Windows Vista Aero

Windows Vista Aero is the premium user experience in Windows Vista and the one most users will want to access. It provides a number of unique features. First, Vista Aero enables the new Aero Glass look and feel in which the Start Menu, taskbar, and all onscreen windows and dialog boxes take on a new glass-like translucent sheen. In article 4-5, you can see how overlapping objects translucently reveal what’s underneath. Aero Glass is designed to move the visual focus away from the windows themselves and to the content they contain. Whether that effort is successful is open to debate, but it’s certainly true that window borders lose the vast, dark-colored title bars of previous Windows versions and provide a softer-looking container around window contents. Compare Windows XP’s My Computer window to Windows Vista’s Computer window in article 4-6. When you have a lot of Aero windows open onscreen, it’s often hard to tell which one is on top, or has the focus. Typically, that window will have a bright red Close window button, while lower windows will not. When you utilize the Windows Vista Aero user experience, you will receive other benefits. Certain Windows Vista features, for example, are available only when you’re using Aero. Windows Flip and Flip 3D, two new task-switching features, are available only in Aero.

Windows Flip and Flip 3D are made available via keyboard shortcuts. To use Windows Flip, hold down the Alt key and tap the Tab key to cycle between all of the running applications and open windows. To use Flip 3D, hold down the Windows key and tap the Tab key to cycle between these windows. Aero also enables dynamic window animations, so that when you minimize a window to the taskbar, it subtly animates to show you exactly where it went. This kind of functionality was actually first introduced in Windows 95, but it has been made more subtle and fluid in Windows Vista. Additionally, Aero enables Live Taskbar Thumbnails: When you mouse over buttons in the taskbar, a small thumbnail preview will pop up, letting you see the window without having to actually activate it first, 4-8. effect is most prominent in windows with animated content, such as when you’re playing a video in Windows Media Player (WMP). But it’s not just about looks. Windows Aero is simply more reliable than the other user experiences. To understand why that’s so, we’ll need to examine Aero’s strict hardware and software requirements.

Windows Vista Aero requirements

As noted earlier, you have to be running an activated version of Vista Home Premium, Business, Enterprise, or Ultimate Edition in order to utilize Windows Vista Aero. Here, activated refers to the Product Activation feature that’s included in Windows Vista, whereby each Windows Vista installation is guaranteed, via a service called Windows Genuine Advantage, to be legitimate and not pirated. Most copies of Windows Vista that are preinstalled on new PCs come pre-activated, so this is a step that many users won’t have to worry about. However, if you purchase a retail version of Windows Vista, you’ll need to activate it. Next, your display adapter must meet certain technical requirements. It must support DirectX 9.0 with Pixel Shader 2 in hardware and be supported by a new Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) driver. The WDDM driver requirement is part of the reason Aero is so much more reliable than other Vista user experiences: To become WDDM certified, a driver must pass certain Microsoft tests aimed around making these drivers of higher quality. Additionally, your graphics card must have enough dedicated memory (RAM) to drive your display. Table 4-2 explains how much video RAM you’ll need to run Windows Vista Aero at particular screen resolutions. Microsoft makes these requirements sound so difficult. But the truth is, virtually every single 3D graphics card on the market, as well as Intel’s Graphics Media Accelerator 950 integrated graphics chipset, is capable of running Windows Vista Aero. And most of today’s graphics cards come with at least 128 MB of RAM. Note, however, that most older integrated graphics chipsets, such as those found on most notearticles and Tablet PCs sold before 2005, are not compatible with Vista Aero. Furthermore, in order to obtain Aero on a system with integrated graphics, at least 512 MB of system RAM must be available after the integrated graphics reserves whatever it needs.

Configuring Windows Vista Aero If you’re not a big fan of the translucent glass effects provided by Windows Vista Aero but would still like to take advantage of the other unique features and reliability offered by this user experience, take heart. Microsoft has nicely provided a handy configuration utility to Aero that enables you to fine-tune how it looks. This functionality is available via the Personalization section of the Control Panel. The quickest way to get there is to right-click a blank area of the desktop, choose Properties, and then select Windows Color and Appearance from the Personalize appearance and sound effects control panel. This window, shown in article 4-9, enables you to change various aspects of Aero’s visual style. First, you can pick between preset color choices by selecting one of the color scheme swatches shown at the top of the window. You can also disable transparent glass (really translucency) or vary the intensity of the translucency to meet your liking. Finally, you can expand the Show color mixer option and apply varying levels of color, saturation, and brightness to achieve just the look and feel you want. In our experience, most of the preset color choices just make Aero windows look dirty. The exception is Frost, which is very clean looking. You might also find some success with varying the intensity of the translucency effect or by just disabling it all together.

Exploring with the Windows Vista Explorer Shell Regardless of which user experience you choose, you’re going to notice a number of visual and functional changes as you begin navigating around Windows Vista at first. In this section, we’ll highlight the most important changes you should be aware of and help you find some old favorites that have been lost in the transition.

Start Menu The Start menu, shown in article 4-10, has been enhanced since Windows XP to make it easier to use and better looking. Like its predecessor, you access the Start Menu by pressing the Start button, which now resembles a rounded Windows flag, and does not include the word Start. As with the Windows XP Start Menu, the Vista Start Menu is divided vertically into two halves. On the left half are a list of your most-recently used applications; on top of that, two application types - Web browser and e-mail - are pinned so that they’re always accessible. On the right is a list of special shell folders and other system locations and tasks that you might need to access frequently. You can modify the upper-left portion of the Start Menu in two ways. First, you can determine which web browser and e-mail application appear in these special locations. To do so, right-click the Start button, choose Properties, and then click the Customize button in the Start Menu Properties dialog box. In the Customize Start Menu dialog box that appears, pick the web browser and e-mail applications you prefer from the drop-down lists next to Internet link and E-mail link, respectively. Or, deselect either or both options if you don’t want them to appear on the Start Menu. You can also drag your favorite applications into this area and “pin” them permanently. To do so, select the shortcut you want to pin from the Start Menu and drag it up above the line that separates the Internet and email links from the most recently used application list. To remove a shortcut from this area, right-click it and choose Remove from this list.

Accessing All Programs At the bottom of the most recently used applications list, you’ll see the familiar All Programs link. However, in Windows Vista, this link behaves quite differently than does the All Programs link in Windows XP, which launches a cascading series of menus when clicked. Now, in Windows Vista, this link expands the Start Menu’s All Programs submenu directly within the Start Menu itself. As with XP, you don’t have to click the link to make it happen. Instead, you can simply mouse-over it. In article 4-11, you can see how the All Programs submenu opens up inside of the Start Menu, temporarily replacing the most frequently used application list. There are a couple reasons why this change was made. First, it eliminates the sometimes maddening pause that would occur in Windows XP when you clicked or moused-over the All Programs link. Secondly, many users found the cascading menu system used previously to be hard to navigate. How many times have you expanded submenu after submenu, only to inadvertently move the mouse cursor off the menu, only to cause the whole thing to shut down? It’s happened to the best of us. To navigate through the various submenus linked to from All Programs, you simply have to click various folders. When you do so, the menu expands, in place, and scroll bars appear so you can moved around within the menu structure. As you can see in article 4-12, submenus that expand within the current view are easier to navigate than cascading menus. Keyboard users can easily navigate the new Start Menu as well. To do so, click the Windows key or the Ctrl+Esc keyboard shortcut to open the Start Menu. Then, press the Up Arrow key once to highlight All Programs. To expand All Programs, press the Right Arrow key. Then, use the arrow keys to navigate around the list of shortcuts and folders. Anytime you want to expand a submenu (indicated by a folder icon), press the Right Arrow key. To close, or contract, a submenu, press the Left Arrow key.

Searching for Applications One of the most important new features in Windows Vista is its integrated search functionality. Although you might think that this feature is limited only to finding documents and music files, you can actually use it for a variety of things, and depending on where you are in the Vista interface, those searches will be context sensitive. So when you search from the Start Menu’s new Search box, located on the left side of the menu underneath All Programs, you will be typically searching for applications. You can also use this functionality to quickly launch applications, when you know their names. The Search Menu’s search feature doesn’t just search applications. You can also use it to search Internet Explorer Favorites or History. Alternatively, you can search the Internet or the local file system. To do so, type in a search query and then click either the Search the Internet or Search the computer links that appear. Search results from these searches will appear in separate windows (Internet searches in your default Web browser and computer searches in a Windows Explorer window). To find out more about searching the file system and constructing your own saved searches, please refer to Article 5. Here’s how it works. When you open the Start Menu and begin typing, whatever you type is automatically placed in the search box. So let’s say you want to run Notepad. You could always click the Start button, expand All Programs, expand Accessories, and then click on the Notepad icon. Or, you could tap the Windows key and just type notepad. As you type, applications that match the text appear in a list, 4-13. When you see the application you want, use the arrow keys (or mouse cursor) to select it, and then Notepad will start normally. Microsoft thinks that this new search feature will replace the old Run command that appeared in previous versions of the Start Menu. And for the most part they’re right. But it’s possible that some users would prefer to use the old Run command, which brings up a small dialog box and maintains a history of previously accessed commands. Good news: You can turn it on. To enable the Run command, right-click the Start Menu, choose Properties, and then click the Customize button. Scroll down the list until you see the Run command option and then select it. Click OK and then OK again, and you’ll see that the Run command is back where it belongs.

Accessing Special Shell Folders and System Locations On the right side of the Start Menu, you’ll see a list of commands that are vaguely similar to what appeared on the XP Start Menu. However, many of the names have changed. For example, My Documents is now Documents, My Pictures is now Pictures, My Music is now Music, My Computer is now Computer, and My Network Places is now Network. There are some new items, too, as well as some missing items that were present in XP. The first thing you may notice in this area is the addition of a new command, which has the same name as your user account. If you’re logged on as Sally, the first link on the right side of the Start Menu will also be named Sally. When you click this link, it will open an Explorer window displaying the contents of your user folder, which contains folders such as Documents, Pictures, Music, and so on. It’s unclear to us why you would ever need to access this folder, except in rare circumstances. For this reason, you may simply want to remove it from the Start Menu and replace it with a more frequently-needed command. We cover Start Menu customization in the next section. The Games link is also new to Windows Vista. This opens the new Games Explorer, which provides access to both games that came with Windows and those you might purchase separately. One feature some people might miss with the new Start Menu is the ability to quickly cause the system to shut down, restart, sleep, or hibernate using just the keyboard. In Windows XP, you could tap the Windows key, press U, and then U for shutdown, R for restart, S for sleep, or H for hibernate (the latter of which was a hidden option). Because of the new integrated search feature in the Windows Vista Start Menu, these shortcuts no longer work. However, you can still perform these actions with the keyboard in Windows Vista. Now, however, you have to tap the Windows key and then press the Right Arrow key three times to activate the Lock this computer submenu, which provides options for the aforementioned options as well as Switch User, Log Off, Lock, and, if you have a notearticle computer with a docking station, Undock.

Start Menu Customization While the Windows Vista Start Menu is a big improvement over its predecessor, you will likely want to customize it to match your needs. We’ve already discussed how you access this functionality: Right-click the Start button, choose Properties, and then click the Customize button. Table 4-3 summarizes the options that are available to you.

Advanced Start Menu Customization One of the features of the Start Menu that’s not immediately obvious is that it is composed of items from the following two different locations, both of which are hidden by default:

Within your user profile: By default, C:\Users\Your User Name\AppData\ Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu

Inside the profile for the Public user account that is common (or public) to all users: Typically, C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu If you navigate to these locations with Windows Explorer, you can drill down into the folder structures and shortcuts that make up your own Start Menu. What’s odd is that these two locations are combined, or aggregated, to form the Start Menu you access every day. You can also access these folders by right-clicking on the Start button. To access your own private portion of the Start Menu, choose Open from the right-click menu. To access the Public portion of the Start Menu, choose Open All Users. So why would you want to access these locations? Although it’s possible to customize the Start Menu by dragging and dropping shortcuts like you might have done with Windows XP, that can get tedious. Instead, you could simply access these folders directly, move things around as you see fit, all while opening the Start Menu occasionally to make sure you’re getting the results you expect. For example, you might want to create handy subfolders such as Digital Media, Internet, and Utilities, rather than accept the default structure.

Be careful when you customize the Start Menu this way. Any changes you make to the Public Start Menu structure will affect any other users that log on to your PC as well.

Desktop At first glance, the Windows Vista desktop looks very similar to that of Windows XP. Well, looks can be deceiving. In fact, Microsoft has made some much-overdue and quite welcome changes to the Windows desktop, although of course with these changes comes a new set of skills to master. For the most part, you access desktop options through the pop-up menu that appears when you right-click an empty part of the Windows desktop. In Windows XP, this menu had options such as Arrange Icons By, Refresh, Paste, Paste Shortcut, Undo, New, and Properties. In Windows Vista, naturally, this has all changed. At the top of the right-click menu is a new submenu, called View, which is shown in article 4-14. This submenu enables you to configure features Windows users have been asking about for years: You can now switch between Large Icons, Medium Icons, and Classic Icons. You can also select auto-arrange and alignment options, and hide the desktop icons all together, as you could in XP. The Sort submenu is similar to the top part of the Windows XP Arrange Icons By submenu. Here, we get sorting options for Name, Size, File extension (previously called Type) and Date modified. The Refresh, Paste, Paste Shortcut, Undo, and New items all carry over from XP as well. At the bottom of the right-click menu, however, is another new option, dubbed Personalize. This replaces the Properties option from XP and now displays the Control Panel’s Personalization section when selected. From here, you can access a wide range of personalization options, only some of which have anything to do with the desktop. One of the big questions you likely have, of course, is what the heck happened to the familiar Display Properties dialog box that’s graced every version of Windows from Windows 95 to Windows XP? Sadly, that dialog box is gone, but pieces of it can be found throughout the Personalization control panel if you know where to look. In Table 4-4, we’ll show you how to find the different sections, or tabs, of the old Display Properties dialog box, which have been effectively scattered to the winds. It’s unclear whether Windows Vista’s approach is better, but if you’re looking for XP Display Properties features, you really have to know where to look. The Desktop tab of the Display Properties dialog box in Windows XP had a Customize Desktop button that launched a Desktop Items dialog box from which you could configure which icons appeared on the desktop and other related options. But in Windows Vista, the Desktop tab has been replaced with the new Desktop Background window, which does not provide a link to this functionality. To access the Desktop Icon Properties dialog box, as it’s now known, you must open Control Panel, choose Appearance and Personalization, Personalization, and then choose Change desktop icons from the Tasks list on the left. Some functionality, however, is missing. You can no longer run the Desktop Cleanup Wizard or place Web items on your desktop, as you could in XP.

Taskbar In Windows Vista, the system taskbar works similarly to the way it did in Windows XP. Every time you open an application or Explorer window, you will see a new button appear in the taskbar. When you click one these buttons, the selected window comes to the forefront. If that window was already at the forefront, it will be minimized. If you have numerous open windows from the same application - like you might with Internet Explorer - the taskbar will group these buttons into a pop-up list, just like it did in Windows XP. And when you right-click a taskbar button, you see a menu that is identical to that in XP. Other features carry over from XP as well. When you right-click a blank area of the taskbar, you get a pop-up menu with links to enable toolbars, arrange desktop windows in various ways, show the desktop, access the Task Manager, toggle taskbar locking, and access the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box, from which you can configure various taskbar options. This dialog box is shown in article 4-15. What’s new is that you can get Live Thumbnail Previews when you mouse over taskbar buttons, which was shown back in article 4-8. To enable this feature, the option Show Thumbnails must be enabled, which it is by default. Note, too, that the Notification area options have been moved to a new tab of this dialog in Windows Vista. Not coincidentally, we’ll look at this feature next. Though the taskbar sits on the bottom of the Windows desktop by default, you can actually drag it to any of the other three screen borders should you so desire. To do so, right-click the taskbar and uncheck Lock the Taskbar. Then, simply use your wellhoned drag-and-drop skills to drag the taskbar to a screen edge - you can also resize it as you see fit, so that it occupies multiple lines vertically, or is whatever width you like horizontally. Recheck the Lock the Taskbar option to ensure that you don’t accidentally move it again.

Notification Area and System Clock Way back in Windows 95, Microsoft introduced a number of user interface conventions that still exist in Windows Vista. These include, among others, the Start button and Start Menu, the taskbar, the Windows Explorer windows, and the notification area, which sits at the right end of the taskbar by default. You’ll typically see two types of items here: The system clock and various notification icons. Some of these icons are installed by default with Windows, such as the volume control, the network icon, Safely Remove Hardware, and others. Other icons can be installed by third-party applications. For example, Apple’s QuickTime Player and many security applications install tray icons. As the name suggests, the tray is designed for notifications and shouldn’t be used as a taskbar replacement although some developers try to use it that way for some reason (some applications inexplicably minimize to the tray rather than to the taskbar as they should). Applications like Windows Live Messenger and Microsoft Outlook, which need to alert the user to new instant messages, e-mails, or online contacts, also use the tray, and display small pop-up notification windows nearby. Despite early plans to remove the notification area and replace it with a Sidebar panel, Microsoft has pretty much left this feature intact in Windows Vista. Not much has changed: You can now configure various notification area features - such as which system icons are displayed by default, and the display behavior of any notification icon on your system - from a new Notification Area tab in the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box. But that’s about it. One thing that has changed demonstrably is the system clock. In Windows Vista, this feature is now dramatically better than its XP relation. At first glance, it’s not obvious what’s changed. The clock displays the time, as you’d expect. And if you mouse over the time display, a yellow balloon tip window appears, providing you with the day and date. In Windows XP, you could access the system’s Date and Time Properties dialog box by double-clicking the clock. This doesn’t work in Windows Vista. Instead, you can singleclick the clock to display a new pop-up window, shown in article 4-16, which provides a professionally formatted calendar and analog clock. And there’s an option to display the new Date and Time Properties window. When you click Date and Time Settings, you’ll see the new Date and Time Properties window, 4-17. Here, you can configure options you’d expect, such as date, time, and time zone. But you can also configure additional clock displays, which is an excellent feature for travelers or those who frequently need to communicate with people in different time zones. From the Additional Clocks tab of this dialog box, you can add up to two more clocks. Each clock gets its own time zone and optional display name. What’s cool about this feature is the way it changes the clock displays. Now, when you mouse over the clock, you’ll see a pop-up that lists data from all of your clocks, 4-18.

Windows Vista Explorers No discussion of the Windows Vista user experience would be complete without a look at the ways in which Microsoft has evolved Windows Explorer in this release. Windows Explorer first appeared in Windows 95, replacing the many horrible manager programs (File Manager, Program Manager, and so on) that plagued previous versions. It was a grand idea, but then Microsoft made the mistake of combining Internet Explorer with the Windows shell. Starting with an interim version of Windows 95, the Windows Explorer shell has been based on IE, and since then we’ve suffered through a decade of security vulnerabilities and the resulting patches. In Windows Vista, that integration is a thing of the past. Windows Explorer has been completely overhauled, and although it’s arguably better than the Explorer shell in Windows XP, it’s also quite a bit different. Microsoft has also introduced some new terminology into the mix, just to keep us on our toes. So as My Documents is renamed to Documents in Windows Vista, Microsoft now refers to that window as the Documents Explorer. Likewise with all the other special folders: There are now explorers for Pictures, Music, applications, devices, and other objects. From a usability perspective, much has changed since XP. Let’s examine a typical Explorer window, as seen in article 4-20. The menu bar is gone, replaced by a hidden Classic Menu, which can be dynamically triggered by tapping the Alt key. The main toolbar is also gone, replaced by Back and Forward buttons, the new enhanced Address Bar, and the new integrated search box. Below those controls is a new user interface construct called the command bar, which includes context-sensitive commands, that replaces the old task pane from Windows XP Explorer. On the bottom is a new preview pane. In the center of the window, you’ll see a Navigation pane with collapsing Folders view, a large icon display area, and, optionally, a Reading pane. Let’s see what all of these features do.

Classic Menu One of the guiding principles in Windows Vista is simplification. In previous Windows versions, virtually every system window and application included a top menu structure. In Windows Vista, however, these menus are typically either nonexistent or are hidden. So the menu system is hidden by default. To display it temporarily, simply tap the Alt key. Or, you can enable it permanently by choosing Folder Options from the Tools menu, navigating to the View tab of the Folder Options dialog box, and enabling the option titled Always show Classic Menus. There’s precious little reason to do this, however. The Classic Menus in Explorer are virtually identical to their XP counterparts. One major exception is that the Favorites menu does not appear in Vista, because IE is no longer integrated with the Windows shell.

Enhanced Address Bar For the first time since Windows 95, the address bar gets a major overhaul in Windows Vista. Now, instead of the classic address bar view, the address bar is divided into dropdown menu nodes along the navigation path, making it easier than ever to move through the shell hierarchy. This is referred to as the breadcrumb bar. To see how this works, open the Documents Explorer by clicking the Documents item in the Start Menu and observing the address bar. It is divided into three nodes, a folder, a node representing your user profile (Doris or whatever), and Documents. Each has a small arrow next to it, indicating that you can click there to trigger a drop-down menu. To navigate to a folder that is at the same level in the shell hierarchy as the Documents folder, click the small arrow to the right of your user name. As you can see in article 4-21, a drop-down menu appears, showing you all the folders that are available inside of your user account folder. You can click any of these to navigate there immediately. Note that doing this in XP would require two steps. First, you’d have to click the Up toolbar button; then, you’d have to double-click the folder you wanted. To simply move back up a level, click the node that is to the left of the current location. In this example we would click the node that is denoted by your user name. To see the classic address bar, simply click a blank area of the enhanced address bar.

Command Bar The new command bar combines the functionality of XP Windows Explorer’s toolbar and task panes in a new, less real estate–intensive place. Like the task pane in XP, portions of the command bar change depending on what items you are viewing or have selected. That is, the command bar is context sensitive. That said, the following portions of the command bar will remain constant regardless of what you’re viewing:

Organize button: Appears in all Explorer windows and provides you with a drop-down menu from which you can perform common actions like create a new folder; cut, copy, paste, undo, and redo; select all; delete; rename; close; and get properties.

Layout submenu: Enables you to determine which user interface elements appear in Explorer windows. These elements include Classic Menus (off by default), Search Pane (off by default except in the Search window), Preview Pane (on by default), Reading Pane (off by default), and the Navigation Pane (on by default).

Views button: Lets you change the icon view style. The other options you see in the command bar will depend on the view and selection. For example, article 4-22 shows how the command bar changes in the Documents window when you select a document file.

Instant Search Windows Vista has search in the Start Menu, search in Internet Explorer, a new Search window, and it even has an instant search box in every Explorer window. The reason this is useful is that the instant search box is context sensitive. Sure, you could search your entire hard drive via the Search option in the Start Menu. But if you’re in a folder, and you know that what you’re looking for is in there somewhere, maybe in one of the subfolders, then the instant search box is the tool to use. To search for a document or other file in the current folder or one of its subfolders, just click the search box and begin typing. Your results will begin appearing immediately. When the search results list is complete, you can also click a link titled Search for ‘search query’ in Index that will let you search the entire hard drive.

Navigation Pane On the left of every Windows Explorer window by default is a new area called the Navigation pane. This pane features a list of common shell locations (like Documents, Pictures, Music, and the like) as well as any saved searches that are relevant to the current view. For example, The Documents folder includes a search folder called Recently Changed that will let you view only those documents that have recently been edited in some way. At the bottom of the Navigation pane, you’ll see a small panel named Folders. If you click the small arrow to the right, the Folders pane will expand into the Navigation pane, providing you with a traditional file explorer view.

Live Icons and Reading Pane In Windows Vista, document icons are “live” and can provide you with a rich preview of their contents depending on which view style you’re using. But even when you’re using one of the smaller view styles, you can get live previews: Simply enable the Reading pane, and as you select individual documents, you’ll see a preview in the Reading pane.

Preview Pane By default, every Windows Explorer window includes a Preview pane at the bottom that provides a list of properties about the currently selected file or document. Previously, you would have to open the file’s Properties sheet to view this information.

More to Come . . . There’s so much more to know about the Windows Vista Explorers, including various changes to the special shell folders, icon view styles, and saved searches. We will look at all of those features in the next article. Although the Aero windows are pretty and translucent, they still include the same window controls we’ve come to expect from previous Windows versions. This is true of the window button, which used to be found to the left of the window title bar in previous Windows versions, where you could trigger a drop-down window with restore, move, size, minimize, maximize, and close options, or double-click it to close the window. It’s there in Windows Vista.

Summary Anyone who uses Windows Vista will need to deal with its user interface, which is both brand new in many ways and also extremely familiar to any who has used Windows XP. Like its XP predecessor, Windows Vista features a Start button and Start Menu, a taskbar, a tray notification area, and a desktop. But Vista goes beyond XP by improving each of these features while adding other unique features, new user experiences such as Windows Vista Basic and Standard and Windows Aero.