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Vista Hardware Compatibility -
Drivers & Hardware
Does your printer, scanner, or other piece of hardware work with Vista? No? You need to update the drivers! All you have to do is visit the manufacturers website and search for the new drivers. Usually there is a Vista logo on the site inviting you to update.
This Microsoft site below allows users to navigate and search a comprehensive list of logo'd hardware products that work with Windows Vista - from components to input devices, peripherals to mobile devices and everything in between.
The list is part of the 'Devices Just Work' effort at Microsoft to ensure that the hardware experience with Windows Vista is excellent. Please use this list to confirm hardware compatibility for upgrades, purchases or simply to explore the wealth of devices that 'Just Work' with Windows Vista!
Drivers on the manufacturers websites (e.g. Epson, Canon etc) are free to download - installation is automatic and shouldn't cause any major headaches. Don't be tempted to 'try' the XP drivers from your disc, all you will do is mess the system up.
Having said that, if you have attempted to install the XP drivers (just to see...), you will have to remove them before downloading the Vista drivers.
What Does Vista Look Like?
Here are a few screenshots to help you get an idea of what Vista looks like. As you can see there are quite a few esthetic differences, but hidden inside are a few that can confuse! More about that later. To view the screenshots, simply click the image below and a new window will open with a larger picture.
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You will see on Screenshot 1 the basic layout of the screen, the background wallpaper being optional of course, whilst on screenshot 2, you can see the 'widgets' on the right hand side. This can include a calender, clock, news headlines, network connection and your pictures. Screenshot 4 shows the 'transparent' nature of the windows as you open them, the background is blurred, but visible.
Screenshot 6 shows a 'rating' that every computer will have. This gives you an idea of how well your PC will perform with Vista installed. A rating of 1 is not very good, and will depict (for example) an on-board graphics card as opposed to an installed graphics card which will perform better.
The picture (6) shows a rating of 4, which is good and will demonstrate Vista very well. This computer (in the example) has an AMD Athlon X64 processor installed, along with 1032Mb of RAM, and a nVidia GeForce 7800 graphics card (256Mb). This is more than enough for Vista!
What Else Does Vista Have?
Vista naturally comes with Internet Explorer v.7 installed, this caused me a few problems when it was given away by Microsoft some time ago to XP users, pre-Vista launch. Some XP computer didn't like it and I have un-installed several and reverted the PC back to v.6.
Outlook Express (the e.mail facility) has been tinkered with and re-named 'Windows Mail'. To be absolutely honest, it doesn't look a lot different to Outlook Express, so I won't bother you with it, the differences aren't worth mentioning.
The 'Start' button has been changed and no longer has the word 'Start' on it, just the Vista logo. When you click it, the usual mini-window pops up and you can access all your programmes from there. The main ones are listed first, and at the bottom of the window is a link saying 'All Programs', click this and everything is listed (see screenshot 1 above).
Down the right-hand side of the mini-window is the list of available shortcuts that includes 'My Documents', 'Pictures', 'Music' and 'Games' (including Titan Chess - great fun!). Then there is the 'Search' facility, 'My Computer', 'Connect to', 'Control Panel', Help and Support' etc.
To find your way around I recommend that you click on the 'Welcome Center' which gives you a guided tour of your computer and Vista generally, well worth a visit. See screenshot 7 to see what the Welcome Center looks like.
Windows Defender
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Windows Defender is a free piece of software provided by Microsoft that scans your computer looking for harmful, malicious and unwanted software that you may not be aware of. This includes malware or spyware downloaded after viewing pages on the internet. Windows Defender alerts you when spyware or potentially unwanted software attempts to install itself or to run on your PC. It also alerts you when programmes attempt to change important Windows settings. For more details about Defender, click here. |
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