Five ways to live with Windows Vista

So you just got a new PC with Microsoft's Windows Vista, or upgraded your old machine with the new operating system...and everything is different. Here are a few quick tips to become familiar with Microsoft's Windows Vista fast.

1 Add a Gadget to your Sidebar
Tired of the boring Gadgets, like the standard CPU meter, sitting on the right side of your screen? Just download new ones.
Surf to gallery.microsoft.com/sidebar/vista.as px for a list of the most popular Gadgets to add to your desktop. These include App Launcher, which gives you instant access to your favourite programs like that Battlefield 2142 game.

2 Search for a programme
The Start menu in Windows Vista is slightly different from Windows XP in that icons are so tightly packed together as to seem rather messy.
It could be that Microsoft is forcing users to go about firing up programs the new way - by using Vista's fast search feature. This means you type 'Photoshop', instead of scrolling through the menus for the photo-editing program. Takes a little getting used to, but the new way is actually faster.

3 Using Google as default search engine
Instead of using the Microsoft-prescribed search engine in Internet Explorer (MSN), you can specify Google or Yahoo.
In the browser window, click on the search toolbar and select 'More providers'. This lets you select Google and Yahoo as the default search engine.

4 Sort pictures by tags
You can cope with the hundreds or thousands of pictures on your computer by tagging them with meaningful data in Vista. For example, you can tag a group of pictures of that Bali holiday under 'Bali' and quickly retrieve them with a search for the term 'Bali'. Or search by date.

5 Move songs and picturesinto another disk
If you have two hard disks, you can keep your songs and pictures on the second hard disk.
To do this, drag the default Pictures and Music folders onto your second hard disk. When prompted, agree to copy the files over. You can also right click on the designated folders and select Location. Choose a folder on the second hard disk.

- By Alfred Siew