Posts Tagged ‘vista’

Microsoft Vista has now been available for over a year. If you work for a large company, it’s highly likely that you will still be using a PC running Windows XP Professional, and you may be wondering ‘what is all the fuss about?’ Vista has had some pretty negative press over the last few months, but (whether you like it or not) it will probably be around for a few more years. If you are not familiar with the software, now might be a good time to keep one step ahead of your colleagues by seeing it in action (even if it’s just to say, ‘actually I prefer XP!‘). You can try an on-line demo on the Microsoft site.

www.microsoft.com

So you need to launch a program?
Most PC users we meet (especially those using Windows XP) tend to access programs by pointing their mouse at the Windows ’start’ button. Pretty obvious really… that’s the whole point of the start button isn’t it? If you have lots of software installed however, the following scenario may sound familiar:-

Start – All Programs – “Now where the heck is the program I need”

The problem?
Windows does not sort your program list alphabetically by default… so you often need to read through the whole list to find the application you need.

The solution
The solution is very simple – once in the ‘All Programs’ menu, right click your mouse button and select ’sort by name’. Tada! Your programs will be sorted alphabetically (this should work in both XP and Vista).

The drawback
You will need to repeat this process whenever you install new software.

The summary
This is a very simple solution admittedly (and there are arguably better ways of launching programs) but if your start menu is your first port of call for launching software, then it is a quick and easy fix (and requires no software to be installed).

Further information
See the Microsoft Help and Support centre .