On the airplane on the way to the Microsoft Management Summit, I was enjoying my nice small Sony notebook and at the same time cursing it. The screen, even truned all the way down was too bright in the dark and I did not want to change my resolution in order to more easily see the screen. So what does Vista have for me here? Among a small handful of accessibility tool Vista offers the Magnifier. When running, this tool displays the current area of focus in a small area of the desktop at a specified magnification (“X2” was plenty big enough for me). The area can be docked or not and can be docked to a desired area of the screen (top, bottom, left, or right). As long as you are typing or moving the cursor, you’ll have the correct of the screen enlarged in the magnifier. However, if you let it sit for a moment, the magnifier tries to help you out by moving to various options in the active dialog (such as buttons) to help you see your way without having to drag the mouse all over the screen. Check it out!

You can access the magnification tool from:

Control Panel > Ease of Access Center > Start Magnifier