12 Things You Should Know About Windows 7

Windows 7 launched last week and it's setting records left and right. Amazon has said it was their biggest pre-order launch ever. Reviewers around the globe are calling it the best version of windows yet, and even Walt Mossberg of the WSJ, unapologetic Apple fanboy, has decreed it as reaching parity with OS X. What makes it so great, though? Read on for twelve things on our list.

The new taskbar
Love it or hate it, Microsoft made a lot of fundamental changes to the way the taskbar works in Windows 7. More than anything, it's really a combination of the old "quick launch" toolbar and the active taskbar from Windows Vista. Entries have gone from a big button with the title of the window to just a square with the icon. The new taskbar has a number of features over the old one: media players like iTunes, Zune and WMP have playback controls in the dynamic pop-up window preview and browser like IE (and the upcoming Firefox 3.7) offer individual tab shots. Want to change it back to the version seen in Windows XP and Vista? Right-click on the taskbar and select 'Properties'. In the 'Taskbar buttons' drop-down menu, choose either 'Never combine' or 'Combine when taskbar is full'. Additionally, if you like the new taskbar the way it is but think it's just a tad too thick, you can check the 'Use small icons' box to cut the height by 25% or so.

Improved window tiling
In previous versions of Windows, it was difficult to easily arrange windows in such a way that maximized efficient use of your desktop. In Windows 7, it's easy. Drag the top or bottom of the window to the top or bottom of the screen, and the application will jump to fill that vertical column (while still maintaining horizontal width). Drag the whole window to the top to maximize it or to the left and right to tile it across one half of the screen.

Great keyboard shortcuts
The taskbar and windowing we mentioned earlier? It's all accessible via keyboard shortcuts. Since the taskbar is something of a glorified Quick Launch, the same keyboard shortcuts work to launch any apps you've pinned: hit the Windows key + a number one through zero (ten) to launch any of the first ten apps you've pinned to the taskbar. Similarly, use the Windows key + up, down, left or right to tile your windows as you see fit. Up will maximize them, down will restore them (or minimize them, if they aren't already maximized) whereas left and right will split them down one half of the screen. If you're using multiple monitors, just keep pressing the proper arrow key, and you can move your applications all around your workspace.

Native ISO functionality
Popularity of the optical disc may slowly be waning in favor of digital solutions such as downloads or removable storage media, but it still has its uses. In older versions of Windows, burning a .ISO file required users to download some alternately sketchy or expensive third-party software. In Windows 7, it's as simple as right-clicking on the file and selecting what drive it's using to burn the item to disc.

Multitouch capabilities
Up until now, any computers -- either notebook or desktop -- that have implemented multitouch features have been using functionality shoehorned forcefully into the operating system by device manufacturers. It's been like trying to force a square peg into a round hole. Win7, however, includes support for these inputs natively, making the all-around experience much smoother. In fact, Microsoft has even gone out of their way to take some of the features implemented in their multitouch Surface tables and push them into the general OS.

Cheaper than ever
Most people don't really notice the cost of a Windows license since it's built into the pre-built computers that make up the vast majority of what most people buy. There are an awful lot of XP and Vista computers out there, however, and there's no real reason why they should miss out on all the fun. If you have an .edu e-mail address, Microsoft will let you buy Windows 7 Home Premium or Professional for just $29.99 (to get Professional, click on the link that says you need to join a domain). You can also buy a 'family pack' which consists of 3 Windows 7 Home Premium upgrade licenses for just $150. While these are upgrades and not full versions, you can still use them on a clean system by using the "double install" trick that was popularized with the rise of Windows Vista.

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Libraries
Windows XP introduced a number of file-specific folders to the operating system and Vista expanded on these, with examples like Pictures, Videos, etc. Windows 7 takes all of this a step further by using meta-folders known as Libraries. Libraries are useful for looking at file collections all at once, without having to browse to multiple folders. As an example, let's look at the 'Pictures' library. Let's say you have three directories where pictures are stored - the default My Pictures, a image collection on a second hard drive, and maybe a third directory somewhere else on the computer. There are any number of reasons why you might want to store these files separately, but be able to view them as a whole - that's where libraries come into play.

To add a folder to a library, right-click on it, select 'Include in library' and choose in which library you wish to add it. No files are physically moved to the library - it creates symbolic links, instead. Now when you click on the Pictures library, you can see all of the photos from all of the directories you added, just as if you'd moved them. That's not all, though. In previous versions of Windows, you could arrange folders by things like write date, size, etc. In the Pictures library, things are a little more down to earth - you can arrange all your pictures by month, day, rating, or even tags found in the metadata. What's really handy is that you can even add external drives to the library, so if you pop in a thumb drive containing a series of images, you can add it to the library, take advantage of all the file view improvements, and pop it back out when you're finished.

Homegroups
Homegroups are a new networking feature added by Microsoft to make setting up and sharing files and printers within a small home network easier. Traditionally it wasn't too hard to share files - you just run the setup wizard, click what you want to do (i.e., share or not) and you're good to go. It was somewhat arduous, however, to set up passwords and user accounts to restrict certain files and folders from some computers. Homegroup changes all of that. When you're setting up your Windows 7 installation, you can choose to create or join a homegroup. Simply type in the password on subsequent computers and you're good to go - only those computers that join the homegroup within a specific network have access to the files and libraries you've chosen. While Windows creates a rather obtuse password on its own, you can open the Homegroup icon in Control Panel to change it to something that's a little easier to remember.

Performance
All right, so you've read our article comparing several benchmarks run on Windows 7 and Windows Vista - and to many people's surprise, Vista came out ahead on a number of them. Does that mean you shouldn't upgrade? No. Despite the way the tests turned out, Windows 7 just feels faster, in day-to-day use, than Windows Vista. There are improvements made to the application and file caching algorithms, power settings, and dramatic improvements made to sleep and wake processes. Furthermore, Windows 7 has lower system requirements, at least in terms of storage space. Within our office, we've installed Win7 on a number of netbooks, like the controversial Vaio P, for example, and they always felt faster with the new OS than with Vista.

XP Mode
If you're running Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate or Enterprise, congratulations! You can use XP Mode, which is a virtualized, free copy of XP that runs within Windows 7. It's a good solution if you have legacy software that simply will not run within Windows 7; instead, you can run it inside of an emulated Windows XP that sits on top of Windows 7. While most modern CPUs support the feature, not all do; you'll need to check and see if your processor offers the required hardware virtualization.

Media Player and Media Center
Microsoft made a number of improvements to some of the media focused aspects of the operating system, too. Windows Media Player, for those of you not using something like iTunes, Zune, Last.fm, or Pandora, can now stream your music collection over the internet. Sign in with your Windows Live ID on a different computer (running the same version of WMP) and you'll be able to see the libraries you shared in media player on your home computer. Media Center also got a boost with a new and improved Netflix interface as well as Internet TV collection, which now streams full CBS episodes and video podcasts from the Zune Marketplace.

Trippiest. Backgrounds. Ever.
All right, so maybe this one is something of a lark, but it's hard to deny that Windows 7 is the most attractive version of Windows to date. Auto-rotating wallpapers, a gorgeous collection of themes and, as mentioned in the heading, some of the the craziest - in a good way - default backgrounds included with an operating system. If the pre-installed examples aren't enough, or you just want to see the regional pictures for all the rest of the countries, Microsoft has put several new packs and collections online.

Do you have another handy Windows 7 tip or feature you think we should have covered, but didn't? Be sure to sound off in the comments and share it with the rest of us.

 

Win7 is like....The perfect OS

I NEED TO UPGRADE BADLY!!!

Just wanted to say that the performance index is out of 7.9

Vista was 5.9

 

I'm confused here. I thought everyone was switching to Mac, nobody wanted Windows 7, right?
Oh, wait... It was just another 'creative' Apple advertisement...

 

There are plenty of other cool keyboard shortcuts, too, but it was getting a bit long. Win+P will let you mess around with how the desktop spans across a single external monitor, while Win+space will engage the same Aero Peek effect you get by mousing down to the lower-right corner.

 

I agree that is feels faster over all. especially on a SSD. it cut my boot time in half over vista.

 

I like how booting is much improved, how Office 2007 loads so much faster, how desktop search results come out as typed, how most of drivers for my thinkpad were automatically installed without me even noticing, and how wacky those themes are. It's satisfying, relieving, and lovable. I might consider switching to Win7 in next couple of weeks.

 

Where is the domain link to buy the professional version for $29.99?

 

Improved indexing and faster search times. No more scouring deep inside the Program Files or Documents if you know the name of the folder - just search it, it's so much faster!

 

www.win741.com

 

I'm not sure why I understand all of the hoopla about native ISO functionality of Win7. With WinXP, all one had to do is download ImgBurn freeware, and right click on the ISO download to burn the disc - with never a coaster.

 

Oh nice. I am waiting for my new laptop with win7 to arrive...

 

one thing i would add to/elaborate on this list:
windows media player is the best media player you can have now.
throw away your vlc player and media player classic and zoom player and whatever else you are using.

the new windows media player has better optimized filters, a slicker interface, and greater hardware postprocessing than all those other players.

 

OK someone is going to hell for not listing Aero Snap as one of the must have features.

Seriously. the ability to drag right, left, top....and now I found that if you extend the bottom of a window down to the base of the screen it make the window expand to fill up the top and bottom of the display at the width of the current window.

Seriously I easily use this feature every day. For me its the best feature in 7.

 

Meh. WMP is OK. I hate how aggressive it is about keeping media listed that was removed from the locations it monitors. Then there is the fact that it looks for music in anywhere that is listed. Read: your photo directory, etc. I saved a webpage and for some reason it found the audio in it and listed it.

I've started to play around with Songbird. It still has a ways to go but its getting there in a number of categories. WMP may have the flash, but long term I think SB is going to have the features and extensions.

 

well, i used to use a heavily configured version of media player classic, but with wmp 12, i got equally good image quality without any configuration. It also supported more graphics cards for hardware acceleration, and seemed to handle videos more efficiently as well.

 

Okay, okay, so I didn't call it by Aero Snap, but --

 

Nice tip about the Win+# key to open a pinned item on QuickLaunch. Somehow I hadn't seen anything about that one yet, but it's actually one of the most useful ones, in my opinion. Not sure what you mean by "the same keyboard shortcuts", though - that shortcut doesn't seem to do anything with QuickLaunch in XP. Was it a new feature in Vista? Either way, it's something that would make QuickLaunch actually useful to me, rather than taking up space on the taskbar yet having too small of icons to be quicker than hitting the Win key to open the start menu, and clicking the much bigger links there (assuming I'm starting a most-used program - otherwise, I wouldn't bother putting it in QuickLaunch anyways).

OTOH, I find AeroSnap/Window Tiling to be one of the most overstated aspects of Win7. It certainly is an improvement over Vista, but it's not as good as the window tiling capabilities you get in Ubuntu, or with an nVIDIA GeForce/Quadro video card and appropriate drivers on XP, or Quado + appropriate drivers on Vista. In Ubuntu, or XP/Vista with an appropriate GPU, you can snap a 300x200 (arbitrary size) window to the side of the screen, or to another 250x375 window - whichever you prefer. It doesn't include the top-to-maximize functionality, but double-clicking the title bar does that anyways. So I'm surprised that AeroSnap is advertised so much when considerably better alternatives are out there - and as I'm sure someone at Microsoft knew of the nVIDIA capabilities even if not the Ubuntu ones, I'm surprised they didn't implement AeroSnap in a more full-featured way.

 

I still don't believe i was one of those people who fully missed out on 7 Beta and all. I remember before the BETA dropped i said i would get it and never did.....hopefully i wouldn't have missed too much when i get another notebook next year.

 

What's that battery icon to the left of the Clipping Tool?

 

My bad, you're right- that's limited to Vista. For some reason I thought it worked on XP, too, but I'm using an XP machine at the moment and just tried it to no avail.

Regarding the window tiling, I don't find snapping small windows to the side of the screen all that useful. For me, instantly taking two windows (often, two browser windows) and arranging them in such a way that maximizes screen real estate is a bonus that lets me work much quicker. I don't use the mouse to do it; I think that's just a waste of time.

That would be BatteryMon.

 

Even though it's not new, my favorite feature of Windows is sticky notes. I also like the way the new taskbar works compared to WinXP -- less clutter.

 

The average consumer would have no clue where to start. For something's, you shouldn't have to sift through google results (average consumer remember ) to find software. You should be able to double click them and have the OS take care of it. ISO burning is one of those things and is a nice addition to W7

Agreed, Sticky Notes is a life saver for me!

 

Aero snap is pretty epic. I use it daily. Helps me emulate my dual screen setup from work. Excellent feature. The sticky notes being built in is also a lifesaver. The new taskbar along the bottom is surprisingly useful. Windows 7 has been great.

 

I just played with win7 today, and it is quite nice and intuitive.
I use XP and just 3 minutes in front of Win7 and I could use it nicely.
Although some arrangements are Vista-like and are kinda hard to use...but ok

 

That was a great read. I might use my student discount to pick up a copy soon Can you also get the 64-bit with the student discount?

^^ BTW I think that using an upgrade copy of the OS on a previously unlicensed machine is in violation of the license agreement. I could be wrong though.

Duane

 

Yeah, its available in 32bit and 64bit flavors of either Home Premium or professional for the same price.

 

You forgot to mention Win 7 supports digital HD TV now. You can finally use a cable card with any computer running win 7 as long as it gets verified by some software from microsoft website.

 

As miner said, yeah, you can use your key for either 32- or 64-bit copies. And while that process I described for upgrading may violate some aspect of Microsoft's licensing agreement, chances are you qualify for an upgrade. If you have a Windows 2000, XP or Vista license, you can take advantage of the upgrade media.

Yeah, I mentioned that on DTR when it came out a few months ago. This is a lot more exciting since you're allowed to buy standalone CableCARDs - which was expressly forbidden until very recently. Still, as cool as it is, I don't think it'll affect all that many people. Maybe in Windows 8, or whatever they call it.

 

Supposed to get it "free" in the mail from buying this laptop...we'll see if it gets here first, I would like to think they'll be sending them out soon...if not already....

 

You may also want to check out if your school has MSDN AA acces (and you are in a qualified program). That could net you a copy for free or a small amount.

 

I did check, thanks. However they offer the Ultimate edition for $49. Since I do not have a use for Ultimate, I'll prolly pick up the Home Premium from M$ directly since it's cheaper.

Duane

 

Professional is the same price with the student discount. MS just doesn't advertise it. You may as well go for that.

 

The improvements mentions seem mostly like eye-candy.
What I want to know is:
1. How has the security improved ? Does OS have built in virus scanners etc ?

2. Will computer get slower over time like XP ?

3. What the DRM hindrances ? If I upgrade hard drive or memory, will I have to call up MS to convince them its not a install on a new computer ?

4. Requirements: for 64 bit: 2GB of ram, 20GB HDD space. WTH ??? These are the minimum requirements ? Do they sell a "Win 7 Fit" which is lean mean and fast ?

 

Another you should know about windows:

Source: http://www.pcr-online.biz/features/328/Microsofts-new-vision