University of Baltimore
Merrick School of Business

Mini-project 6
Treasure hunting in Windows Vista

Go to the MISLAB. There are two PCs running Vista, marked V1 and V2. Log as groupx as username and password in your group Windows Vista "machine." Groups 1 and 3 should use machine V1. Groups 2,4,5 and 6 should use machine V2.

Notes: (a) do not save any files in drive C:, it may be wiped out in the periodic maintenance, use a flash drive to save your data or upload it to your drive M in the UB network; (b) the PCs will be in the MISLab from May first to the end of the semester.

1. change the background of your desktop and setup a screensaver using 3D-text with the name of your group (do not set password protection in the screen saver). Show me.
2. create the following shortcuts in your desktop: Computer Manager, Command prompt, Explorer, Control Panel, System Information and Notepad. Be sure that the icons are not set to align to grid in the desktop. Show me.
3. open a Command Prompt, run ipconfig, show me what you saw and explain it. How could you enter a static IP address in Vista? Show me, if you can.
4. open task manager and find the total physical memory, the memory in use, the virtual memory and CPU use. What memory space (virtual and physical) is the kernel using ? What is the average number of threads for all processes running in the machine? Show me.
5. Run is not in the Start Menu, please add it to it. What could you use instead of Run, to run msconfig, without opening a command prompt?
6. add a gadget/applet to the side bar and remove an existing one. Show me before and after. Please show me what interfaces other than Aero could be used in this PC.
7. obtain system information (CPU, memory,etc). Show me where Vista saves user profiles. Where were them stored in XP?
8. what is the purpose of UAC prompts? Show me a prompt. What is flip and flip 3D, see if you can show me.
9. open Control Panel and find two icons for applets not existing in XP. Show me and explain.
10. set folder options to show extensions for known file types, show hidden files and folders and also show protected operating system files. Show me.

Submitting the report

• Post your group project report in the Mini-project 6 entry of the Assignments folder of one of the group members in WebTycho.
• You should submit just one file per group in zip format.
• Place all your files of the project in one directory and use a free compression software from Nonags to create one file in zip format.
• You may find difficult sometimes to save some of the screens you see. If this is the case, please use a free software for screen capture you can download from Nonags.
• If you have problems capturing to your liking the reports, please use a free software from PrimoPDF to create a PDF file.

This page is maintained by Al Bento who can be reached at abento@ubalt.edu This page was last updated on April 27, 2007. Although we will attempt to keep this information accurate, we can not guarantee the accuracy of the information provided.