5 Ways To Get The Most Out Of Vista

Vista Power Use #1:  Hotkeys

If you're the type that likes to right click, copy, right click, paste then I seriously suggest that you start learning a few hotkeys.  Most people know the standard Alt-Tab, Control-Z, X, C and V.  That's a great start and will surely speed up any editing you're doing.  Here's the best list I've seen of Vista hotkeys (from shavedplatypus)

Win-Space: Show sidebar
Win-D: Show desktop
Win-Tab: Flip 3D
Ctrl Win-Tab: Flip 3D which stays onto desktop, you can then scroll with up, down, left and right keys
Win-E: Opens explorer window
Win-R: Opens the run dialogue box, yes it still exists
Win-T: Tabs between running applications onto the taskbar, you know like you would hover over each task with the mouse and get a live preview of the app's.
Win-Q: When I tried this one out it launches the Office communicator for me, how does this behave for you?
Win-F: Opens the search window.
Win-G: Gives the sidebar the focus and when you press this key combination again it tabs between the gadgets on the sidebar
Win-L: Locks the computer, I use this a lot just quickly lock the PC when you go grab a cup of coffee.
Win-U: Opens the Ease of Access Center
Win-M: Minimizes all windows
Shift Win-M: Undo minimize windows
Win-X: Opens the Windows Mobility center
Win-Number: Press the Win key and then choose a number of the applications that are in the quick launch task bar. An example the third icon on the taskbar (starting from left) is IE so to run IE press Win-3 and it will launch IE.

I use many of these, especially show desktop, show sidebar and lock computer.


Vista Power Use #2:  Hit Windows and start typing

I really love this feature.  I used to have launchy installed when I ran Windows XP and while this isn't customizable and doesn't have the same feature set, it's sure nice to see Microsoft get some real usability integrated with their new OS.  Just press the windows key, start typing a program or document name and Vista will autocomplete to show the results in the start menu.  Press enter when you see the right one and it'll open up.  For example, when I want to run Cisco Anyconnect, I just hit windows, then start typing "anyconnect."  It shows me by the time I've got the y in that Cisco's client is the top result and I can already hit enter to launch it.  This saves me a lot of time when launching apps. 


Vista Power Use #3:  Laptop Power Management

A huge improvement over XP, Vista's power management offers far more detail in customizing your power scheme.  I use 3 profiles on my machine:  Maximum Performance, Power Source Optimized and Battery Saver.  For each scheme, I have it tweaked out to give me exactly the type of performance or connectivity I desire.  By default it seems to be set up fair enough, but I found that WiFi was set to maximum battery savings on all profiles so I changed it accordingly.  To access this menu, go to Control Panel -> Hardware and Sound -> Power Options -> Change Plan Settings -> Change Advanced Power Settings.  There are many options and I think you'll find that you can configure exactly to taste.


Vista Power Use #4:  The Sidebar

The sidebar reminds me a lot of Mac-style computing which can be very useful.  I found and installed a few gadgets like the calculator and a VNC client, which are things I use frequently.  Having them on the sidebar and using my trusty Win-Space hotkey gives me quicker access to my common tasks.


Vista Power Use #5:  Photo Management

While I was let down to find that MS has gotten rid of the old photo importer that XP had, I am happy to see that they've embraced tags and built in photo-management.  Albums work ok for organizing photos but being able to tag and rate them in your OS makes it much easier to find exactly what you're looking for.  Start entering tags on photos when you import them off your camera and you can pull up any tagged photos by doing an advanced search for that tag.  Tags are also editable if you simply click on the file.