http://www.vistaportal.com Your #1 source of Windows Vista Sun, 13 Jan 2008 20:18:31 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en If you want to install any of our vista themes or skins onto Windows XP (all versions), you need will need this theme patcher. This will tell your system that your running Windows Vista instead of Windows XP, so you will then be able to switch themes. Setup should take ... http://www.vistaportal.com/windows-vista-tweaks/windows-xp-vista-theme-patcher-download/ You have automatically assigned hotkeys in Windows Vista for the first 10 items in your Quick Launch menu. This explains how they work. Each icon in the Quick Launch bar has “hotkey Win + number” assigned to it. You can read these from left to right, assigned with 1-9 and using ... http://www.vistaportal.com/windows-vista-tips/understanding-the-built-in-quick-launch-hotkeys-in-windows-vista/ A funny little thing with Windows Vista is that there is an appealing boot screen that is hidden but can be enabled very easily. The hidden BootScreen is visually much more appealing. This is the default boot screen: And this is the hidden one, called "Aurora": To enable the hidden BootScreen: 1.Open the start ... http://www.vistaportal.com/windows-vista-how-to/enable-the-hidden-bootscreen/ To enable the system clock to show military time in Windows Vista is very simple but not obvious. Here’s where you’ll find it. You need to get to the Regional and Language Options screen. 1.Enter “intl.cpl” into the Start menu search box. 2.Hit enter. OR you could find it in the control panel. In ... http://www.vistaportal.com/windows-vista-how-to/enable-military-time/ The new Windows Vista sidebar may be useful by some of you but on the whole it is not necessary or particularly needed. These instructions tell you how to disable it. To disable this option: 1.Right-click on the sidebar icon and select “Properties”. 2.Choose to uncheck the “Start Sidebar when Windows starts” checkbox. 3.Next, ... http://www.vistaportal.com/windows-vista-how-to/disable-your-windows-sidebar/ By default, Windows Vista displays large icons in the start menu. The setting to change them to small icons is fairly hard to find. Here is where you will find it: 1.Right-click the Start button and choose “Properties”. 2.Select the “Customize” button. 3.Scroll to the bottom and find “Use large icons”. The ... http://www.vistaportal.com/windows-vista-how-to/change-the-start-menu-so-that-it-uses-small-icons/ There are so many drives in My Computer. It can be very difficult to find certain things you are not positive of their location amongst them all. Certain ones that you never access, perhaps a USB Flash drive that you are using solely for ReadyBoost, a network drives that is ... http://www.vistaportal.com/windows-vista-tips/hide-drives-from-your-computer/ Some icons are just obvious enough that nobody should need text below them to tell them what the icon is for. A good example of this is the icon for Internet Explorer. We're all really used to it by now, and the text just makes it ugly. Just right-click on the ... http://www.vistaportal.com/windows-vista-how-to/hide-desktop-icon-text/ Windows Vista has a great new feature that allows the system clock to display up to 2 additional clocks when the mouse is hovered over the system clock. This example shows the London clock: Adding additional clocks is easy to do. 1.Right-click on the clock displayed in the system tray. 2.Select “Adjust Date/Time”. 3.Click the ... http://www.vistaportal.com/windows-vista-how-to/enable-the-additional-clocks/ Although you can easily change your Vista logon/start menu picture, if a new picture is selected, Windows Vista will remove the last made picture from the list entirely. You are then left with the new picture and the default Windows Vista pictures. Because you will probably prefer your own selection of ... http://www.vistaportal.com/windows-vista-how-to/customize-the-welcome-picture-choices/