Vista Made Tolerable

The guide to making Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate configured in a way that is almost tolerable by experienced "old school" personal computer users.

Remember, Vista is the same ugly girl hidden under a new pretty dress. You will find most of the classic dialogs running the same legacy Windows programming code hidden under new menus. The book has a new cover, but the same tired story inside.

Files and Folders

show file extensions

1. Open a folder or open explorer
2. Click "Organize" to open the menu and select "Folder and Search Options"
3. Click the View tab
4. Uncheck Hide extensions for known file types
5. Click OK

The classic "Folder Options" dialog is hidden under ORGANIZE, FOLDER AND SEARCH OPTIONS.

sendto shell menu items

Profiles look a bit different under Vista. If you look in c:\users\<username> you will see a shortcut to "sendto." Clicking on the shortcut produces a permission denied error. Access the sendto folder via the complete profile path. For domain users look for "sendto" contents under the full profile path (hidden).

• c:\users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\sendto

Classic File Edit View menu bar

To make the classic menu items visible from an explorer window simply press and release the ALT key. They can also be configured to remain visible.

Enable or Disable Single Click Icons

Traditionally windows required a double click on icons to open files or launch programs. KDE desktop in Linux requires only a single click. Your preference may be set.

1. Click on the the Control Panel / Folders icon
2. Check Single click to open an item