I just bought this beast and, after a fruitless 2 hours spent searching the web, have discovered that neither the computer nor the OS has an online manual. Yes, there are help windows for each on the machine, but I find that these “help” facilities would be better named “helpless”. For example, I tried, without success to get Skype (which I use, but essentially only from my netbook while traveling) to stop running on startup. I searched for startup on the help menu, but found nothing about how to stop such bloatware from running. I will have to buy a manual I guess. As for the computer, it seems hopeless to find any manuals, even to buy.
Skype isn’t an integral part of Windows.
To stop Skype running at startup, in Skype, go to Tools, then Options,and under General Settings, deselect ‘Start Skype when I start Windows’. Then click Save and exit Skype.
And, in Windows, have you tried clicking on ‘Help and Support’?
Well, I just did what you suggested with Skype. I assume it will work. Thanks. Of course, it is not part of Windows. It is bloatware that I installed because I do use Skype occasionally. As for help and support, sure I get their help file, but I would like to have a manual I can browse. When I use the control panel, I used to get a bunch of icons; now it tries to guess what I want. Bring back the icons!
One plus. In the short time I tried Vista I could not get find to work. On Win 7, it is much better than it was on XP. Faster, easier to use and the relevant information is no longer off the screen.
On the RHS near the top, just underneath the Search box, look for View by: Category. This is a drop-down and you can change it to View by: Large icons or View by: Small icons.
Forget manuals. Just Google “How to blah blah blah” and there are usually a dozen different tech sites with the answer.
What’s the product number of your Lenovo? You should be able to find it on the bottom near the serial number.
A Windows 7 manual would be a phenomenally huge book, you would probably need to build a new room to put it in if it were to describe all aspects and features of the OS in detail. The best you will get from MS is this 140-page product guide which you can download for free.
The better option is, as has been suggested, to just Google any query you have and if you still find yourself confused post in GQ.
So they’ve filled this product with an astounding number of features, but they are going to tell you what any of them are? They’re content to have you simply performing all of the things you used to do, which is all you know about. But they’ve tweaked each of them so that you can’t find them and have to relearn how to work them. Is this like a treasure map where we find hidden treats to delight us at the most inopportune moments?
Sounds like a bad plan. I like Windows but it has more and more things running that I can’t identify and don’t need. Each time I try to remove something it tells me there are files remaining that may or may not be used by something else. And why does it try to connect to the internet every time I search my own disks for a file? They better hope that Google OS is flaky.
When I bought the Asus laptop, there really was nothing that could be called a manual. There was a short reference document that covered a few series so it could not be discovered (for instance) if the laptop supported fingerprint recognition.
The new features are listed in that 140 page document I linked to. Sure they move things around which can make it tricky to use at first but I dare say that if they left everything as it was they would be accused of becoming stagnant and trying to get money for old-rope. The same is true with any OS, they don’t tend to come with a manual.
If it has a fingerprint reader on it then it will, if it doesn’t then it won’t. Fingerprint readers are easily seen (usually below the keyboard) and if you have one you will know about it as you will keep getting annoying as hell prompts to register your fingerprints. They are ultimately useless in my opinion as you can still bypass them with the password.