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Friday, March 16, 2007
Turning new Vista into old XP
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Imagine what it would be like if someone put your car’s brake pedal on the right and the gas pedal on the left. There wouldn’t be enough wreckers in all of Atlanta to handle the mess.
That’s how some of my readers feel about the way Microsoft rearranged some of the controls for Windows with its new Vista. It’s confusing enough to learn to use a new operating system, but when familar controls have been switched around you’d have to be a Ph.d to cope with it all.
Maybe that wouldn’t help, either. Dorothy A. Spencer, a Ph.D. and director of the Health Sciences Library at East Carolina University is in an snit about the new look of Vista. She recently bought a new computer with Vista installed. Let her explain:
“I have had the machine for three weeks and the most I can do with it is play FreeCell. Two very basic users how to books have not helped. The pictures in the one book do not even match the screens on my Vista desktop. If a computer is supposed to aid in work productivity Microsoft sure didn’t get the memo. Things should be easier, not harder”
Hang on Dorothy, there are ways to change the look of Vista back to the good old days of XP.
Changing the changes
Lets start with the change that bugs me the most. Vista comes with Internet Explorer 7, a new version of the Web browser that also can be downloaded and installed on XP machines. Microsoft apparently thought it would be nifty to totally remove the pulldown menus. That means hunting around for mysterious icons to accomplish anything more complicated than calling up a Web page.
You can temporarily get the menu back by holding down the ALT key. To make the change permanent, open Explorer, hold down the ALT key to find the Tools menu, then select Menu Bar. Once you’ve done that, the menu will appear each time you use Explorer.
Some people are just wild about the new Aero graphics of Vista. Frankly I don’t get it. Besides, the fancy 3D look requires more work from your video card.
Turning off Aero isn’t difficult. Just click on a blank space on the computer desktop, then select Personalize from the menu that pops up. Next go to Window Color and Appearance. Just remove the checkmark from the box that says Enable transparency and go back to the old Windows look.
Getting Control
The Control Panel is the heart of Windows - no matter what version you use. That’s where you can add and delete programs, change printers, tinker with network settings and perform most maintenance tasks.
You can literally get lost in the beauty of the new Control Panel. Heck, I get lost all the time. I’m used to quickly navigating the XP Control Panel and want it back.
That’s easy to do.
Click on the Start button, and select Control Panel. On the left side of the window you’ll see two options: Control Panel Home and Classic View. Once you click on Classic View things are back to the way they were in XP and Windows 2000.
Powering down
Vista has even changed the way you turn the machine off. I actually like that change. Windows is put into a powered down state instead of turning completely off. So you still save power but the system starts up immediately when you need it. If you leave a program open, it’s still open and ready to use when you go back to work.
Some people don’t like the change, and there’s an easy way to put things back to pre-Vista. Just click on the Windows Control Panel and use the search box. Type in “power”.
You’ll be taken to a page that offers various shutdown options. Wend your way though the menus and select the setting you want, including the familar one to shut the computer off.
My guess is that many of the changes to the controls will become second nature after a few months. But for me and for many of my readers that day seems a long way off.
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