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| Introduction | |
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| About This Book | |
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| How to Use This Book | |
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| And What about You? | |
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| How This Book Is Organized | |
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| Windows Vista Stuff Everybody Thinks You Already Know | |
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| Working with Programs and Files | |
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| Getting Things Done on the Internet | |
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| Customizing and Upgrading Windows Vista | |
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| Music, Movies, Memories (and Photos, Too) | |
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| Help! | |
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| The Part of Tens | |
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| Icons Used in This Book | |
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| Where to Go from Here | |
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| Windows Vista Stuff Everybody Thinks You Already Know | |
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| What Is Windows Vista? | |
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| What Is Windows Vista, and Why Are You Using It? | |
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| Should I Bother Switching to Windows Vista? | |
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| Improved security | |
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| New Internet Explorer version | |
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| New Media Player and Media Center | |
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| DVD burning | |
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| Calendar | |
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| Easier searching for files | |
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| Vista looks prettier | |
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| Can My PC Still Run Vista? | |
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| Can I Make Windows Vista Look and Feel Like Windows XP? | |
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| The Five Flavors of Vista | |
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| The Desktop, Start Menu, and Other Windows Vista Mysteries | |
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| Being Welcomed to the World of Windows Vista | |
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| Fiddling around with user accounts | |
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| Keeping your account private with a password | |
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| Working on the Desktop | |
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| Cleaning up a messy desktop | |
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| Jazzing up the desktop's background | |
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| Dumpster diving in the Recycle Bin | |
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| The Start Button's Reason to Live | |
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| The Start menu's prime real estate | |
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| Starting a program from the Start menu | |
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| Customizing the Start menu | |
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| Bellying Up to the Taskbar | |
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| Shrinking windows to the taskbar and retrieving them | |
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| Clicking the taskbar's sensitive areas | |
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| Customizing the taskbar | |
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| The taskbar's crazy toolbars | |
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| The Sidebar | |
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| Logging Off from Windows | |
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| Basic Windows Mechanics | |
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| Dissecting a Typical Window | |
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| Tugging on a window's title bar | |
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| Typing in a Window's Address Bar | |
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| Finding Vista's hidden menu bar | |
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| Choosing the Right Button for the Job | |
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| Quick shortcuts with the Windows Vista Navigation Pane | |
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| Working with the Details pane | |
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| Moving inside a window with its scroll bar | |
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| Boring borders | |
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| Filling Out Bothersome Dialog Boxes | |
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| Poking the correct command button | |
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| Choosing between option buttons | |
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| Typing into text boxes | |
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| Choosing options from list boxes | |
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| Drop-down list boxes | |
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| Check boxes | |
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| Sliding controls | |
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| Maneuvering Windows Around the Desktop | |
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| Moving a window to the top of the pile | |
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| Moving a window from here to there | |
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| Making a window fill the whole screen | |
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| Closing a window | |
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| Making a window bigger or smaller | |
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| Placing two windows next to each other | |
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| Making windows open to the same darn size | |
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| Flipping Through Files, Folders, Floppies, and CDs | |
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| Browsing Your Computer's File Cabinets | |
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| Getting the Lowdown on Folders | |
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| Peering into Your Drives and Folders | |
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| Seeing the files on a disk drive | |
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| Seeing what's inside folders | |
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| Creating a New Folder | |
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| Renaming a File or Folder | |
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| Selecting Bunches of Files or Folders | |
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| Getting Rid of a File or Folder | |
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| Copying or Moving Files and Folders | |
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| Seeing More Information about Files and Folders | |
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| Writing to CDs and DVDs | |
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| Buying the right kind of blank CDs and DVDs for burning | |
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| Copying files from or to a CD or DVD | |
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| Working with Floppy Disks and Memory Cards | |
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| Working with Programs and Files | |
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| Playing with Programs and Documents | |
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| Starting a Program | |
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| Opening a Document | |
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| Saving a Document | |
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| Choosing Which Program Opens a File | |
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| The wrong program loads my file! | |
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| No program will open my file! | |
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| Taking the Lazy Way with a Shortcut | |
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| The Absolutely Essential Guide to Cutting, Copying, and Pasting | |
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| The quick 'n' dirty guide to cut 'n' paste | |
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| Selecting things to cut or copy | |
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| Cutting or copying your selected goods | |
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| Pasting information to another place | |
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| Windows Vista's Free Programs! | |
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| Writing letters with WordPad | |
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| Keeping appointments with Calendar | |
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| Finding symbols like ??[Copyright] with Character Map | |
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| Briefly Lost, but Quickly Found | |
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| Finding Lost Windows on the Desktop | |
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| Locating a Missing Program, E-mail, Song, Document, or Other File | |
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| Finding a Missing File in a Folder | |
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| Sorting, Grouping, and Stacking Files | |
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| Finding Lost Photos | |
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| Finding Other Computers on a Network | |
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| Finding Information on the Internet | |
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| Saving Your Searches | |
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| Commanding Vista's Big Search | |
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| Fine-Tuning Vista's Searches | |
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| Adding places to Vista's index | |
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| Rebuilding the index | |
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| Printing Your Work | |
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| Printing Your Masterpiece | |
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| Adjusting how your work fits on the page | |
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| Adjusting your printer's settings | |
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| Canceling a print job | |
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| Printing a Web page | |
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| Installing new fonts | |
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| Troubleshooting your printer | |
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| Getting Things Done on the Internet | |
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| Cruising the Web | |
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| What Is the Internet? | |
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| What's an ISP, and Why Do I Need One? | |
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| Setting Up Internet Explorer the First Time | |
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| Navigating the Web with Microsoft Internet Explorer | |
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| Moving from Web page to Web page | |
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| Making Internet Explorer open to your favorite site | |
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| Revisit favorite places | |
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| Finding things on the Internet | |
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| The Web Page Says It Needs a Weird Plug-In Thing! | |
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| Saving Information from the Internet | |
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| Saving a Web page | |
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| Saving text | |
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| Saving a picture | |
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| Downloading a program or file | |
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| It Doesn't Work! | |
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| Removing Unneeded Plug-ins | |
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| The Pages Won't All Fit on My Screen | |
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| Internet Explorer Now Fills My Entire Screen! | |
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| Sending and Receiving E-mail | |
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| Using Windows Mail | |
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| Setting Up Your E-Mail Account | |
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| Composing and Sending an E-Mail | |
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| Reading a Received E-Mail | |
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| Sending and Receiving an Attachment | |
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| Finding Lost Mail | |
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| Managing Your Contacts | |
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| Reducing Your Spam | |
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| Safe Computing | |
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| Understanding Those Annoying Permission Messages | |
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| Assessing Your Safety in Security Center | |
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| Changing the firewall settings | |
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| Changing Windows Update settings | |
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| Avoiding viruses | |
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| Staying Safe on the Internet | |
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| Avoiding evil add-ons and hijackers | |
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| Avoiding phishing scams | |
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| Avoiding and removing spyware and parasites with Windows Defender | |
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| Using parental controls | |
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| Customizing and Upgrading Windows Vista | |
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| Customizing Windows Vista with the Control Panel | |
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| Finding the Right Switch in the Control Panel | |
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| System and Maintenance | |
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| User Accounts and Family Safety | |
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| Security | |
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| Changing Windows' Appearance (Appearance and Personalization) | |
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| Changing the desktop background | |
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| Choosing a screen saver | |
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| Changing the computer's theme | |
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| Changing the screen resolution | |
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| Changing Network and Internet Connections | |
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| Setting the Date, Time, Language, and Regional Options | |
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| Hardware and Sound | |
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| Adjusting Vista's volume and sounds | |
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| Installing or setting up speakers | |
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| Adding a printer | |
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| Installing or adjusting other items | |
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| Adding new hardware | |
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| Adding or Removing Programs | |
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| Removing or changing programs | |
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| Adding new programs | |
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| Add/remove parts of Windows Vista | |
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| Modifying Vista for the Physically Challenged | |
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| Options for Laptops (Mobile PC) | |
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| Additional Options | |
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| Keeping Windows from Breaking | |
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| Creating a Restore Point | |
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| Tuning Up Windows Vista with Built-in Maintenance Tools | |
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| Backing up your computer | |
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| Finding technical information about your computer | |
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| Freeing up space on your hard drive | |
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| Empowering your power button | |
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| Setting up devices that don't work (fiddling with drivers) | |
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| Cleaning Your Computer | |
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| Cleaning your mouse | |
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| Cleaning your monitor | |
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| Cleaning your keyboard | |
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| Sharing One Computer with Several People | |
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| Understanding User Accounts | |
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| Setting Up or Changing User Accounts | |
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| Switching Quickly between Users | |
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| Changing a User Account's Picture | |
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| Setting Up Passwords and Security | |
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| Connecting Two or More Computers with a Network | |
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| Understanding a Network's Parts | |
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| Setting Up a Small Network | |
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| Buying parts for a network | |
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| Installing a wired network | |
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| Connecting Wirelessly | |
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| Setting up a wireless router or access point | |
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| Setting up Windows Vista to connect to a wireless network | |
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| Connecting to and Sharing Files with Other PCs on Your Network | |
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| Sharing a Printer on the Network | |
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| Troubleshooting a Network | |
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| Music, Movies, Memories (and Photos, Too) | |
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| Playing and Copying Music in Media Player | |
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| Stocking Media Player's Library | |
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| Browsing Media Player's Libraries | |
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| Understanding Media Player's Controls | |
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| Playing CDs | |
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| Playing DVDs | |
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| Playing Videos and TV Shows | |
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| Playing Music Files (MP3s and WMAs) | |
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| Playing Internet Radio Stations | |
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| Creating, Saving, and Editing Playlists | |
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| Copying CDs to Your PC | |
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| Burning Music CDs | |
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| Copying Songs to Your Portable Player | |
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| Buying Music and Movies from Online Stores | |
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| Working with Media Center | |
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| Browsing Media Center's menus | |
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| Getting the most out of Media Center | |
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| Fiddling with Photos and Movies | |
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| Using Your Computer as a Digital Shoebox | |
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| Dumping the camera's photos into your computer | |
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| Browsing your photos with Windows Photo Gallery | |
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| Viewing a slide show | |
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| Fixing photos | |
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| E-mailing photos | |
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| Printing pictures | |
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| Creating, Editing, and Viewing Digital Movies and Slide Shows | |
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| Import video, pictures, and music | |
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| Edit your movie | |
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| Save your edited movie or slide show | |
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| Saving a Movie or Slide Show to a DVD with Windows DVD Maker | |
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| Help! | |
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| The Case of the Broken Window | |
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| Vista Keeps Asking Me for Permission! | |
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| Restoring Calm with System Restore | |
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| Reviving Messed Up or Deleted Files | |
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| Undeleting accidentally deleted files | |
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| Retrieving previous versions of files and folders | |
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| Retrieving a Forgotten Password | |
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| My Folder (Or Desktop) Doesn't Show All My Files! | |
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| My Mouse Doesn't Work Right | |
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| My Double-Clicks Are Now Single Clicks! | |
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| Making Older Programs Run under Windows Vista | |
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| I Can't Find the Menus! | |
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| My Computer Is Frozen Up Solid | |
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| The Printer Isn't Working Right | |
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| Strange Messages: What You Did Does Not Compute | |
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| Activate Windows Now | |
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| Check Your Computer Security | |
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| Do You Want to Get the Latest Online Content When You Search Help? | |
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| Do You Want to Install (Or Run) This File? | |
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| Do You Want to Save Changes | |
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| Do You Want to Turn AutoComplete On? | |
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| Installing Device Driver Software | |
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| The Publisher Could Not Be Verified | |
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| Video Card Does Not Meet Minimum Requirements | |
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| Windows Cannot Open This File | |
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| Windows Needs Your Permission to Continue | |
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| You Don't Currently Have Permission to Access This Folder | |
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| Moving from an Old Computer to a New One | |
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| Preparing to Move into Your New PC | |
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| Choosing how to transfer your old information | |
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| Installing your old PC's programs onto your new PC | |
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| Transferring Information Between Two PCs with Windows Easy Transfer | |
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| Disposing of the Old Computer | |
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| Help on the Windows Vista Help System | |
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| Consulting a Program's Built-in Computer Guru | |
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| Finding the Information You Need in Windows' Help and Support Center | |
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| Summoning Windows Vista's Troubleshooters | |
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| The Part of Tens | |
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| Ten or So Things You'll Hate about Windows Vista (and How to Fix Them) | |
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| I Can't Stand Those Nagging Permission Screens | |
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| I Can't Copy Ripped CDs and Purchased Music to My iPod | |
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| The Menus All Disappeared | |
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| Parental Controls Are Too Complicated | |
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| The "Glass" Effects Slow Down My Laptop | |
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| I Can't Figure Out How to Turn Off My PC | |
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| Windows Makes Me Log On All the Time | |
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| The Taskbar Keeps Disappearing | |
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| I Can't Keep Track of Open Windows | |
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| I Can't Line Up Two Windows on the Screen | |
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| It Won't Let Me Do Something Unless I'm an Administrator! | |
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| I Don't Know What Version of Windows I Have | |
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| My Print Screen Key Doesn't Work | |
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| Ten or So Tips for Laptop Owners | |
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| Adjusting Your Laptop's Settings Quickly | |
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| Choosing What Happens When You Close Your Laptop's Lid | |
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| Adjusting to Different Locations | |
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| Changing your time zone | |
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| Dialing a modem from a new location | |
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| Connecting to a wireless Internet hotspot | |
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| Backing Up Your Laptop Before Traveling | |
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| Upgrading to Windows Vista | |
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| Index | |