includes GB-PVR (http://www.gbpvr.com) and MediaPortal (http://mediaportal.sourceforge.net). Commercial products, while not necessarily better than their free counterparts, include Meedio (http://www.meedio.com), SnapStream BeyondTV (http://www.snapstream.com), and SageTV (http://www.sage.tv).

Each product has its advantages and disadvantages. When choosing a media center application, the most important consideration is an on-screen interface you like. Aside from that, it should support HD programming and DVD burning, work with a wide variety of remote controls, accept plug-ins or extensions that add functionality (such as news readers and weather forecasters), and not crash.

Unless you like watching TV on a 16-inch screen while sitting at your desk, you probably want to hook up your Media Center PC to a real television set. Unfortunately, this is not always as easy as it sounds.

When you connect a TV to your computer (or is it the other way around?), you should see your entire desktop, Start menu, et al., on the big screen. If you see nothing at all, your video card's TV port may be disabled. If you're using a laptop, you may have to press a special keystroke combination to "activate" the TV-out and external VGA ports. On some Dell laptops, for instance, hold the Fn key while pressing F8 to switch between the internal display, the external display, and both; consult your computer's documentation for details. Press these keys repeatedly until you see a picture.

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CD and DVD Drives

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The first CD burner I ever saw was the size of a small microwave oven. It took 68 minutes to fill a 68-minute CD, and it produced more coasters than Six Flags. Suffice it to say, things have improved, although after a few minutes of trying to burn a disc in Vista, you'd be hard pressed to tell.

I'll just come out and say it: the CD/DVD burning feature built into Windows Vista just doesn't work. Sure, I'll get some bafflingly defensive emails from a handful of readers, but if you can show me a CD-R with readable data created by Windows Vista, I'll eat my hat.

In theory, it goes like this:

1. Open Windows Explorer.
2. Place a blank disc in your burner, and close the drawer.
3. Highlight your CD/DVD drive in the tree, and the Burn a Disc window appears. Click Show formatting options to show the expanded window in .
   

   Figure : Open this window each and every time you make a CD in Vista, or the disc you make may not be readable
4. Select the Mastered option and click Next to make the Burn a Disc window go away.
   Unless you're absolutely certain you're only going to be using this disc on Vista PCs, don't ever use the Live File System. Despite Microsoft's overly optimistic language here, discs formatted with the "Live" filesystem (also known as UDF) won't be readable on older PCs, Macs, or just about anything else. And if you skip steps 3 and 4 here, and instead just start dragging files onto your disc, Windows will use the Live File System without asking. (Naturally, there's no way to change the default.)
5. Drag some files or folders onto your CD/DVD drive.
6. When you're done dragging files, click the Burn to disc button (or right-click the CD/DVD drive and select Burn to disc), and then follow the prompts.

At this point, Windows Explorer will crash. Or, maybe you'll get lucky, and nothing at all will happen (no CD, no messages, nothing).

If this is happening to you, do yourself a favor and skip the part where you try to diagnose the problem. Instead, just use any other CD/DVD burning software to make your discs, and you'll never look back:

• You can burn ordinary data CDs and data DVDs with Express Burn, available for free from

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Chapter 5: Performance

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Windows Vista is by no means "fast." Running on a high-end PC, at least by the standards of the time of the product's release, Vista seems sluggish and overburdened by its own weight.

This is nothing new. While the above statement may sound like an indictment of Vista, Windows 95 was much worse 12 years earlier on the hardware of its time. But put 95 on a PC of today, and it will fly.

Of course, Vista does more with its hardware, right? Well, there's the Glass interface, covered later, which certainly sucks up a lot of processor cycles. And sure, it takes longer to copy or move files than, say, XP, but as explained in , Vista is doing more in the background, which is why you now get a single window warning you of 27 upcoming conflicts rather than 27 individual warnings. And there's the indexing service, also discussed in , which keeps your hard disk busy much of the time. These are all nice toys to have, but how vital are they? Are they more important than a snappy, responsive computer, particularly after you've just laid down a thousand bucks for new hardware?

Perhaps a better question: if you get a new PC with hardware that's twice as fast as your old machine, yet put Vista on it and end up with one that feels slower than Windows XP did on the old hardware, is that progress?

Your PC truly spends most of its time—something like 99.9%—waiting for you to do something. That leaves only 0.1% of the time when you really don't want Windows to be doing anything other than fulfilling your request. But it's precisely the moment you start a program, move a window across the screen, or apply a filter in Photoshop, that you want your PC to perform; and of course, it's at this moment when Windows has the most work to do.

This is why your PC is full of caching technologies, such as Vista's search indexing service. While your PC is idle, Windows uses that latent power to read through all the documents on your hard disk, making the Windows Explorer's Search feature much more responsive at the moment you actually need a response. Of course, this means that search results are sometimes out of date, but that's the price you pay for speed.

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Trim the Fat

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Surprise: Windows Vista is not configured for optimal performance right out of the box. Rather, it was built to showcase all the features Microsoft included with the product to help sell it.

Fortunately, there are a bunch of things you can do right now to speed things up without spending a dime.

Windows Vista animates almost every visual component that makes up its sparkling new interface. While these affectations may be cute, they create two performance problems. For one, they slow down the motion, causing windows, menus, and listboxes to take longer to open and close, all of which makes your PC feel sluggish. Second, they consume CPU cycles that would otherwise be used to handle processor-intensive tasks like virtual memory and gameplay.

There are settings that affect performance scattered throughout Windows, but the ones that control display effects are the easiest to change, and go the furthest to make Vista feel faster and more responsive.

In Control Panel, open System, and click the Advanced system settings link on the left side (or run SystemPropertiesAdvanced.exe). In the Performance section, click Settings. The Visual Effects tab, shown in , contains 20 settings, all explained later.

Figure : The Performance Options window is a good place to start looking for fat to trim

Unfortunately, the four selections above the list are a bit misleading. For example, the Let Windows choose what's best for my computer option reverts all settings to the defaults chosen by a marketing committee at Microsoft to best showcase Vista's features. The Adjust for best appearance option simply enables all features in the list, while the Adjust for best performance option just disables them.

Now, depending on the prowess of your video hardware, some of these settings may make more of a difference than others. And of course, some options may not be present in your edition of Vista.

Animate controls and elements inside windows.

Turn this off to nix the slow-fade effect on buttons and tabs in dialog boxes, the cyclic pulsating effect on the default button, and the fading scrollbar arrows. Buttons will still glow blue as you roll over them with the mouse, but they'll do it sans the delay.

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Make Your Hardware Perform

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There's no end to the tricks you can employ to squeeze more speed out of your PC, but few—apart from the ones in this chapter, hopefully—will end up making that much of a difference. Probably the most effective steps you can take involve your hard disk, discussed later in this chapter.

Paradoxically, this section's first topic involves the Glass interface, a new feature that indeed makes Windows run more slowly. But making Vista perform isn't always about making it run faster; rather, performance is as much about the quality of your experience as it is about raw, number-crunching speed.

Disclaimer: Keep in mind that there's a certain point beyond which your computer is going to turn into a money and time pit. The older your system is, the less time and energy you'll want to invest in making it run well, and the more you should start looking to replace it. It's easy to calculate the point of diminishing returns: just compare the estimated cost of an upgrade—both the monetary cost and the amount of time you'll have to commit—with the cost of a new system (minus what you might get for selling or donating your old system). I stress this point a great deal, because I've seen it happen time and time again: people end up spending too much and getting too little in return. A simple hardware upgrade ends up taking days of troubleshooting and configuring, only to result in the discovery that yet something else needs to be replaced as well. Taking into account that whatever you end up with will still eventually need to be further upgraded to remain current, it is often more cost effective to replace the entire system and either sell or donate the old parts.

That said, the following sections detail some things you can do to make Windows run faster and/or better.

Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.

—Anton Chekhov

We're all suckers for a pretty face. You may or may not think "Aero" Glass, the translucent new interface in Windows Vista, is actually pretty, but you can't deny that it's a welcome change from the homely, cartoonish look of XP, and a convenient way to see what's behind the window on top (see ).

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Hard Disk

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Your hard disk is more than just a storage device; it's used to hold your operating system and to supplement your system's memory. The speed and health of your hard disk is one of the most important factors in your computer's performance, not to mention its reliability and security. Yet it's also the one component that requires the most attention and often is the most neglected. Awww.

The following topics all deal with different aspects of your hard disk and how you can get Windows to use it most effectively. Later in this section, you'll find tips on upgrading and repartitioning your hard disk, to allow you to keep your disk and its data in tip-top shape.

The best way to ensure maximum performance from your drive is to regularly—weekly or biweekly—defragment it (also called optimizing). shows how frequent use can cause files to become fragmented (broken up), which can slow access and retrieval of data on the drive, as well as increase the likelihood of lost data. And the fuller the drive, the more serious defragmentation becomes.

Figure : File fragmentation on your hard disk can hurt performance and decrease reliability

The good news is that Vista defragments your drives automatically; by default, it's scheduled to run at 1:00 a.m. every Wednesday morning from now until the end of time.

PC not on in the middle of the night? Defragmenter will run the next morning while you're working (when the PC is idle, anyway). Or, if you want to run it by hand, open Windows Explorer, right-click your hard disk, select Properties, choose the Tools tab, and click Defragment Now ().

Figure : The only interface you'll ever see to the mysteriously disappearing Disk Defragmenter tool

Disk Defragmenter does its job by rearranging the files on your hard disk to make them contiguous (not broken into pieces). It also defragments the free space by consolidating your files as much as it can. When run automatically, it has no interface to speak of, but rather runs invisibly in the background.

Now for the bad news.

In each successive version of Windows, Microsoft has further buried Disk Defragmenter; in Vista, it's basically invisible. For most Vista users, this is a good thing, but its severely minimalist design prevents just about any advanced tasks.

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Chapter 6: Troubleshooting

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