Microsoft Windows Vista is here and it’s in many forms. One version is the Home Premium version that seems to come packaged with new computers.
Windows Vista is an Operating System. If you don’t know what an operating system is, it is the stuff (software) that makes your PC work. It shows things to you, it plays your music, it organizes your photos, it allows you to attach things to it like a digital camera.
Get Stuff Done
A family member of mine bought a new desktop PC last year that came with Vista already installed. She wasn’t aware that anything was new because she didn’t really know that she used to run Windows XP on her previous PC and now she was running Vista. She just knew that if she poked around a bit she’d figure it out for what she needed a PC for – documents, browsing the web, emailing, playing music, etc.
There are many PC owners who are like her. They just want to get stuff done using their PCs.
Bad Press
There currently is a lot of bad press out there about Vista and like many versions of Windows before it, I don’t find the news to be too, well, new. For all the moaning going on about this and that, I’ve also heard and seen some new computers that come out with Vista pre-installed that won’t work if you take Vista off and put Windows XP on. There are various technical reasons for that but I won’t discuss them here.
So if you wanted to take Vista off a new computer and put Windows XP on it, you might not find all the necessary stuff to make that work. I would stick it out with Vista, have some patience and extra $$ to see if you can’t get Vista to work the way you want. I know that’s easy to say and it can be frustrating, but this is not anything new for Microsoft Windows.
Vista – A Quick View and Introduction
Below is the Home Premium version of Vista. This is the login screen.
Click on image for larger view (1024 x 768)
Here’s a screen shot of the centralized Ease of Access screen. Ease of Access provides you with the accessibility settings.
Click on image for larger view (1024 x 768)
Below is the Shut Down Options Menu
Click on image for larger view (1024 x 768)
The screen below is the first screen that you see after logging in. The window in the center of the screen is called the Welcome Center.
Click on image for larger view (1024 x 768)
The Welcome Center in Vista acts like a quick menu to various tasks you can perform in Windows Vista like:
- adding new users
- upgrade your version of Vista
- transfer files and settings between computers
- help section to read more about Vista
- watch video demos to help you learn how to work with Vista
- and much more
That is it for this quick introduction to Windows Vista Home Premium edition – the login screen and the Welcome Center. We’ll take a look at other aspects of Vista and I’ll provide some of my own videos about learning Microsoft Windows Vista Home Edition.
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