A Complete Look on Windows 7

In this article today, I am going to show the new features in Windows 7 from Vista. The motivation of this article actually begins with a (real) little story with my friends… (again)

"Dude, wanna check out Windows 7?”
"What’s new there?”
"Oh, the Superbar, it is SO cool!”
"What else?”
"Um… the Superbar!”
"You said that already.”
"Um…. Superbar?”

Because of that, I went home and took a deep look at Windows 7, and found just so many little tweaks from Windows Vista that is much more efficient, convenient and user-friendly. Let’s take a look at them, shall we?

(To download Windows 7, visit this link: http://techcube.net/2009/01/windows-7-beta-is-now-available-for-download/)

First and foremost, the Superbar!

I know it is far beyond “over-said”, but I still have to mention it. As the key feature of Windows 7, Microsoft sure did not let us down. With the options of displaying big/small icons, always combined or not, it’s all your choice. There is now a “min-progress” bar in the Superbar to show file process without having to open the window. (Look at the 3rd icon from left – the progress shown there is proportional to the window above.)

The Show Desktop icon is moved to the right most. When you move your cursor on there and stay there for a few seconds, it will give you a preview on all the windows. How? Check the screenshot out below:

Libraries and Homegroup!

Sharing between computers are now SO easy with Windows 7. I am not flattering! Once you setup a Homegroup (which you only have to press a button) and other computers to join (one button, also), all the files are like automatically linked. I could listen to the music on my desktop from my laptop, or I can see the documents that I did on my laptop during school from my desktop. All of these things are done with only one single button, no configuration needed! Yes, you can share everything, including printers (without config, too)!

What are Libraries, you ask? Just a place where you put stuffs like Documents, Pictures, etc. However, they are sorted in a much simpler way. You can add different folder to be part of your “library” such as below:

New Explorer interface

Other than the new “library”, there is also a new, cleaner interface of Explorer. Compared to Vista’s “favorite link”, there is now library, which I personally think lets you access to the files so much faster.

Gadgets

Instead of the Vista Sidebar, Windows 7 introduce the “gadgets”, which basically IS the sidebar except you can move the widgets out of the sidebar. Honestly, I like this much better than the sidebar. Google Gadgets and Yahoo Gadgets, you are facing a strong competitor this time :D.

Improvements on Start Menu

If you think the Start Menu on Windows Vista was good enough, think again. There are more improvements coming up in Windows 7. Hover over the “arrow” next to a program in the recent program list, and it shows you a list on recent documents/ history. Works for majority of programs (how did they do it?)

Not that many annoying UAC messages now!

You will now only see those UAC Message to ask you confirm/deny probably only during software installation. Normal administrative actions, such as msconfig, would still have a “shield icon” next to its name, but does not pop up a message anymore

New Remove Hardware interface!

No need to go like “Arghhh WTF IS THIS DEVICE” anymore when you remove hardware – Windows 7 tells you what they are!

However…

Well, since this is only a beta version, a lot of things still didn’t work out the way we wanted it to, such as:

• Start Menu perhaps a little too much resource-consuming
• Ctrl-Space would not work for Asian input methods
• Google Chrome does not work in x64
• WLM 2009 has an “extra window” – no icon in tray

However despite these problems, Windows 7 has gave us enough amount of surprise already. Good job, Microsoft!