Windows Vista: The Complete Reference (Complete Reference Series)

It seems as if our days are getting shorter or the number of appointments, meetings, and tasks is growing. To help manage schedules, many people use electronic calendar and scheduling software. Windows Vista includes a new scheduling program called Windows Calendar. It enables you to create appointments, make a task list, share calendars with other people, and create multiple calendars. This chapter discusses how to use Windows Calendar to perform those tasks .

What Is Windows Calendar?

Windows Calendar provides an easy-to-use digital calendar to help you keep track of your daily activities. Some people jot down meetings and to-do lists on Post-It notes, backs of envelopes, or a wall calendar. If that's the system you use and it works, great. If it doesn't work or you don't have a system yet, try the Windows Calendar to help you manage your daily appointments and tasks.

Windows Calendar also enables you to create multiple calendars to keep track of different parts of your life. For example, you may want to create a separate calendar that shows your children's extracurricular activities on it. You can do this. Another example is having multiple calendars for work; create one for each project you are working on, for instance. As you create calendars, the original calendar becomes the master calendar that shows all the dates from all your custom calendars. Each calendar can be color -coded to help you distinguish which calendar is which. You also can send e-mail invitations to other people so that they can stay abreast of new appointments you set up.

Finally, Windows Calendar provides a way to share your calendar with other people and to subscribe to other users' calendars. This is handy if you work on a team project in which sharing meeting times is important (and your company does not use a messaging and scheduling program like Microsoft Outlook and Exchange). Another way sharing calendars comes in handy is for after-work activities that you are involved with. Perhaps you need to set up an annual calendar of events for a local charity and then share that calendar with other volunteers. With Windows Calendar it's very easy to set up a calendar and publish it so others can import it into their Windows Calendar program.