Using Your Pictures Folder in Windows Vista

As with documents, you store pictures in folders. Windows Vista already has a couple of built-in folders especially well suited for storing pictures. Your Pictures folder (which you’ll find in your personalized Documents folder as well as in the Favorite Links area of the Windows Explorer navigation pane) is the easiest one to get to. There’s also a folder named Public Pictures, which is the same idea as your Pictures folder. However, on a network or computer with multiple user accounts, pictures in the Public Pictures folder are available to everyone, whereas pictures in your Pictures folder are private, in the sense that only you can get to them.

There are several ways to get to your Pictures folders:

• Click the Start button and choose Pictures.

• Click the Start button, choose your personalized folder, and doubleclick the Pictures icon.

• If you’re already in a folder and see Pictures listed under the Favorite Links, click that option.


If your Pictures folder contains subfolders, you can double-click any subfolder’s icon to open it and see the pictures it contains. If you click one or more pictures, then the taskbar near the top of the window will contain a number of tasks specific to pictures. Here’s a quick overview of what each of those offers:

• Slide Show: Clicking this option makes the background go blank and then displays each picture in the folder, one at a time, in slide-show fashion on the background.

• Preview: This option enables you to choose a program to view the selected item. This is initially Paint or Windows Photo Gallery; however, you can choose a different default program as well.

• Print: See the “Printing Pictures” section that follows.

• Email: Send the selected files as an attachment on an e-mail.

• Share: Share the selected items with others on your computer or network.

• Burn: Enables you to copy all (or selected) pictures to a CD.


The same options are also available in your Public Pictures folder, as well as in any subfolder contained within Pictures or Public Pictures folders. When you’re in your Pictures folders, you can quickly switch to Public Pictures, if you like, by clicking Public -> Public Pictures under Favorite Links in the Windows Explorer navigation bar. It works the other way, too. If you’re in your Public Pictures folder, you can click Pictures in the Explorer navigation pane to go to your Pictures folder.

If your computer is connected to a network, or other people have user accounts on the same computer, you may want to share some photos with other users. Put those photos in the Public Pictures folder. Keep the private ones in your Pictures folder.

Source of Information : Wiley Alan Simpsons Windows Vista Bible Desktop Edition