Vista's Start menu works unlike previous editions of Windows. Here's how to find your programs and files.

Although the Vista Start menu is similar to the one in Windows Xp, there are some subtle - and useful¬differences.
Like several aspects of Vista, it's largely better looking and better at getting the job done, courtesy of a simplified layout, cleverer and faster built-in search features and more ways to turn a PC off or put it to 'sleep'temporarily than have been previously available.The way the menu is designed makes it more straightforward to launch programs and open folders, while retaining the neat customising features that allow users to tailor the way it works.This Workshop explains how to get the best out of Windows Vista's Start menu.

1. TO BEGIN, MOVE THE mouse pointer down to the Start button - it's the little orb at the bottom left of the screen with a Windows icon in it. To open the menu, click the button once. Unless any of the settings have been changed, the menu will look like this. At the top left, Internet Explorer and Windows Mail are'pinned'to the menu on the assumption they'll be used frequently. Below these come any programs that have been run recently, while on the right are menu shortcuts to important folders.

2.LAUNCH ANY OF THE programs that appear in the left-hand column by clicking on them once with the left mouse button.Alternatively, access any of the folders or functions on the right by doing the same.Te use other programs, click on the All Programs menu entry, which will display a list of Vista's preinstalled software, such as Calendar and DVD Maker. Under the list of programs are folders containing games, accessories and programs such as Office. Click the Accessories folder, then launch Calculator by clicking it once.

3. AS WELL AS THE programs on the left of the menu, the Start button also provides a quick way to open folders that are used most frequently - for example, Documents and Pictures (Windows XP calls these My Documents and My Pictures), the Music folder, the Control Panel, the PC's hard disks, any network connections and so on.Try it. Click on the Start button, then select Pictures from the right-hand side of the menu to open the Pictures folder .

4. VISTA INCLUDES MORE WAYS to shut down a PC than before. Some might argue too many, but that's not our concern here. From left to right,a click on the Sleep/Power button saves any work in memory and pops the PC into a low-power state. When it is switched back on, enter a password, if required, and carryon working. Click the Lock icon and the password screen will be displayed:this may be useful when stepping away from the PC for any period. Click the right-pointing arrow and the menu displays options to switch between users, log off an account, restart the PC, sleep, hibernate and shutdown.

5. WE'LL BE COVERING VISTA'S new and powerful search features in a future Workshop, but since it's here,just waiting to be used, try it briefly now. Start typing in the name of a file orfolder into the box labelled Start Search, and watch what happens - as soon as the first character is typed, Vista displays the results on the Start menu straight away, rather than waiting for the complete word and then beginning the search.To open a file orfolder in the results list, click on itonce.

6. IT'S EASYTO CHANGE the way the Start menu works. Click on Start with the right mouse button and choose Properties from the pop-up menu.When the dialogue box appears, click the Customize button and use the scroll bar to look through the list of options, which control whether an item appears on the Start menu and how it works. For example, on a small screen it might be better to remove rarely used menu items to save space .

7. TO CLOSE THE FIND and Replace dialogue box, use Alt and F4.At this point you might think the macro is finished, but to make it as efficient as possible the cursor should be returned to the point it was at before sending it to the beginning of the document.The shortcut for this action is Shift and F6. Now end the macro by clicking the left¬hand Stop button on the Macro Recording toolbar, or if the tool bar is no longer visible you can open the Tools menu,select Macro,and click Stop Recording.

8. TO TEST THE MACRO, close Test.doc without saving the changes. Now reopen Test.doc: it should again contain 10 occurrences of 'website; which for the purposes ofthis Workshop is not the preferred style. Open the Tools, point to Macro and then Macros to open the Macros dialogue box, select the ChangeWebsite macro, then click Run. The macro will replace 'website' with 'web site' throug hout your document. If there's a problem, Word displays an error message containing End and Debug options. Should this happen, click End,and recreate the macro from scratch.The Debug option won't help much unless you understand Microsoft's Visual Basic programming language.

9. ANOTHER USEFUL TASK FOR a macro is to remove extra lines that may have been inserted in a document.This can be done by searching for two consecutive paragraph breaks and replacing them with one.lf running the macro once doesn't get rid of every blank line, keep running it until they've all gone.To create such a macro, first add some blank lines to Test.doc so there's something to work with. Save the revised version, and then use step three as a guide to starting a new macro called'RemoveBlanks:

10. USE THE CTRL AND Home keyboard shortcut to move to the start ofthe document. Use Ctrl and H to open the Find and Replace dialogue box.The code sequence for a single paragraph break is the two characters IIp,SO to find a double paragraph break you need to type IIpllp.On a standard Qwerty keyboard the II symbol is found above the 6 key - hold down Shift and tap 6 to get it.When you've entered IIpllp into the Find panel, press the Tab key to move the cursor to the Replace panel, then type lip as the replacement.To perform the replacements use Alt and A.After completion, press Enterto close the message box, then Alt and F4 to close the Find and Replace dialogue box.