Eugene from Chino, CA writes:
“Is there a simplified tree, maybe in several pages, to show what is in Windows 7 in such things as the control panel or any of the solution devices which are used for maintaining a PC? Every time I go to to any of these systems I need to open first to see what is inside since I don’t remember what each has. I have looked for a tree system to save time but I can’t find anything and I am wondering if you know of any such.”
Hi, Eugene. Thanks for the great question.
What I’m going to do is to present a series of decision trees for Control Panel. The first one, presented here, is for START>CONTROL PANEL> SYSTEM AND SECURITY. Part 2 soon.
Hope that this helps!
Randal Schaffer
Is there a similar tree for Win 8?
Great idea, and great work…. Please continue with the trees for Win7 and then Win8!
I guess I’m not getting this because it just seems like more work then doing it the normal way. What am I missing. Thanks I never miss a day without reading these tips.
Hi, guys.
Thanks for the great comments. I’m really enjoying doing these now that I’ve figured out how to do them.
Shirley, the idea is that, if you want to do something in Control Panel, you start at the end with what you want to do and then trace it back to the beginning to discover the steps.
Duane and Arnold, I’ll be the first to admit vast ignorance of Windows 8. Maybe one of the other writers with a better knowledge of that OS can tackle it. If anyone does and they can’t reverse-engineer my tree, let me know and I’ll let you know how I’m doing them.
Randal Schaffer
Yes, this is a helpful tool.
One thing people should be aware of is that although there are minor (annoying) changes to the control panel, it remains mostly the same from one version of Windows to the next. So you can use a Win7 chart to find most things in Win 8 and visa versa.
I’m curious what tool you used to create the tree. It doesn’t look like Office “SmartArt”.
When you get around to doing the next part could you add a link to it in this article. I’ve searched and don’t see one yet.
I’ve created a similar chart for the Win8 Programs category: http://sdrv.ms/1jur4OF
I created it in Word using the Insert > SmartArt > Hierarchy > Horizontal Hierarchy feature. It took about 5 minutes to create.
You may post it as part of your series, if you wish.
Hi, Ron.
Thanks for the input.
Your chart looks way better than mine. I don’t want to include it as part of my series, because it’s not my connection. But I’ll contact our editor and see if she wants to publish it for you. Who knows? You may become on of our freelancers, then i’ll have to fight you for space. 🙂
As far as what i used… i actually tried smart art as well as several flow chart creation programs, but wasn’t really happy with the results in any case, so i wound up creating the thing manually using Excel. That created the best results for me, especially for the larger charts.
Randal
Thankyou for this, as it is very helpful!Love all your help!