Chapter 1. Welcome Center, Desktop, and the Start Menu

Microsoft wants to make one thing perfectly clear: Windows Vista isn't just a whole new ballgameit's practically a different sport. Compared with Windows XP, Vista is different on the surface, under the hood, and everywhere in between. (It's so different, in fact, that this book includes an appendix called "Where'd It Go?," which lets you look up a familiar Windows landmark and figure out where Microsoft stuck it in Vista.)

But you'll discover all that for yourself, beginning with the very first time you turn on your Vista computer.

It's hard to predict exactly what you'll see at that fateful moment. It may be a big welcome screen bearing the logo of Dell or whomever; it may be the Vista Setup Wizard (Appendix A); or it may be the login screen, where you're asked to sign in by clicking your name in a list. (Skip to page 688 for details on logging in.)

Eventually, though, you arrive at something that looks like Figure 1-1: the shining majesty of the new Vista Welcome Center.

Figure 1-1. The Welcome Center, new in Windows Vista, offers links to various useful corners of the operating system. Most are designed to help you set up a new PC. (Click once to read a description, and then double-click to open the link.)