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Saturday November 28, 2009 12:12 PM AEST
Skip Navigation LinksPC Authority > Features > Windows Vista to XP: Advanced conversion guide
Windows Vista to XP: Advanced conversion guide
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FEATURE

Windows Vista to XP: Advanced conversion guide

by Steve Polak  on Oct 29, 2007
3 comments in this discussion
"Vista desktop effect leave somethingto be desired, unlike compiz on linux which is true 3D whereas vista is a cheap cop out thats way over priced... well you can dowsnload it for free .. thank ..."
By Kurt
 
Control or Chaos?

Accessing the Control Panel is actually easier using Vista when compared to older versions of Windows. In XP you have to navigate the Start bar submenu taking one more menu step than you do in Vista to open the Control Panel. In Vista you simply click the Start bar and it is there in plain view.

click to view full size image

Once you open up the Control Panel you will notice a number of core menu buttons that you can use. These are quite different to those included with Windows XP and essentially Microsoft have simplified the process, trimming down the options and effectively making it harder for more experienced Windows users to find some of the setup options they have been used to working with in XP. That said, less experienced users will find the simpler menus more logical and less intimidating.

However if you want all of the clutter or are an experienced user who misses the control panel full with all of the options of XP, then you can revert to ‘classic’ mode. This is incredibly easy as there is a Classic menu option tag in the blue section to the left of the list of Control Panel items. So if you want to use the Control Panel in ‘old school’ mode the option is there.

click to view full size image

For the moment, let’s assume you are going to work with the Control Panel in the new Vista mode. The first item along the top left of the array is the System Maintenance icon. This tab can be extremely useful once you get into the swing of streamlining Vista so that it runs more smoothly. You can use the many applications located in this section to fine tune performance and even backup files. When you click on System Maintenance you get access to a variety of extremely helpful and important processes and menus.

Let’s look at a few of these as we take a tour down the page.

At the top of the list is the Welcome Centre. This page is also setup so that it loads as a default when you first install Vista, so you have probably seen it before. The Welcome Centre is of interest if you want to know what wondrous features Vista has that are new. It is worth a look even if you can’t actually ‘do’ anything that useful in the Welcome Centre.
Below this is the Backup and Restore menu. This can be very useful once you have managed to get your system up and running and have stuff you’d like to protect and save.

click to view full size image

Now, we’ll look in depth at the System area. You can do a lot of really useful stuff here. In the System menu you can monitor your hardware and make sure that everything is running right. You can also update your configuration, adding new hardware manually. This is an alternative to watching Vista auto detect your hardware and hoping it all works out correctly, something which does go fine a lot of the time, but not always. So if like the idea of being more ‘hands on’ you can add hardware and do many other cool things in the System menu.
First off when you open the System menu you will be able to easily determine exactly your PC’s hardware configuration. There is a detailed list featuring how much memory it has as well as a number of other key details. Now before you can say, “the System menu in Windows XP used to do all of this”, there are new goodies too. In Vista you get all of that basic information, but your PC also has the ability to self test and come up with a performance evaluation.

click to view full size image

This score can be a very useful indication of how well your PC is working. You can click on the system rating index and your machine will even show you how well it is doing when it comes to areas like Processor, Memory, Graphics, Gaming and Hard Drive performance. This is cool and we will go into more detail about how you best tweak your machine so it funs faster in a later tutorial. For the moment a good look at the basic system functions is more useful, especially if you are just getting to know your machine.

On the left of this information panel there is also a menu tab that contains several juicy System options.

Page 3: Vista Device Manager



See also: PC Authority's basic guide to Vista for Windows XP users
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