Windows Vista's Subtle Gems

[Chris Gohlke]

<p>Most on-line posts about Vista usually end up with a pretty negative focus resulting in statements about reverting back to XP. I&rsquo;ve been using Vista for a couple of months and since Service Pack 1 resolved my stability issues, I&rsquo;ve been quite pleased and have no desire to go back. As I&rsquo;m still using XP at work, the constant back and forth between OS&rsquo;s has made me notice some of the subtle tweaks the Vista team made to everyday tasks that never seem to get mentioned. So this thread is dedicated to sharing all the less than obvious changes to Vista.</p><br /><p>I'll start off with the process for copying files. For this example, let&rsquo;s say I have a directory with 50 files, &ldquo;foo01.doc&rdquo; through &ldquo;foo50.doc&rdquo;. In XP, if I copied &ldquo;foo20.doc&rdquo;, it would be automatically called &ldquo;Copy of foo20.doc&rdquo;. I&rsquo;ve never liked this because in a sorted list, I would prefer the copy to be next to the original. Vista makes a small change by instead naming the copy &ldquo;foo20 Copy.doc&rdquo;. Much better in my opinion. Often when I copy a document, I&rsquo;m doing so just to use it as a template for something similar, so right after making the copy, I usually rename it to something appropriate for the new document. In XP, if I went to rename the above file, the entire &ldquo;Copy of foo20.doc&rdquo; would be highlighted and I would have to made sure to retype the extension. Under Vista , when I choose to rename the same file only the &ldquo;foo20 Copy&rdquo; is highlighted by default, but I still have the option of changing the extension if I like. Much smoother.</p><br /><p>What are some of the other little things you&rsquo;ve discovered in Vista that you really like?</p>

[Macguy59]

That's its just as easy to get rid of as XP :D

[Chris Gohlke]

That's its just as easy to get rid of as XP :D

And let's not make this a "insert alt OS"<insert alt="" os=""> is better thread.</insert>

[Jason Dunn]

In terms of the little things, I'm amazed at how useful the start menu is - I love that I can click the Start menu, or press the Windows key on my keyboard, and just start typing to find what I'm looking for - be it a program, a file, etc. That's incredibly useful to me!

[mar2k]

I love that when I am copying images from one folder to another it shows thumbnails of any images that have the same filename along with size and date info and gives very distinct choices on what I want to do. Definitely not in XP and has saved me several times since I have a lot of "default naming" going on with my images...

[flooder]

In terms of the little things, I'm amazed at how useful the start menu is - I love that I can click the Start menu, or press the Windows key on my keyboard, and just start typing to find what I'm looking for - be it a program, a file, etc. That's incredibly useful to me!


I didn't know this. . . But I like it already. Mine was the previous mentioned fact that the extension is not selected when you hit F2 or rename.

[Eriq Cook]

Went to the "Microsoft Across America" event yesterday (here in Denver, CO) and while they were doing demo of Vista features, I realized that I could search my Outlook 2007 items via the start menu (In the "Start search" field). Enabled as soon as I got back home and tested. Love it and works great.

I'll bite my tongue and refrain from all that I hate about Vista going backwards with some things (I started venting to the Microsoft guy because he said "tell me everything you like or don't like about Vista." Kinda let lose with the poor guy :D)

[bmhome1]

Checkbox file selection by far Vista's best feature! Organizing hundreds of files into subfolders has never been easier. Try it to see how powerful and fluid it works.

Flicks and hand control in IE7 redefines web surfing.

Image thumbnail zooming best photo browser tool ever, and system-wide built-in not add-on. Same with Photo Viewer, slider zoom invaluable native feature.