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Today we have a few simple but very nice features of Windows 7, starting with the show desktop…where is it…it is no longer part of the QuickLaunch that people are used to but now instead it is on the far right of the taskbar where there is a small rectangle…click this and it takes you to the desktop, or alternatively hover over it and it shows you the desktop until you move away and then it takes you back to the program you were using.  Very nice touch!

Wireless Networks – In Vista I always found the connect to a network icon down by the clock a bit annoying, sometimes it would bring things straight up, other times it wouldn’t.  In Windows 7 you click it and immediately get a list of available networks along with the one you may be connected to.  From here you can easily connect to another one.  Nothing revolutionary, just something that worked made to work better!

Icons – Again this nice and simple touch is related to the task bar, the little icons that appear you install so many applications these days are now grouped in one area.  All you have to do to view them is click the arrow and a box appears with them in, see the image on the right to see what I mean.

Tile Windows – If you’re anything like me then you will often want to have two windows open at one time and be able to see some or all of them.  Commonly I use this for transferring files from one folder to another.  Arranging the windows like shown in the picture below can take time and if you are not used to using the mouse to do this it could be a fiddly process.  Now all you do is drag the windows to the left and then the right respectively and they align themselves as shown in that picture..nice and easy!

And on a similar note, if you drag a window that is not fully maximised to the top of the screen and let go…it maximises it!

Windows 7 really has been designed to make mundane tasks so much easier, it’s great!

See Also:

Windows 7 Beta – First Glance

It is almost unbelievable that Microsoft are bringing out a new version of Windows when Vista was only released two years ago…but I suppose it is only in Beta.  But we have it here to test and have been playing with it for some time.

First impressions are that it is very Vista-like!  But we are fans of Vista here so that is a good thing.  The install went very quickly and smoothly on a fairly basic Dell Optiplex 360 Intel Core 2 Duo machine.

So here is the desktop….

As you can see, it has the Vista Sidebar with the clock at the top, and the big Vista style icons.  The most noticeable change here is the taskbar at the bottom.  The quick launch icons have got bigger!  And the open applications are just the program icon which is nice.

One note about the Sidebar, this is actually no longer just a Sidebar because the gadgets that you can choose to have there can actually be positioned anywhere on the screen.

If you hover over one of the icons on the taskbar that is representing an open application you get a preview of what is open, see image below….

And then you just click on the one you want to work with.  Easy.

Also, if you right click on one of the icons on the quick launch/taskbar you get a menu specific to that application, rather then the good old standard right click menu.  So for example you might get recent documents if you right click on the word icon that is down there or shortcuts to desktop, pictures, music, videos etc if you right click on the documents folder.

The main aim here I believe is to make things more accessible for users, ways to quickly get where we want rather than having to wait for windows to load before we can get to pictures etc.

Another nice, yet simple feature I would like to bring to your attention is a change to the start menu,

You will notice that in the top picture that programs such as Word and Paint have arrows next to them, if you were to hover over the program for long enough or click the arrow and you get….yes you’ve guessed it, a list of recent documents (see  bottom image of the two above).  Now that is a feature we really like!

That’s it for the first glance, coming up soon will be some nice simple features of Windows 7 Beta!  Keep an eye out for that one.

See Also:
Windows 7 Beta