Features of Windows 7
Thursday, June 23, 2011 Posted by Aman Jain
Windows 7 is the latest release of Microsoft Windows; a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, net books, tablet PCs, and media center PCs. Windows 7 was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009 and reached general retail availability on October 22, 2009.
Windows 7 was intended to be a more focused, incremental upgrade to the Windows line, with the goal of being compatible with applications and hardware with which Windows Vista was already compatible. Presentations given by Microsoft in 2008 focused on multi-touch support, a redesigned Windows shell with a new taskbar, referred to as the Super bar, a home networking system called Home Group, and performance improvements. Some standard applications that have been included with prior releases of Microsoft Windows, including Windows Calendar, Windows Mail, Windows Movie Maker, and Windows Photo Gallery, are not included in Windows 7 most are instead offered separately at no charge as part of the Windows Live Essentials suite.
User experience
• Biggest end user changes are in the UI...
– Personalization with Aero Themes and slideshows.
– Major changes to the Taskbar – Pinning, Jump Lists, Live Previews, and more.
– Notification area clean-up.
– Libraries and Windows Explorer.
– Windows Aero desktop effects: Aero Peek, Aero Snaps, Aero Shake.
– Bundled apps
– Calculator
– Paint
– WordPad
– Sticky Notes, etc.
– Missing apps
– Windows Live Essentials fills the gaps
– You can also remove more apps than in Vista.
• Biggest end user changes are in the UI...
– Personalization with Aero Themes and slideshows.
– Major changes to the Taskbar – Pinning, Jump Lists, Live Previews, and more.
– Notification area clean-up.
– Libraries and Windows Explorer.
– Windows Aero desktop effects: Aero Peek, Aero Snaps, Aero Shake.
– Bundled apps
– Calculator
– Paint
– WordPad
– Sticky Notes, etc.
– Missing apps
– Windows Live Essentials fills the gaps
– You can also remove more apps than in Vista.
Security
• Vista already got this mostly right.
• UAC has been overhauled, user gets fine-grained control.
• Windows 7 still doesn’t ship with an AV solution.
• The good news: Microsoft’s Security Essentials is free and appears to be decent.
• Vista already got this mostly right.
• UAC has been overhauled, user gets fine-grained control.
• Windows 7 still doesn’t ship with an AV solution.
• The good news: Microsoft’s Security Essentials is free and appears to be decent.
Certain capabilities and programs that were a part of Windows Vista are no longer present or have been changed, resulting in the removal of certain functionalities. These include the classic Start Menu user interface, some taskbar features, Windows Explorer features, Windows Media Player features, Windows Ultimate Extras and Ink Ball. Four applications bundled with Windows Vista — Windows Photo Gallery, Windows Movie Maker, Windows Calendar and Windows Mail — are not included with Windows 7, but applications with close functionality are instead available for free in a separate package called Windows Live Essentials which can be downloaded on the Microsoft website.
Although Windows Ultimate Extras was removed, many of the extras can be installed separately. Most popular extras were Microsoft Texas Hold 'em, Microsoft Tinker, and Windows Dream Scene. Ink Ball may also be installed into Windows 7.
Convert Windows vista to windows 7 now
Sunday, November 23, 2008 Posted by Aman Jain
The successor to Windows Vista now has a name: Windows 7. But if you use Vista now, you don't need to wait over a year to get a Vista-like version of Windows that's leaner, less obnoxious, and indeed even snappier. There are steps you can take to get Vista into shape right now. What you end up with won't exactly be Windows 7, but it will be a whole lot more livable than the Vista you use now.
Tame User Account Control
UAC is the feature of Vista that users love to hate, and with good reason. It's responsible for those dialog boxes that read "An unidentified program wants to access your computer" any time that you try to open a file or run a program that could install itself or change files on your computer. The trouble is that 95 per cent of the time, you know exactly what you're doing when this dialog box pops up, and therefore it amounts to just another annoyance on your way to getting something done. It's possible to disable UAC altogether, but if you do, you'll be removing an important security component from Vista, leaving yourself more vulnerable. Instead, you could turn to a new, free tool from Symantec called Norton UAC Tool (http://www.nortonlabs.com/inthelab/uac.php), which gives you more control over which types of actions UAC prompts you about.
The Norton UAC Tool adds some important options to the standard UAC dialog box. For example, after installing Norton UAC, if you double-click an "exe" file to install a program, UAC will prompt you as usual, but you'll also have the option to disable that type of prompt in the future by clicking a "Don't ask me again" check box. Norton UAC also provides more information than the standard UCA about what's about to happen as a result of an action you just took. For instance, a UAC prompt that opens after you click some Control Panel applets lets you know that actions you perform might make changes to a protected directory. Again, the Norton UAC offers you the option to disable such prompts in the future.
Tone down Aero
Aero - the Vista interface feature that enables semi-transparent windows - is pretty, but it's also a major resource hog. It's so demanding, in fact, that the edition of Vista called Windows Vista Basic, which is designed to run on less powerful machines, doesn't even include it. Even if your copy of Vista does, you might want to disable it in order to regain some performance. To do so, right-click a blank area of your desktop, and select Personalize from the pop-up menu. Then click Windows Colour and Appearance. From the resulting Appearance Settings dialog box, select Windows Vista Basic from the "Colour scheme" list box, and click OK. You'll still have the look and feel of Vista. But without the Aero transparency effects, your PC will seem more responsive. You can get another performance bump by disabling some other interface niceties that aren't necessarily tied to Vista.
To do so, open the Vista Start menu, right-click the word Computer, and then select Properties from the pop-up menu. From the resulting System dialog box, click Advanced System Setting from the left-hand pane. The Performance Options dialog opens. From there, deselect those interface options - such as "fade or slide menus into view" - that you can live without. Or simply click the option button labeled "Adjust for best performance," and click OK.
Turn off unneeded features
You'd be amazed at the number of optional features that Vista starts up by default, slowing down your computer in the process. Some of these features you likely will never need or use. For instance, do you ever print documents over the Internet? Vista thinks you may want to, so it loads an Internet printing feature. Or do you ever use Windows Meeting Space? If you're not even sure what it is, you probably don't use it. But Vista loads drivers for it every time the operating system starts.
To get rid of the Internet printing feature, open Vista's Control Panel and click Programs and Features. Then click the "Turn features on or off" link in the left-hand pane. The Windows Features dialog box opens. Expand the Print Services section, and remove the check mark from the Internet Printing Client check box. Disable the Windows Meeting Space service in the same way. And while you're in the Windows Features dialog box, spend some time looking at the other features that are enabled. Anything with a check mark next to it is. Not using games? Remove the check mark next to Games. Click OK when you're done, and Windows will spend some time deactivating the features you have de-selected.
Disable services you don't need
Vista comes with a host of system-level services - enhancements tied closely to the operating system - that few people ever use. Yet the existence of these services means that resources are being wasted - and your computer is being slowed. ReadyBoost, for example, is a service that allows you to use a USB flash drive to give Vista more memory, thereby helping the operating system to do more - theoretically. In practice, few people seem to notice much difference when a flash drive is inserted, and even fewer seem to use ReadyBoost. Disable it by clicking Start, typing "services," without the quotation marks, and pressing Enter. In the resulting Services dialog box, find ReadyBoost, and double-click the entry. From the "startup type" drop-down menu, select Disabled, and click OK.
Remove Indexing
Indexing, too, is a service that is resource-intensive and may either be foregone entirely or replaced by a less resource-intensive indexing application, such as Google Desktop or Copernic Desktop. To turn off indexing, remain in the Services dialog box, and locate the Windows Search entry. Double-click it. From the "startup type" drop-down list box, select Disabled. Click OK, and you're done. Undoubtedly Windows 7 will amount to a lot more than simply the disabling of features, services, and interface elements. But if Microsoft has absorbed anything from the feedback it has received about Windows Vista, it's that users want less, not more, when it comes to things that get in the way of productivity. Take the steps outlined here to make Vista less intrusive, and you're likely to be a good bit closer to what Microsoft hopes to give you in Windows 7.
11 Cool Features of Windows 7
Sunday, November 23, 2008 Posted by Aman Jain
Microsoft Corp is betting its next Windows operating system will be faster and easier to use and avoid the missteps of Windows Vista that alienated many users of the software that powers 90 per cent of the world's PCs.
Windows 7 is set to be introduced in a test version early next year (2009) with features including touchscreen technology and the ability to more easily personalize the system.
The company also adopted a 'Simple is Better' philosophy, looking to remove complexity from an operating system that incorporated 50 million lines of programming code in Vista.
Here's looking inside the new features packed in Windows 7.
1) New Taskbar
Microsoft plans to introduce more user-friendly features, such as a new taskbar that previews all the open windows from a single application by hovering over the program's icon.
The designers have removed redundant buttons that launch applications. When users roll over a program's icon in the taskbar, it will be easier to see how many documents are open, and switch between them
2) Jump Lists
Another new feature is called "Jump Lists," which provides updated lists of recently worked-on documents or often visited websites without first having to open Microsoft Word or an Internet browser.
The new software will ditch some prominent features included in Vista including Calendar, Windows Mail, Movie Maker, Contacts and Photo Gallery, which will now be available for free download from the Microsoft website.
3) Fewer security alerts
The forthcoming Windows 7 will let users choose to see fewer alerts and warnings from their computers. Rampant notifications alerting people to security risks in Vista are said to be an irk for many users.
4) New Libraries
In Windows 7, Microsoft introduces a concept called Libraries, which automatically collects similar files scattered across PCs on a home network and displays them together in a single folder.
These Libraries are like virtual folders that can reside across multiple folders and even multiple networked PCs. The default Libraries are for Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures, and Videos.
5) Faster, more memory-efficient
Microsoft has said that Windows 7 will be faster and need less memory to run. Vista generally needs costlier hardware configurations than the older Windows XP.
Windows Vista was heavily criticised due to poor compatibility with devices and slow start speeds that it became the target of an effective marketing campaign by rival Apple Inc.
6) Device Stage
Windows 7 adds features to more easily connect personal computers to cameras, printers and home networks.
It's new feature Device Stage will be a one-stop point to manage and gather information for devices from mobile phones to printers to digital music players.
The new feature will let people better personalize machines and set up networks that mesh capabilities of mobile telephones, printers, digital picture frames, computers and other Smart devices.
7) Touchscreen & free downloads
Among the innovations unveiled by Microsoft was a touchscreen capability that will allow users to select folders and control programs without using a mouse.
The Operating System will also enable computers to respond to gestures, like the iPhone, whether a person uses a mouse or his finger, depending on the type of computer screen. Whenever a user presses his finger to the display, a 'water drop' appears, showing that the touch has been recognized, and the mouse cursor disappears, to avoid input confusion
8) Desktop Themes
In Windows 7, desktop Themes selector highlights the ability to change window borders' Glass edge. Users have a choice of 18 tints for their glass, with accessibility themes also available, as well as more themes downloadable online.
The notification area or System Tray too has become less cluttered. Users can determine what events and applications can place icons in the tray and when they can pop up warning messages.
9) No hardware upgrade needed
Windows 7 aims to keep hardware requirements in line with that of Vista so that companies do not need to buy special machines to run the new operating system
10) Office goes to Web
An additional feature is OneNote software that work in Web browser and look as they normally do, but don't have to be installed on a PC. The new programmes were running "in the cloud" on the new Windows Azure system Microsoft unveiled, a move aimed at helping it catch up with Google and other nimbler Web companies. Azure lets Microsoft run software and store data in its own massive data centers around the world, instead of requiring people to install programs on their own PCs.
Office Web applications will be available for consumers on Office Live, though the company did not disclose whether it would be paid for by advertising or subscriptions. The Office Web programs represent what Microsoft believes is a more polished take on what Google has tried.
Microsoft's online Office programs let people work on a document at the same time, and make it easier to publish charts and PowerPoint presentations to blogs with few clicks.
11) Set for sale in 2010
Microsoft's early 2009 target for people to begin toying with Windows 7 is striking because the Redmond, Washington-based company promised deadlines it couldn't keep when it was developing Vista.
Microsoft is trying hard to avoid a similar debacle this time.
11 Cool features of Windows 7
Friday, October 31, 2008 Posted by Aman Jain
Microsoft Corp is betting its next Windows operating system will be faster and easier to use and avoid the missteps of Windows Vista that alienated many users of the software that powers 90 per cent of the world's PCs. Windows 7 is set to be introduced in a test version early next year (2009) with features including touchscreen technology and the ability to more easily personalize the system.
The company also adopted a 'Simple is Better' philosophy, looking to remove complexity from an operating system that incorporated 50 million lines of programming code in Vista.
Here's looking inside the new features packed in Windows 7.
1) New Taskbar
Microsoft plans to introduce more user-friendly features, such as a new taskbar that previews all the open windows from a single application by hovering over the program's icon.
The designers have removed redundant buttons that launch applications. When users roll over a program's icon in the taskbar, it will be easier to see how many documents are open, and switch between them
2) Jump Lists
Another new feature is called "Jump Lists," which provides updated lists of recently worked-on documents or often visited websites without first having to open Microsoft Word or an Internet browser.
The new software will ditch some prominent features included in Vista including Calendar, Windows Mail, Movie Maker, Contacts and Photo Gallery, which will now be available for free download from the Microsoft website.
3) Fewer security alerts
The forthcoming Windows 7 will let users choose to see fewer alerts and warnings from their computers. Rampant notifications alerting people to security risks in Vista are said to be an irk for many users.
4) New Libraries
In Windows 7, Microsoft introduces a concept called Libraries, which automatically collects similar files scattered across PCs on a home network and displays them together in a single folder.
These Libraries are like virtual folders that can reside across multiple folders and even multiple networked PCs. The default Libraries are for Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures, and Videos.
5) Faster, more memory-efficient
Microsoft has said that Windows 7 will be faster and need less memory to run. Vista generally needs costlier hardware configurations than the older Windows XP.
Windows Vista was heavily criticised due to poor compatibility with devices and slow start speeds that it became the target of an effective marketing campaign by rival Apple Inc.
6) Device Stage
Windows 7 adds features to more easily connect personal computers to cameras, printers and home networks.
It's new feature Device Stage will be a one-stop point to manage and gather information for devices from mobile phones to printers to digital music players.
The new feature will let people better personalize machines and set up networks that mesh capabilities of mobile telephones, printers, digital picture frames, computers and other Smart devices.
7) Touchscreen & free downloads
Among the innovations unveiled by Microsoft was a touchscreen capability that will allow users to select folders and control programs without using a mouse.
The Operating System will also enable computers to respond to gestures, like the iPhone, whether a person uses a mouse or his finger, depending on the type of computer screen. Whenever a user presses his finger to the display, a 'water drop' appears, showing that the touch has been recognized, and the mouse cursor disappears, to avoid input confusion
8) Desktop Themes
In Windows 7, desktop Themes selector highlights the ability to change window borders' Glass edge. Users have a choice of 18 tints for their glass, with accessibility themes also available, as well as more themes downloadable online.
The notification area or System Tray too has become less cluttered. Users can determine what events and applications can place icons in the tray and when they can pop up warning messages.
9) No hardware upgrade needed
Windows 7 aims to keep hardware requirements in line with that of Vista so that companies do not need to buy special machines to run the new operating system
10) Office goes to Web
An additional feature is OneNote software that work in Web browser and look as they normally do, but don't have to be installed on a PC. The new programmes were running "in the cloud" on the new Windows Azure system Microsoft unveiled, a move aimed at helping it catch up with Google and other nimbler Web companies. Azure lets Microsoft run software and store data in its own massive data centers around the world, instead of requiring people to install programs on their own PCs.
Office Web applications will be available for consumers on Office Live, though the company did not disclose whether it would be paid for by advertising or subscriptions. The Office Web programs represent what Microsoft believes is a more polished take on what Google has tried.
Microsoft's online Office programs let people work on a document at the same time, and make it easier to publish charts and PowerPoint presentations to blogs with few clicks.
11) Set for sale in 2010
Microsoft's early 2009 target for people to begin toying with Windows 7 is striking because the Redmond, Washington-based company promised deadlines it couldn't keep when it was developing Vista.
Microsoft is trying hard to avoid a similar debacle this time.
