Using the Programs That Come with Windows Vista

A variety of useful programs are installed on your computer along with the Windows Vista operating system. The following brief introduction to some of these programs will help you decide whether you want to explore them on your own.

Windows Fax and Scan

With Windows Fax and Scan, you can send and receive faxes through an analog phone line and a modem, or through a fax server. After ensuring that the internal or external modem is correctly installed and turned on and that the phone line is plugged in, you need to set up a fax account to tell Windows how you will send and receive faxes. (If you want to send a fax via a fax modem but do not want to receive faxes, you don't have to set up an account.) Thereafter, you can start Windows Fax And Scan from the All Programs menu.

To send a fax from Windows Fax And Scan, click Fax in the Navigation pane, and then click the New Fax button on the toolbar to display a New Fax window. After entering the receiving phone number (or the contact to whom you are sending the fax) and a subject, you can compose the fax or a cover sheet, attach a file or insert a picture or scanned document, and then click Send.

Received faxes appear in your Inbox in the Windows Fax And Scan window and can be viewed in much the same way as an e-mail message in an e-mail program.

If you have a scanner connected to your computer, you can also use Windows Fax And Scan to scan text documents and graphics to your computer as digital files that you can send as faxes or e-mail message attachments. Most modern scanners are Plug and Play devices that you can simply plug into an appropriate port on your computer.

To scan a printed document, turn on the scanner and insert the document you want to scan. Start Windows Fax And Scan, click Scan at the bottom of the Navigation pane, and then click the New Scan button on the toolbar. Adjust the settings in the New Scan window, and then click Preview to see how the scanned document will look.

If you are satisfied with the preview, click Scan. Windows Fax And Scan scans the document and displays the scanned image. You can then send it directly by clicking the Forward As Fax or Forward As E-Mail button on the toolbar, or you can click the Save As button to save it as a file on your computer.

Windows Calendar

To simply check a date, you can click the clock in the notification area at the right end of the Windows taskbar to display a calendar for the current month. However, if you don't use Microsoft Office Outlook and want to track your schedule in an electronic calendar, you can use the new Windows Calendar program that comes with Windows Vista.

To open a personalized window where you can make appointments, point to All Programs on the Start menu, and then click Windows Calendar. When you select a time slot in the center pane and click the New Appointment button on the toolbar, a new appointment appears in the calendar. Type the name of the appointment, fill in information in the Details pane, and if you want, instruct Windows Vista to remind you about the appointment in advance.

In addition to keeping track of your schedule, you can also keep track of your tasks. Clicking the New Task button on the toolbar creates a new task in the Tasks pane in the lower-left corner of the window. Type the name of the task, and fill in information in the Details pane.

Windows Contacts

The contact program that comes with Windows Vista can be used as a stand-alone electronic address book or it can be used in conjunction with Windows Mail and Windows Fax And Scan to provide ready access to your contact information. With Windows Contacts, you can:

• Store e-mail addresses, street addresses, phone numbers, and personal information about a contact. You can associate each contact with a picture.

• Create contact groups so that you can send e-mail messages to the entire group. For example, you might create a group for each project you're working on, or you might want a group for family members.

• Import contact information from programs that export comma-separated text files, and export information from Windows Calendar in that format for use in other programs.

• Send and receive electronic business cards that contain contact information in a format that can easily be merged into other people's contact databases.

• Print your contact information in a variety of formats so that you can carry it with you when you don't have access to your computer or handheld electronic organizer.

You can easily add contact information by clicking Windows Contacts on the All Programs list to open the Contacts window. Clicking the New Contact button on the toolbar displays the Properties dialog box, where you can fill in all the information you have for a contact on multiple tabs.

After you create your contacts, you can view and organize them in various ways, in much the same way that you view and organize files in any folder window.

Windows Mail

With computer communications, the world has become a much smaller place. It used to take months for a letter to travel from one side of the world to the other; it now takes seconds for an electronic message to make the same trip. Windows Vista comes with an e-mail program called Windows Mail that you can quickly and easily configure to send and receive e-mail messages.

The first time you start Windows Mail by clicking it on the All Programs menu, you are prompted to set up an account by entering information provided by your Internet service provider (ISP) or network administrator. Thereafter, starting Windows Mail displays your Inbox with any messages downloaded from your mail server.

Windows Mail is a rich e-mail program with many sophisticated features and customizable options. To read a message, you can click it in the header pane to display its contents in the reading pane, or you can double-click it to open it in its own window. Either way, you can click buttons on the toolbar to reply to the sender, reply to the sender and all the people who also received the message, or forward the message to someone else. To send a new message, you click the Create Mail button on the toolbar to open a New Message window, where you can enter the address of the recipient and any people to whom you are sending courtesy copies, and type a subject and the text of the message. You can format the message, check its spelling, and attach files to it before clicking the Send button to send it on its way.

Clicking Options on the Tools menu displays a multi-tabbed dialog box, where you can tailor the way the program operates to meet your needs.

In addition to using Windows Mail to send and receive e-mail messages, you can configure it to connect to newsgroups. Newsgroups are moderated or unmoderated "message boards" on which people communicate about a specific subject. If people are talking about it, there is probably a newsgroup for it. Although this mode of communication has been somewhat eclipsed by blogs, which incorporate the graphics and pizzazz typical of a Web page, newsgroups are nevertheless an important resource. You can subscribe to a newsgroup by clicking Newsgroups on the Tools menu of the Windows Mail window.

Playing Games Windows Vista comes with these nine games, of varying difficulty, to entertain you when you have a few spare minutes. Chess Titans. A three-dimensional chess game with colored squares to guide you. FreeCell. A version of solitaire with all the cards visible. New look in Windows Vista. Hearts. A card game where having hearts and the queen of spades is bad and having the jack of diamonds is good. New look in Windows Vista. InkBall. Pinball for the Tablet PC, where bouncing balls are controlled by ink strokes. Mahjong Titans. A solitaire-like version of the classic Chinese game, played with tiles instead of cards. Minesweeper. A board game involving hidden mines and number clues. New look in Windows Vista. Purble Place. Three children's games in one: Comfy Cakes, Purble Shop, and Purble Pairs. New in Windows Vista. Solitaire. The classic card game, whose goal is to reorder randomly displayed cards by suit and rank. New look in Windows Vista. Spider Solitaire. A two-deck version of solitaire. New look in Windows Vista. With the Business and Enterprise editions of Windows Vista, the Games folder and the games that come with Windows Vista are not installed by default. If a Games link does not appear on the right side of the Start menu, you can display it by following these steps: 1. Right-click the Start button, click Properties, and on the Start Menu tab of the Properties dialog box, click Customize. 2. Scroll the list in the Customize Menu dialog box, and under Games, select the Display as a link option. Then click OK in each of the open dialog boxes. A link to the Games folder now appears on the right side of the Start menu. If the folder that opens when you click the Games link is empty, you need to turn on the display of Games from the Windows Features dialog box. See Also For information about making games available, see "Turning Windows Features On and Off" in Chapter 11, "Optimizing Your Computer System." To play a game, you double-click it in the Games folder. Clicking a game icon displays information about the game's publisher, developer, and genre (type) in the Details pane at the bottom of the folder window and information about how well it will perform on your computer in the Preview pane on the right side. [View full size image] You might also want to while away some time playing games other than those that come with Windows Vista. You can find thousands of games in stores and online for purchase, and many are available for free download. Installing a game adds a link to the game to your Games folder so that you can easily start all games from one central location.

Windows Meeting Space

No matter what type of job you have, you probably attend your fair share of meetings. In the past, meetings almost always involved sitting down in an office or conference room for a face-to-face discussion. Although advances in telephony have created the possibility of teleconferencing, this type of meeting is unsatisfactory if documents or supporting information need to be exchanged and discussed. That's where Web conferencing comes in. This latest evolution of the traditional meeting allows people in dispersed locations to meet, share content and ideas, collaborate on documents, and communicate using their computers.

With Windows Meeting Space, which comes with Windows Vista, you can set up an on-screen meeting for up to ten people. (You might want to supplement the meeting with a conference call or instant messaging.) The first time you start the program by clicking Windows Meeting Space in the All Programs list, you need to do a little setup work so that Windows Vista can identify the people near you who are using computers. Then to initiate a meeting, in the Windows Meeting Space window, click Start A New Meeting, assign the meeting a name, enter a password, and click the Create A Meeting button.

You can invite people to a Windows Meeting session by sending an electronic invitation. If you want to make the meeting available to an entire group of people, you can make it visible through a local network to people near you so that they can join the meeting.

As participants join the meeting, their names appear in the Windows Meeting window. You can share a file such as a schedule or budget with participants by clicking Share A Program Or Your Desktop and then browsing to and double-clicking the file. It opens on your computer for editing, but all participants can see it. You can give control of the file to another participant so that she or he can edit the file on his or her computer. You can also share your entire desktop in a way that is similar to Remote Assistance. You can distribute a file such as an agenda to participants by clicking Add A Handout and then browsing to and double-clicking the file to make it available from the Windows Meeting Space window. Each participant then double-clicks the handout in the window to open a copy on his or her computer. One at a time, participants can make changes that are reflected in all the open copies of the handout file.

If you have been invited to a meeting, in the Windows Meeting Space window, you can either click Join A Meeting Near Me and supply a password, or click Open An Invitation File (if that is the way you were invited).

Privacy and security are maintained in a meeting because of the precautions taken when inviting people and because all communications are encrypted.