Change everyone about the look and desktop of Windows Vista

Now that you've installed your copy of Windows Vista, it's time for you to become acquainted with your shiny new operating system. As well as looking radically different to Windows XP – compared to the gorgeous Aero Glass interface in Windows Vista, Windows XP looks as if it's been soundly beaten with the ugly stick – it works differently too. In this guide we'll find our way around the new interface and we'll discover how you can tweak it to fit your own particular preferences.

First things first: the Welcome Center

The first thing you'll see when you start up Windows Vista is the Welcome Center, and Microsoft wants you to feel very welcome indeed. Not only is it there when you switch on your PC, but you'll spot it on the Start Menu and find it in Control Panel too. To prevent the Welcome Center from loading every time you switch on your PC you can uncheck the "Run at startup" box to kill it – but don't do that just yet, because we can learn some key things about Windows Vista just by looking at it.

The Welcome Center is probably the first thing you see when you launch Windows Vista for the first time – and every time thereafter until you take the requisite action.

Introducing the Address Bar

Windows Vista does away with the old drive:\folder\sub-folder\file approach to navigation and replaces it with a 'breadcrumb' system, with a series of buttons that link to each folder. Note the contents of the address bar: System and Maintenance is just to the left of Welcome Center, the current location, and this indicates their relationship. The Welcome Center is located within the System and Maintenance feature set.

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To open System and Maintenance, point at the name in the address bar – note how it glows blue to tell you that this is a button – and click. The window changes to System and Maintenance and you're in the heart of the toolkit. The breadcrumb in the address bar is now Control Panel, indicating that this is the parent of System and Maintenance. To get back to where you began, the Welcome Center, click the back arrow at the far left of the address bar.

If this all seems rather familiar, that's because it is – what we have here is essentially a web browsing approach to Windows, with address bar breadcrumbs, hyperlinks and arrows that take you where you need to go.

There are three other points worth noting. If you point at the arrow between any two connected entities in the address bar, you'll get a drop-down menu that provides links to key features within the parent. That's a pretty useful shortcut. Similarly, if you click the double chevron at the far left of the address bar, you can trace back through the hierarchy and also jump to key locations, including your own user profile. Finally, you'll see that there's a search box right beside the address bar. As we've mentioned, search is everywhere in Windows Vista.

The address bar in Windows Vista is now an interactive navigational tool, with locations that become clickable buttons and drop-down menus for quick access to folder and user account hierarchies.

The truth is, there isn't much in the Welcome Center to hold your attention: at the top there's some basic information about your computer and the current version of Windows Vista, and that information is accompanied by a link to more details (this opens the System and Maintenance > System application). Below this you'll find links to User Accounts, Easy Transfer and other features; while only six icons are displayed, there's also a hyperlink that you can use to show all available items. If you click on this the Welcome Center expands to show you some further destinations including Media Center and the Ease of Access Center. This is very much part of the style of Windows Vista: by default you'll be shown a limited selection of key information, and related features are just a click away.

Below the Get started with Windows pane you'll find Offers from Microsoft. It's essentially an ad panel, so we'll move swiftly onwards. However, before we close the Welcome Center there's one last thing to try. Click on Show more details in the top panel, and look for the link in the Computer Name section that says "Change settings". When you click this, up pops a User Account Control window asking you to confirm or cancel your actions – and until you choose an option, your entire system freezes. Welcome to User Access Control, which is telling you to proceed with caution.

The Start Menu

We've looked at the on/off/sleep/hibernate options associated with the Start button but the Start menu itself repays some exploration. As in Windows XP, there's a pinned programs section at the top of the left menu. This retains permanent links to programs whereas the rest of the left menu updates dynamically. Pinned programs come with Internet (Internet Explorer 7) and E-mail (Windows Mail) links by default but you can add any other program here by right-clicking it and selecting Pin to Start Menu. You can also drag and drop folder shortcuts here.

In Windows Vista the left side of the menu displays the programs you’ve used most recently, with the most commonly used programs at the top of the list. This is a subtle change from Windows XP, where the menu displays only the most commonly used programs, but it's an important one: how often have you installed a new program in Windows XP then waited an age for it to appear on the Start menu despite frequent use? That's when you might resort to pinning programs at the top of the menu, but Windows Vista's approach pretty much guarantees that Start menu shortcuts are more relevant to your current habits.

On the other hand, in certain circumstances it could provide a dead giveaway that you've been playing games instead of working so you may prefer to deactivate this feature. Right-click the Start button, select Properties and uncheck Store and display a list of recently opened programs. You can do the same for recently opened files while you're here.

The Windows Vista Start menu looks superficially like the Windows XP version but it behaves in an entirely new way.

More obviously, the All Programs menu has had a much-needed facelift. In previous versions of Windows, All Programs spawned a fly-out menu that took over the desktop; in Windows Vista, All Programs opens within the left side of the Start menu with a vertical scroll bar to navigate through the list. When you click a folder icon within All Programs, it expands the contents of the folder in a drop-down list, so the Start menu always updates dynamically rather than expands. At any time, click the Back button at the bottom of All Programs to return to the default Start menu view.

On the right side of the menu you'll find some handy shortcuts, but there's nothing radical here (unless you consider dropping 'My' from 'My Computer' and 'My Documents' to be radical rather than just welcome).

The Start menu can be customised much like Windows XP by right-clicking the Start button, then Properties, then Customize in the Start Menu tab. For instance, you can convert the Control Panel to a menu rather than a link. Here, because the link is the right side of the Start menu, you do get a fly-out menu rather than a drop-down folder display. You can also ditch the Windows Vista menu's behavioural pattern completely by reverting to a Classic (i.e. Windows XP) menu style.

The All Programs menu now displays on the left side of the Start menu, leaving the Desktop clear. Note the scrollbar for navigating up and down the list.

Finally, you can't help but notice the search box at the bottom of the Start menu. This hooks you up to Search Everywhere and Search the Internet options: the former launches a standard computer search window; the latter fires up Internet Explorer and conducts (by default) a Windows Live web search. Switch between them with the arrow keys. Frankly, given the overwhelming integration of search within Windows Vista, we expected to find a search field on permanent display in the Taskbar. However, if you hit the Windows key or click the Start button, a live cursor appears immediately in the search field, so you can start typing your search terms. That the Windows key is now effectively a search button tells you something about the importance of search within Windows Vista.

The Sidebar

Let's return to the Windows Sidebar on the Desktop, home to gadgets. Although the Sidebar eats into desktop space, it does get covered by any open windows. However, if you love your gadgets so much that you can't bear to lose sight of them, right-click the Sidebar icon in the Notification Area of the Taskbar, click Properties, and check the box 'Sidebar is always on top of other windows'. You now have a permanent feature on the Desktop, much like the taskbar. Windows have to cede screen space accordingly. This is not nearly as daft as it sounds so long as a) you’re running a widescreen monitor, and b) you have genuinely useful gadgets in the Sidebar to justify the loss of space (such as a live stock price ticker).

Alternatively, when windows or programs are masking the Sidebar, you can bring hidden gadgets to the foreground simply by clicking the Sidebar icon or by pressing Windows + spacebar. The Sidebar itself remains fully transparent so gadgets float over whatever else is happening on screen.

When you point at a gadget, a standard mini toolbar fades into view. Its three buttons allow you to close the gadget, to access its options menu, and to drag it to a different spot on the Sidebar – or indeed off the Sidebar and onto the Desktop, whereupon you can place it wherever you like. However, closing the Sidebar removes even detached gadgets from the Desktop. Some gadgets have their own toolbars that appear when you point at them. For instance, the Slideshow gadget has buttons for skipping backwards and forwards through images, which are themselves culled from the Windows Photo Gallery.

Gadgets can be customised in various ways. For instance, the clock has a range of available faces.

To add new gadgets, click the plus sign at the top of the Sidebar. You'll find a small collection of gadgets already installed on your computer, such as a sticky note application and a live weather feed. But for the real fun, hit the online link and see what third-party developers have in store. Some of these are deceptively simple and instantly useful, such as a BBC Radio player that plays any BBC internet station without the need to go near a browser. Think of gadgets as a logical extension to RRS feeds, sucking in live content from web-based destinations without requiring you to pay a direct visit. Try not to think of Active Desktop, with which Microsoft tried much the same thing in Windows years ago without success.

Windows Vista proffers a few basic gadgets but you have to go online to see the full catalogue. Thanks to the Sidebar, your windows Desktop can now be useful and interactive as well as pretty.

New views

Folder icons have been completely overhauled to take advantage of Windows Vista's 3D capabilities. Essentially, they display live thumbnails of the files inside (depending on file type) to show you the folder's actual contents. This is only useful when folder icons are large enough to reveal the details, so click Views on a window's toolbar and experiment. Extra Large Icons, for example, are huge but the level of detail is exceptional.

In addition to the superb new icons, you get the familiar List, Details and Tiles view. As with folders, your files can be displayed as live thumbnails rather than static icons.

Click Organize to customize how a window displays folders and files. The Details pane appears at the bottom of the window and displays both basic file information – file name, date created – and, where relevant, document metadata and tags.

Folder icons now show you what's inside using 3D thumbnails rather than mere file names. Other views include the familiar List, Details and Tiles.

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