Windows Vista Annoyances

Explorer Window Controls

When you’re working at the desktop—that is, opening Explorer windows—you’ll find a few additional controls dotting the edges. Again, they’re quite a bit different from the controls of Windows XP and its predecessors.

Address Bar

In a Web browser, the Address bar is where you type the addresses of the Web sites you want to visit. In an Explorer window, the Address bar is more of a “breadcrumbs bar” (a shout out to Hansel and Gretel fans). That is, it now shows the path you’ve taken—folders you burrowed through—to arrive where you are now (Figure 3-2, top).

Figure 3-2. Top: The notation in the Address bar, Casey ▸ Pictures ▸ Halloween, indicates that you, Casey, opened your Personal folder (Section 2.13); then opened the Pictures folder inside; and finally opened the Halloween folder inside that. Bottom: If you press Alt+D, the Address bar restores the slash notation of Windows versions gone by, so that you can type in a different address.

There are two especially cool things about the Vista Address bar:

• ▸ It’s clickable. You can click any breadcrumb to open the corresponding folder. For example, if you’re viewing the Casey ▸ Pictures ▸ Halloween, you can click the word Pictures to backtrack to the Pictures folder.

  Tip

  If the succession of nested folders’ names is too long to fit the window, then a tiny << icon appears at the left end of the address. Click it to reveal ...