למשתמשים של WINDOWS VISTA ....הFAQ

[Jan22]

למשתמשים של WINDOWS VISTA ....הFAQ

 

[Jan22]

VISTA & XP

Windows Vista and Windows XP Q. Can I make Vista look like an older version of Windows? A. Yes indeed. Right-click the Start button, select Properties, and choose Classic Start Menu to get a Start menu that's composed primarily of cascading menus that lead to programs. Right-click the desktop, select Personalize, and double-click Theme to choose the Windows Classic theme, which does away with much of Vista's slickness (and gives you a Start button labeled "Start"). Take both of these steps, and Vista will have a decidedly old-school, Windows 2000-like flavor. What Vista doesn't seem to have is a way to make its Start menu behavior and other aspects of the OS behave more the way they do in Windows XP. Q. Does the release of Vista mean that Microsoft will cut off support for Windows XP, as it did for Windows 98 and other old OSs? A. Not immediately, no. But it's a safe bet that, as Vista becomes the dominant flavor of Windows, Microsoft will eventually discontinue Windows XP support. In fact, the company stopped supporting Windows XP Service Pack 1, along with Windows 98 and Windows Me, in October 2006. If Microsoft were to end Windows XP SP2 support after the same number of years of support, SP2 users would be covered until sometime in 2010. Q. Will Microsoft stop providing security patches and bug fixes for XP? A. No, though the fact that it recently announced a delay until 2008 of the planned Windows XP Service Pack 3 suggests that improving XP is no longer the company's highest priority. Q. Now that Vista is out, will new applications require it? If I stick with Windows XP, will I be unable to get any new software? A. Past Windows transitions give us hope that most applications will be available in Windows XP-friendly editions for quite awhile--after all, millions and millions of people will continue to use XP for years to come--but a gradual transition to Vista will occur over the next few years. Cutting-edge games will make the earliest transition to the new OS, since DirectX 10 (the new version of Microsoft's APIs for game programmers) will be Vista-only.​

 

[Jan22]

INTERFACE ...ממשק

Q. Will Aero make me more productive, or is it just fluff? A. Some aspects are just fluff; some will make you more productive. Translucent windows and nice animations, for example, may not directly increase your productivity; but they're easier on your eyes, so you might be able to spend more time at the keyboard without tiring. Windows Flip and Windows Flip 3D, which let you preview thumbnails of your open windows, and live Taskbar thumbnails should make it easier to find the window you're looking for. Q. How do I enable or disable Aero effects? A. Right-click your desktop, and select Personalize, Window Color and Appearance, Open classic appearance properties for more color options. In the Color scheme list, select any non-Aero scheme, such as Windows Vista Basic or Windows Vista Standard, and then click OK. Q. I heard that Windows Vista itself will sometimes decide to disable Aero. What's up with that? A. In general, Vista will disable Aero if it determines that it needs to improve performance, recover from a technical issue, or (in the case of laptops in power-saving mode) reduce demands on your battery. According to Microsoft, Java apps are the most common trigger for disabling Aero. Remotely viewing or sharing another machine's desktop can cause Vista to disable Aero, too, and Vista disables Aero when presenting a User Account Control (UAC) elevation prompt. Q. What did Microsoft do to the Start Menu this time? A. Microsoft has redone the Start Menu yet again, but this time around you might like the change. Gone is the annoying flyaway menu for the All Programs selection. With Vista, when you click All Programs, applications and folders appear directly above it for easier access. There's also a useful search box for quick searches. The Run link is gone too, unfortunately, but you can make it reappear. Q. How do I make Run appear, and how else can I customize the Start Menu? A. Right-click the Taskbar, choose Properties, and click the Start Menu tab. Click the Customize button and you'll be able to add the Run link--and change the Start Menu in many other ways as well. Q. Does the clock on the right side of the Taskbar have any new features? A. It may look like the Windows XP clock, but it's much better. In fact, you can put multiple clocks there, showing times from around the world. Click the clock and a much larger clock (along with a calendar) appears. Click Change date and time settings, and customize to your heart's content. Q. Is that thumbnail in the Taskbar actually playing video? A. Yes! Hover your mouse over any window minimized to the Taskbar, and a "live" thumbnail will pop up showing the exact contents of that window, including any live video. Q. What happened to Alt-Tab? A. Microsoft made it useful. It's now called Windows Flip, and it shows you thumbnails of all your windows as you flip through them, so you can quickly choose the exact window you want to open. Q. What's this 3D task-switching thing? A. Now you're talking about some serious eye candy. Windows Flip 3D (Windows-Tab) is Windows Flip with a membership in the Flying Walendas. It stacks your windows in three dimensions, and lets you scroll through them with your mouse or click one to select it. It adds up to sort of a poor man's Expose (from Mac OS X Tiger).​

 

[Jan22]

WINDOWS EXPLORER

WINDOWS EXPLORER Q. So it's all about search now? A. Yes, and Microsoft isn't just paying lip service to the concept, either. Search has been built into practically every level of the operating system, including the Start Menu and Windows Explorer. Vista's Search is fast, and you can refine your inquiries through countless criteria, including date, file size, keywords, file type, and so on. You can add Boolean search terms, too, and you can even create virtual folders using saved searches--so (for example) you can keep a quick link to all the photos you've taken in the last month, right on your desktop. Q. If Explorer's Search is so great, why couldn't it find the Word file I created yesterday afternoon? A. You've discovered one of Search's dirty little secrets: By default, it restricts its searches to a limited set of folders on your hard disk. Search uses an index to speed up its searches; but Vista indexes only a few folders, such as your own personal user folder. If you create folders outside that area, the OS won't index them, and Search won't find them or their contents. There is a workaround: If you do an Advanced Search (select Start, Search, and click the Advanced Search down arrow), you can instruct the tool to look in nonindexed areas; just check the box next to Include non-indexed, hidden and system files (might be slow). Q. How can I arrange for files to be included in the index? A. Go to Control Panel, System and Maintenance, Indexing Options. From there, you can add any folders to the index. Q. How are saved searches useful? A. They eliminate your having to type the same search over and over. Saving a search essentially creates virtual folders with different views into all of your data. To save a search, click the Save Search icon on the toolbar. Q. What makes navigation easier in Vista? What is a breadcrumb trail? A. They may not have worked for Hansel and Gretel, but "breadcrumbs" are at the center of navigation in Windows Explorer--and they do the job quite well. The address bar in Windows Explorer shows a breadcrumb trail that lists every place you visited en route to your current location, such as Control Panel, Network and Internet, Sync Center, Sync Results. If you want to jump back to Control Panel, or to any other point along the trail, just click on it.​

 

[Jan22]

HARDWARE

VISTA HARDWARE Q. What is the Windows Experience Index? A. This built-in performance analyzer is found in the Control Panel under Performance Information and Tools. Your Windows Experience Index is the lowest of five scores assigned to your system's CPU, memory, basic graphics capability, 3D graphics power, and hard disk speed. Microsoft hopes that the Windows Experience Index will replace the lengthier enumeration of system requirements found on software boxes. Instead of reading that a game requires at least 1GB of RAM, a Pixel Shader 2.0 graphics board, and a 2-GHz CPU, for example, you'd see that a game requires a WEI score of, say, 3.2 or better. Q. What's this I hear about thumb drives speeding performance? A. Instead of shelling out for extra RAM, you may be able to give your Vista machine a bit of a boost by using a USB thumb drive. A Windows feature called ReadyBoost lets your PC use free memory on a USB flash drive to augment RAM. You'll need, at a minimum, a drive that has 256MB of free space and can read data at 2.5 megabits per second and write data at 1.5 mbps; to qualify for a Windows Vista logo, the drive must have 500MB of space and read/write speeds of 5 mbps/3 mbps. You'll soon start to see flash memory boosting speed in other ways, too, thanks to the ReadyBoost and ReadyDrive technologies built into Vista. Q. What do ReadyBoost, ReadyDrive, and SuperFetch do? A. SuperFetch, a new memory manager for Windows, uses available memory to proactively cache data that you're likely to need. Eventually, it learns which applications and data you (and any other users who log in to your machine) habitually use and when you use them, and it does so on a per-user basis. ReadyBoost makes more memory available to SuperFetch by creating new memory pages on USB flash drives and using the flash memory in hybrid hard disks. ReadyDrive uses the Non-Volatile RAM cache on a hybrid drive to store critical data during state transitions such as when booting your PC or resuming from standby. Before shutting down, Vista transfers the critical data your PC will use for booting or resuming into that NVRAM cache. As a result, the PC doesn't have to wait for a hard disk to spin up before it can start loading data. Q. When will we begin to see hybrid hard drives? A. Samsung and Seagate hope to have hybrid hard drives containing up to 256MB of built-in flash memory ready to ship in notebooks when Vista is released. Q. What specs must a USB flash drive possess in order to work with ReadyBoost? A. The drive must support USB 2.0 and must be able to access data at 3.5 megabits per second for 4-kilobit random reads uniformly across the entire device, and at 2.5 mbps for 512-kilobit random writes uniformly across the device. As a practical matter, it's tough to find these specs for a flash drive before you buy it, so make sure that your vendor is reasonable about returns. Microsoft has said that it plans to work with manufacturers to develop a ReadyBoost certification program so that consumers can determine, before buying a flash drive, whether they can use ReadyBoost with it. Q. I bought a USB flash drive that (according to its packaging) can access data at 12 mbps. But Windows says the drive still isn't fast enough to work with ReadyBoost. What's going on? A. There are several reasons why you may be running into the problem. The Vista specs are for random performance, whereas the specs you see listed may measure sequential performance. (Some devices do great on sequential reads, but struggle on random reads.) Another issue may be inconsistent performance across your drive. Some flash drives carry 128MB of extremely fast "lightning flash" on part of the drive, but slower memory on the rest of the drive. Q. How big a flash drive should I buy to get the most out of ReadyBooost? A. That depends on how much RAM you have on your system. The smallest cache that ReadyBoost can use is 256MB; the largest is 4GB. If your system has a modest amount of RAM--512MB, for example--Microsoft recommends establishing a 1:1 ratio of system RAM to flash memory. Thus, for a 512MB system, you'd want a 512MB flash drive. At the high end--systems with 2GB or more of RAM--Microsoft recommends operating with a 2.5:1 ratio of system RAM to flash memory. Adopting this proportion, a 2GB system will benefit from 800MB of flash memory, but any more flash memory won't provide a boost. Q. Can I use more than one flash drive for ReadyBoost? A. No. Microsoft has limited ReadyBoost to one device at a time. Q. Are there any other interesting bits of Vista-friendly hardware? A. You'll see notebooks with external displays that use Microsoft's Sideshow technology to run some of the same kinds of gadgets available in the Windows Sidebar, without requiring your PC to be on. Other manufacturers will eventually use Sideshow to power color-display-equipped remotes for Media Center systems. Windows Rally should simplify setup, security, and management of networked devices. Rally technologies include Windows Connect Now for easy Wi-Fi setup; Plug and Play Extensions (PnP-x) for quick installation of network-connected devices; and the Link Layer Topology Discovery protocol for easy discovery of networked devices. Microsoft has demonstrated Rally-ready wireless cameras that nearby PCs automatically discovered and could download new images from in real time. This development suggests that a working wireless digital camera is not far from reality, though experts currently think that wireless USB is a better technology than Wi-Fi for short-range cable replacement.​

 

[Jan22]

NETWORK

NETWORKING Q. Has setting up a network gotten any easier? A. Yes, much easier. A simple wizard walks you through the process--and it works. Troubleshooting is better, too. And the Network Center provides a quick overview of your network so you can see whether everything is working right. Q. Is connecting to hotspots and wireless networks easier in Vista than in XP? A. Yes, it's far superior to the XP method of connecting. You can see a lot of detail about a wireless network before you connect to it, and you can save network connections so that you automatically connect whenever you're within range. Q. How good is wireless network security under Vista? A. There's good news here as well. When you first connect to a wireless network, you tell Windows Vista whether it's a public or private one. (A public network, such as a hotspot, can be used by anyone, so it's inherently insecure. A private network, such as your home network or a corporate network, is more secure than a public one.) Based on your answer, Windows Vista applies a constellation of security settings to that network, and it reapplies those settings whenever you connect to it. Network discovery--which Vista uses to allow other devices to connect to your PC and to share its files and folders--is turned off in public networks (to increase your security) but turned on in private ones. Q. Are there any problems with mixing PCs that run older versions of Windows with ones that run Vista? A. Unfortunately, yes. Windows Vista uses a new protocol, Link Layer Topology Discovery (LLTD), for networking. LLTD speeds up the process of connecting to other devices, and it allows Vista to grab information about each device and display it in the Network Map. But earlier versions of Windows lack LLTD, so PCs running older versions of Windows may not show up on the Network Map at all, or they may appear sporadically, or they may show up only after a long delay. Microsoft says that it intends to release a patch for XP that should solve the problem; but as yet it has no similar plans for earlier versions of the OS.​

 

[Jan22]

MULTIMEDIA

MULTIMEDIA Q. What's new in Windows Media Center? A. It has the same basic features as before, but it sports a redesigned menu system, mainly so you can control it from an Xbox 360 over your home network. Q. Has Windows Media Player changed? A. A new interface gives you additional ways to organize and browse your media collection. For example, you can access your music by an album cover view. Vista's search feature is integrated into Windows Media Player, so you can find media more easily, too. And Windows Media Player includes tie-ins to URGE, a for-pay music service that Microsoft launched with MTV. Q. Will Vista play HD-DVDs and Blu-ray discs? A. Not without third-party software. Though Vista ships with the infrastructure necessary to support HD-DVD--drivers, file system, codecs, and other components--you'll need additional dedicated software to play an HD-DVD video, and the OS has no native support for Blu-ray Disc. Q. Because of Digital Rights Management for prerecorded high-definition media, will I need to buy a new monitor to play premium high-def content? A. You might, regardless of whether you're running Vista or Windows XP. For a PC to send next-generation video content to a display, the display must support HDCP--and while most HDTVs do support this copy-protection technology, many older monitors that support high-def resolutions do not.​