MetaChat - AskMeCha: I need Windows Vista help!

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14 January 2008

AskMeCha: I need Windows Vista help! Not for me, for my future MIL:→[More:]While visiting his "ancestral home" last weekend, MuddDude created a pretty important document in Microsoft Word, on his parent's computer, running Vista. He forgot to e-mail it to himself, or use a thumb drive, or whatever, and we need that document STAT.

But, his dad is out of town, and his mom is technically challenged. It's difficult to coach her over the phone, as I've never used Windows Vista. The problem seems to stem from the fact that she can't find the file (in other words, it wasn't saved to the desktop). Hence my questions:

1) Does Vista have a default folder that documents are saved to, like "My Documents" in XP and prior?

2) If she opens the Vista-version of Microsoft Word, is there a "recent documents" option?

3) Is the right-click menu for XP the same as in Vista? In other words, can she easily select a whole document, right-click to copy, then right-click to paste into an email?

post by: muddgirl at: 11:46 | 11 comments

An alternate method: Can you have her use the Search feature?

posted by occhiblu 14 January | 11:47

Is the search feature easy to find? I know in XP it's on the start menu, which would be acceptable, but is it different in Vista?

posted by muddgirl 14 January | 11:49

This support page for Vista might help? (That's about the Start menu, which seems to indicate that there's a Recent Items buttons and a Search box.)

posted by occhiblu 14 January | 11:53

Ooh, even better, a screen shot of the Vista Start Menu.

posted by occhiblu 14 January | 11:56

What is she opens Word -- would it still be one of the last-used documents in the File menu? Or have too many other docs been opened since then?

Just a thought...

posted by AwkwardPause 14 January | 12:26

I'd start off by checking for a recent document feature in Word.

If there isn't one, then I'd just create a new document in word and try to save it, and find out where it does save it. Then look in that directory for the document you created earlier.

posted by DarkForest 14 January | 12:33

2) If she opens the Vista-version of Microsoft Word, is there a "recent documents" option?

I'm guessing you mean Word 2007? If so, Office 2007 apps have a button in the upper left corner of the window that replaces the "file menu", when you push this button you'll see the recent documents in a list.

posted by birdherder 14 January | 15:11

If it's not in the recent docs thing in Word, try doing a Windows search via the start menu for "*.doc" (without the quotes). This will bring back every file with a "doc" extension on the computer - assuming there aren't 1000s of documents, it should be easy to spot the one you want in the list.

posted by TheDonF 14 January | 15:34

1. Yes, Vista has a default folder called "Documents". It's in the start menu, in the list to the upper right.

2. Yes, there is a recent documents folder in Word 2007. Open Word, then click the Office button (the round button with the Office logo on it). The recent documents are listed to the right of the menu.

3. Yes, you can right-click and copy from a Word document (or right-click and copy/paste the whole document as a file) into an email.

If your FMIL is going to send you the document and you don't have Word 2007 then you should have her paste the content of the document, not the file, to email and send it in the body of the email. Otherwise, you may have trouble opening a Word 2007 file in an earlier version of Word.

posted by disclaimer 14 January | 17:39

Thanks guys (and dolls - pick whichever description you like the best)!

I'll see if we can talk her through it tonight.

disclaimer - at this point, if she finds the document, I figured it would be easier for her to copy and paste it anyway, but your point about those pesky "docx" files is a good one.

posted by muddgirl 14 January | 18:42

re: *.doc - Look for *.docx first. They changed the file suffix for Office 2007.

posted by Triode 14 January | 22:03

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