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The inner workings of Windows Vista reveal themselves inside the mysterious Control Panel. Choose Start --> Control Panel to plug away at the innards.
The main categories of the Control Panel are as follows:
- System and Maintenance: Use an enormous array of tools for troubleshooting and adjusting your PC, backing up your data, controlling how Windows conducts searches, checking your performance rating, and generally making your PC work when it doesn't want to. Unfortunately, this category also includes all the tools you need to shoot yourself in the foot. Use this part of the Control Panel with discretion and respect.
- Security: Check out the components of Vista's mighty security arsenal, including Windows Firewall (at least, the inbound part of Windows Firewall), Windows Defender, and the efficacy of your antivirus software. This is also the place to go to institute parental controls and to make changes to Internet Explorer's security settings.
- Network and Internet: Set up a network. Set up Internet connections, particularly if you're sharing an Internet connection across a network or if you have a cable modem or digital subscriber line (DSL) service. Deal with conflicting wireless networks. Sign in for Windows Collaboration or configure synchronization between computers. Many security settings in this category duplicate those in the Security category.
- Hardware and Sound: This is the "all other" category. Add or remove printers and connect to other printers on your network. Troubleshoot printers. Install, remove, and set the options for scanners and digital cameras, mice, game controllers, joysticks, keyboards, and pen devices. Power settings are here, too.
- Programs: Add and remove specific features in some programs (most notably Windows Vista and Office). Uninstall programs. Block programs that try to start themselves when you boot Windows, using Windows Defender. Change the association between filename extensions and the programs that run those files (so that you can, for example, have iTunes play WMA audio files). Microsoft also kindly gives you an easy way to buy new programs online.
- User Accounts and Family Safety: Add or remove users from the Windows Welcome screen. Enable the Guest account. Change user account characteristics, including passwords. Set up parental controls.
- Appearance and Personalization: Turn on the Glass effect, and make your windows translucent. Change what your desktop looks like — wallpaper, colors, mouse pointers, screen saver, icon size and spacing, and so on. Set screen resolution (for example, 1280 x 1024 or 2048 x 1280) so that you can pack more information onto your screen — assuming that your eyes (and screen) can handle it. Make the Windows taskbar hide when you're not using it, and change the items on your Start menu. Change what Windows Explorer shows when you're looking at folders. Add or remove fonts.
- Clock, Language, and Region: Set the time and date — although double-clicking the clock on the Windows taskbar is much simpler — or tell Windows to synchronize the clock automatically. Here you can also add support for complex languages (such as Thai) and right-to-left languages and change how dates, times, currency, and numbers appear.
- Ease of Access: Change settings to help you see the screen, use the keyboard or mouse, or have Windows flash part of your screen when the speaker would play a sound. Also, set up speech recognition.
 | Many of the Control Panel settings duplicate options you see elsewhere in Vista, but some capabilities that seem like they should be Control Panel mainstays remain mysteriously absent. In the Control Panel, you have a number of different ways to turn on Windows automatic updating, for example, but you won't find the controls for adjusting Vista's outbound firewall anywhere in the long Control Panel list. |
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