Windows Basics:
Icon: Windows Vista Help - Search

 Title: Jan's Illustrated Computer Literacy 101

Unlike Help in previous versions of Windows, Vista Help does not have a visible Index. Instead, you can use the Search box to look for articles that include your keywords. This box appears at the top of all Help windows. The results will be ONLY Help pages. You can choose whether to  include online help as well as articles that are on your hard disk (i.e. offline).

Search box in Help (Vista)

Keywords are the words or phrases that you tell Windows to look for. If you want to know what a widget is, you should type in widget, not what is a widget. Search programs will ignore common words like a and is. Most search programs, including Search Help, will search for an exact phrase if you type quotes around the phrase, like "what is a widget". Just remember that Search does not look for the answer to the question but for that exact text.


Where you are:
JegsWorks > Lessons > Windows

Before you start...

Project 1: Windows Basics
    Desktop & Taskbar
    Window
    MouseTo subtopics
    Dialog BoxTo subtopics
    Windows Help Subtopics display    
      Win98To subtopics
      WinXPTo subtopics
      Windows Vista Subtopics display
      icon-footprintVista Contents
      icon-footprintVista Search Help
      icon-footprintVista Demos
    icon-footprint Application Help
    icon-footprint Search Application Help
    Summary
    Quiz
    ExercisesTo subtopics

Project 2: Files & FoldersTo subtopics

    Search
    Glossary
Icon Step-by-Step 

Step-by-Step:  Search Help - Vista

  Icon Step-by-Step
What you will learn: to choose whether or not to include online Help
to use keywords to search Help
to use Find to search on a page
to recognize and use links to hidden text

Icon: Win98To work with Help in Win98, skip to Win98 Help.
Icon: WinXPTo work with Help in WinXP, skip to WinXP Help

Start with:  Icon: Initial Help window Help and Support Center is open.

What to Search

Windows Vista Help allows you to choose whether or not to include online Help in the results. Searching online can take longer, of course, but it provides more results and the most recent version of articles that have been updated. The default setting is to include online Help, which comes from Microsoft's web site. Offline Help is the articles which are stored on your computer's hard disk as part of Windows.

  1.  If necessary, open the Help and Support Center:  Start > Help and Support
     
  2. Button: Online Help - list droppedInspect the bottom right corner of the window. Does it show Offline Help or Online Help?
     
  3. If necessary, Left click click on the Online Help button and then on  Get offline Help .
    The button in the corner changes to Offline Help.

Alternate method: To change the default, the Options button -  Settings...  opens the Help Settings dialog. Check the box "Include Windows Online Help and Support when you search for Help" if you want to always include online Help in your searches.

Button: Help Options - list dropped (Vista) Dialog: Help Settings (Vista)
 

Search Help with Keywords

Each Vista Help window has a search text box at the top.

  1. Left click Click in the Search Help text box at the top of the page.
     
  2. Type keyboard shortcuts and press  the ENTER key or click the magnifying glass Magnifying glass in Search box at the right end of the box.

    Help: search on keywords = keyboard shortcuts

    The page changes to show a list of articles that match the keywords.

    Help: first 30 search results

    TipMost useful first: Windows tries to guess which articles you would find the most useful and put them first in the results list. The order appears to be similar to the following-

    Article contains the keywords: 

    • in the title

    • somewhere as a phrase

    • as separate words instead of as a phrase

    • only 1 word from the phrase

    Some articles may not contain the words at all but are considered to be related to your keywords. It may not be obvious to you why Windows thinks so!
     

  3. Change the Offline Help to Online Help, using the button at the bottom right of the window.
    The list automatically revises itself to include any online articles that match the keywords. The order of articles in the list may change.

    Help - search results including online Help

    Unlike previous versions of Windows, there is no way to tell which articles are online and which are offline!
     

  4. Scroll the list to see all of the results. Only the first 30 are on this page.

    Help: bottom of first page of search results

     
  5. At the bottom of the page, Left click click on the link 30 more results for keyboard shortcuts. The page changes to show the next 30 articles. Now we are getting to articles that don't look too promising!

    Help: second page of search results
     

  6. Use the Back button to return to the first page of results.
     
  7. Change back to using only Offline Help.
     
  8. Open and inspect a several of the articles in the results list. Are there any that do not seem to belong?

Find On This Page: Right Click

Sometimes your keywords may not be in the title or even the first paragraph of the article. To search on a particular page, you must switch to a different search feature, Find (on this page)

  1. Left click Click on the second result, Make the keyboard easier to use.
    The window displays a short article. Do you see your keywords on this page?
    This one is short enough that you could hunt for yourself, but there is a way to let Windows help you find those keywords.
     
  2. Icon: Right clickRight click on the page. A context sensitive menu appears.

    Right Click Menu: Help page (Vista)
     

  3. Dialog: Find (Vista)Left click Click on  Find (on this page) .
    The Find dialog appears.
     
  4. Type in your keywords again, keyboard shortcuts
     (It would make sense for the Find dialog to fill in what you were just using Search Help for, but it does not.)
     
  5. Find on page - first instance (Vista)Left click Click on the Next button (even though you have not found the first one yet!)
    Windows highlights the first "keyboard shortcuts" that it finds.

    TipAll or nothing: The Find dialog is not like Search! It looks for the phrase only, not for individual words in the phrase. So if you type in cats and dogs, Find will not find the single word "cats" or "dogs". You would have to repeat your search with single words.

    tipMatch whole word only: You can check this box to insist on searching only for your exact keywords. So if you typed in cat, the results would not include cats or category or catastrophe.

    tipMatch case: If you checked this box and typed in cat, then the results would not include Cat.

     
  6. Help: Find on page - second instanceLeft click Click on the Next button again.
    The next instance of the keywords is highlighted.
    This shows that Find does look at ALL of the text on the page, including links to other pages.
     
  7. Left click Click on the Next button again.
    The first instance is highlighted again. There were only 2 instances on this short page.
     
  8. Left click Click on the Close button Button: Close (Vista for the Find dialog.
     
  9. Button: Back (Vista Help)Left click Click the Back button  to return to the results list.
     

Find On This Page: Options

Another way to pull up the Find dialog is from the Options button on the toolbar.

This time we will look at a longer article that contains our search phrase many times.

  1. Left click Click on result #11, Using your keyboard
    The windows displays the new article. Your keywords are not showing in the title or in the first paragraphs of this article. Where are they? It's time to use Find again.
     
  2. Left click Click on the Options button in the toolbar and then on  Find on this page...

    Help: Search - Options button - Find on this page...

    The Find dialog appears again. Hurrah! The keywords are still there from when you typed them in a moment ago!!
     

  3. Left click Click the Next button in the Find dialog to see where the keywords are in the article. The first instance is in the menu of bookmarks at the upper right of the article, Using keyboard shortcuts.
     
  4. Left click Click Next over and over to see all of the places where the keywords appear. Stop when the first instance is highlighted again.
     
  5. Close the Find dialog.
     
  6. Left click Click the Back button to return to the results list again.

Related Articles: Single words but not the phrase

Some results may not actually have your keyword phrase in the article at all.

  1. Left click Click the link #14 Shortcuts: frequently asked questions
    The window changes to show a list of articles.
     
  2. Open the Find dialog with the method of your choice. The keywords "keyboard shortcuts" are still in the Find box. Great!
     
  3. Text not foundLeft click Click Next. Whoops.
    A message box tells you that your keywords are not there at all!
     
  4. Left click Click OK to close the message box.
     Does it make sense to you to include this page in the search results??
     Certainly! All of the listed titles are about shortcuts.
     
  5. Edit the keywords to just keyboard and Left click click Next. Any results?
     
  6. Edit the keywords again to just the word shortcuts andLeft click click Next. Lots of those!
    This shows that the Find dialog works somewhat differently than Search.

    TipFind: Whole Phrase Only
    Find looks only for the whole set of words as a phrase. It will not present to you any instances where only one of the words is present.
     

  7. Left click Click the Back button to return to the results list again.

Show /Hide

Some Help pages include text that does not show when the article is first opened. This is indicated by a topic title with an arrow pointing to the right. Link to hidden text

Clicking this kind of link reveals the hidden information. At the top right of such a page there is a link Show all. Clicking that link will reveal ALL of the hidden text on the page. Some pages have just one or two hidden sections. Others have many!

  1. Left click Click on the first link of the search results, Keyboard shortcuts.
    A page opens that at first looks like a set of links to articles. But they are not. The little arrow at the left of a link mean that the link will open hidden text on this page.

    Help: article - Keyboard Shortcuts (Vista)
     

  2. Left click Click on the link General keyboard shortcuts.
    A new section appears on the page! The arrow beside the topic title changes to point down.

    Help: article - Keyboard Shortcuts - showin General keyboard shortcuts (Vista)
     

  3. Look at the list of common keyboard shortcuts. These are VERY useful to know.

    Tip How to read a shortcut: Some shortcuts use more than one key at a time.
    For example, CTRL + C means to hold down the CTRL key and press the C key. Then release both keys. This combination will copy whatever is selected on the screen.
     
  4. Left click Click on the link General keyboard shortcut again. The text is hidden once more.
     
  5. Left click Click on several different links to have them all open at the same time.
     
  6. Left click Click on each topic title to hide all the text again.
     
  7. Hide allShow allAt the top right of the page, Left click click on the link Show all.
    ALL of the hidden sections are revealed at once. The link changes to read Hide all.
     
  8. Scroll to see how long the page is now!
     
  9. Left click Click on Hide all to tidy the page up again.
     
  10. Close the window by clicking the Close button Button: Close (Vista).