We waited more than five years for Vista. As you may recall, Windows XP was released with much fanfare in October 2001. But instead of the next Windows version shipping in just a couple of years, as originally expected, Microsoft lost its way in the development process. Vista didn’t make it to consumers until early 2007.

Was it worth the wait? The short answer is, “Yes.” We believe Vista is a major advance on Microsoft’s previous operating systems. If you’re buying a new PC today, we don’t hesitate to recommend that you get Vista rather than requesting XP or another, older operating system. (If you’re upgrading an older PC to Vista, by contrast, be sure to first read our tips in Article 3.) In 2001, Microsoft executives widely claimed that XP was “the most secure operating system we have ever delivered.” In fact, XP and its new Web browser, Internet Explorer 6.0, were full of maddening security holes that previous operating systems didn’t suffer from. ActiveX exploits, drive-by downloads, and many other kinds of weaknesses were quickly exploited by black-hat hackers. Microsoft has been issuing patches for XP and IE 6.0 ever since.

The Vista OS and the new IE 7.0 browser are welcome steps toward changing that. Will they never need patching? We’d hardly say that. But Microsoft has added “hardening” features to Vista that should make remote exploits more difficult for hackers to carry out. Besides improved security, XP users who switch to Vista will also find enhancements in desktop searching, Windows Sidebar access to applets called gadgets, PC-to-PC content transfers, and even new games—mahjong and (finally!) chess. Instead of filling our first few pages with acknowledgements of names you’ve never heard of, we’ve moved the credits for our valued sources into the articles they helped us with. In these pages, we aim to give you a crash course on Windows Vista. In other words, read on and you can learn the most important new features of Vista in the time it takes to sip a nice, hot cuppa Joe.

Learn Vista in 15 Minutes

It’s impossible to cover all the new features of Vista in a single article. Many features warrant their own articles because there’s a lot to say about them or we found secret information that isn’t in the Help text you get with Vista. Other new Vista features, although important, may be so straightforward that they don’t have any particular secrets. If not, we haven’t devoted any further space to them in this article. But even features that don’t have hidden features may be important for you to know about when you turn Vista on for the first time. Exposing those features to you is the purpose of the following overview.

The New Start Menu

In Vista, the Start button is no longer called Start, and the Start menu looks completely different from the menu you may be used to in Windows XP. However, it’s still there at the bottom of the screen, and you may find it a bit better organized. The old Start button has been replaced by a lighted sphere that displays the Windows flag logo. Instead of submenus that fly out to the right of the main menu, Vista displays your most recently used programs in a primary window. If you don’t like the new look, you can get the old Start menu back by reverting to the familiar XP submenu system. Right-click the Start Button, click Properties, select Classic Start Menu, and then click OK.

If you click All Programs, the Start menu switches to a display of collapsing folders. You can expand each folder to show you all available programs, but the Start menu keeps the list within the primary window.

What Happened to the Run Menu?

One thing you won’t find on the default Start menu is the Run option, which generations of Windows users have employed to start programs that may not appear on any menu. The omission isn’t a problem—if you know the secret. Simply type the name of the program you want to run (such as notepad) into the Start Search bar just above the Start button and then press Enter. Windows Aero

You’ll see a slick new look to objects and applications in Vista—if you have a version of the operating system that supports it and hardware that’s modern enough to render it. The new Aero interface gives translucency to the chrome that surrounds most application windows. This enables you to see what lies beneath a window, whether the foreground app is stationary or you’re dragging it to a new location. You can see the Aero interface (formerly code-named Aero Glass) if you have Vista Home Premium, Business, Enterprise, or Ultimate Edition, and your video board supports the advanced features of Microsoft’s new Windows Driver Display Model.

Flip 3D

Many Windows users know about Alt+Tab. You can hold down the Alt key and press Tab repeatedly to switch to any application that’s currently open. The Aero user interface adds a powerful enhancement to task switching. Alt+Tab still works—even better, in fact, because now thumbnails of each application are displayed, not just titles. But you’ll probably abandon Alt+Tab in favor of Windows+Tab, called Flip3D, which shows you a revolving set of windows at an angle so you can see exactly what you’re switching to.

One of the windows that’s shown in the Flip 3D view is always your Windows Desktop. That makes it easy to minimize all of your applications. Simply hold down the Windows key (either the left one or the right one), and then press Tab until the miniature window that looks like your Desktop is uppermost. You can reverse the order that Flip 3D cycles through your open windows by holding down the Shift key in addition to Windows+Tab. In our tests, the Desktop window has always been displayed as the bottom-most application when we pressed Windows+Tab. To minimize all applications and display your Desktop, therefore, hold down the Windows key, then press Tab, Shift+Tab, and let go of the Windows key.

Programs Explorer Replaces Add/Remove Programs

Legions of Windows users have become accustomed to using the Add or Remove Programs dialog box in the Control Panel to uninstall applications that they no longer want taking up space on their hard disks. So, in its frustrating way, Microsoft has renamed this feature to make it even harder to find than it was before. To reconfigure or completely remove an application, you now use the Programs Explorer. This applet also enables you to turn on or off many of the built-in features that come with Windows Vista, such as the Indexing Service. Fortunately, the Programs Explorer is still available through the Control Panel. You just need to know to look for it in the Ps instead of the As.