2 windows 7: the missing manual
What’s New
threat. But Win7 leaves you in peace far more often. In fact, 10 categories of warn-
ings now pile up quietly in a single, unified new control panel called the Action
Center, and don’t interrupt you at all.
If You’re Coming from Windows XP
If you’re coming to Windows 7 from Windows Vista, you’ll
probably land with all guns blazing. Most of the layout,
techniques, and functions are very similar.
If you’re coming straight to Windows 7 from Windows XP,
though, you might feel as though you came home from
college to find that your parents turned your old bedroom
into a home office. Where is everything? A lot went on while
you were away.
This book will treat you, the XP veteran, very well; you’ll find
frequent references to the major departures from XP. But
here’s a heads-up to some of the biggest changes:
Security. You could fill several books with information about
the security enhancements Microsoft has made to Windows.
A lot of them are so technical, they’d make your eyes glaze
over, but here’s a sampling.
User Account Control is a dialog box that pops up whenever
you try to install a program or adjust a PC-wide setting, re-
questing that you type your password. It means that viruses
can no longer make changes to your system without your
knowing about it. You’ll see one of these dialog boxes, and
if you aren’t the one trying to make the change, you’ll click
Cancel instead of Continue. Windows Defender protects
your PC from spyware (downloads from the Internet that,
unbeknownst to you, send information back to their creators
or hijack your Web browser).
A cosmetic overhaul. Thanks to a new design scheme called
Aero, window edges are translucent; menus and windows
fade away when closed; the taskbar shows actual thumbnail
images of the open documents, not just their names; all
the icons have been redesigned with a clean, 3-D look and
greater resolution; and so on.
(Not everyone gets to enjoy these Aero features. Some
PCs are too slow to handle all this graphics processing; on
those machines, the transparency and taskbar features are
missing.)
The Start menu is a better-organized, two-column affair; that
awful XP business of superimposing the All Programs menu
on top of the two other columns is long gone.
New programs and features. Lots of new or upgraded soft-
ware programs and features debuted in Vista. For example:
Instant Search. With one keystroke (the w key), you open
the Start menu’s new Search box. It searches your entire PC
for the search phrase you type—even inside files that have
different names.
New apps. Check out the Snipping Tool (for capturing
patches of the screen as graphics, for use in illustrating
computer books) and Windows Fax and Scan, one-stop
shopping for scanning and faxing. Speech Recognition lets
you dictate email and documents, and even control Windows
itself, all by voice.
Laptop goodies. You’ll find folder synchronization with
another computer, more powerful battery-control settings,
and a central Mobility Center that governs all laptop features
in one place.
New Explorer features. Explorer windows can now have
information panels and controls on all four edges, including
the Navigation pane (left); task toolbar (top); Preview pane
(right); and Details pane (bottom). The new address bar,
which displays the path you’ve taken to burrow into the
folder you’re now inspecting, is loaded with doodads and
clickable spots that make navigation far easier.
All of this is covered in this book, of course—but may this list
prepare you for some of the post-XP shocks you’re in for.
up to speed