Windows Vista is a type of software known as an operating system (abbreviated

OS). One thing that's unique about an operating system is that it's the only software that a computer is required to have. If you try to start a computer that has no operating system installed on it, you get nothing. If the computer has only an operating system and nothing else, that's fine. But it has to have an operating system to do anything at all, even start.

The operating system is also your computer's platform, the foundation upon

which all other programs run. To illustrate what I mean by that, you can't go to

the store, buy any old graphics program off the shelf, and expect it to work on

your computer. It has to be a graphics program for Windows Vista. A graphics

program for some other operating system, like the Mac OS, Linux, or UNIX, just

won't work on a Windows computer. The reverse is also true. For example, to

get a graphics program for a Macintosh computer, you have to get one that

runs on the Mac OS.

Besides all that technical stuff, the operating system also determines how you operate the computer. When you first start your computer, everything you see on your screen is Windows Vista. To use your computer, you really need to learn how to use Windows Vista.

It doesn't matter if your long-term goal is to e-mail pictures to friends, make your own music CDs, browse the Internet, or write the great American novel. In order to do anything at all with your PC, you first need to learn to use Windows Vista (assuming, of course, that your computer's operating system is Windows Vista).