Windows 7 has enriched us a touch experience and made it a high-level way to interact with PC alongside the mouse and keyboard. And a little bit more, common activities were made to be thoughtful with touch in mind. We are free to interact directly, reach out slowly and even scroll a web page. All the quick flicks, made it so fast to move. We are dedicated ourselves to photos, web pages, videos and so on.

But we have to indicate, it's not only a simple sub-set touch. The biggest change in Windows 7 is support for touch screen devices. Hand writing recognition and support on touch screen displays are available. With fingers or a stylus, it's easy to interact with PC even we get a keyboard and mouse alongside.

Microsoft also improve the on-screen keyboard. We get a red feedback when pressing. Moreover, common gestures in Windows 7 could bring a series of touching experience. Tap or double click on any items, you are feeling the mouse dragging similarity as usual. More pinching, pulling, pressing or dragging, enjoy the touch pleasure with simple clicks.

We are all waiting and hearing from notable changes from RC. Since Beta, Microsoft Windows 7 has brought so many surprises and we are busying on enjoying those. To our satisfaction, Windows 7 changes all the way to RC. Let's see this time how different and advanced features RC take for us.

Basically, Windows 7 insists on users'feedback and put into practice and development all the time. Based on Beta, does RC own a series of feedback? The answer is definitely yes. Well then, see the desktop improvement first!

Desktop experience
The taskbar thumbnail overflow, with scaling mechanism, really turns into a list view completely. There is a small close button on the thumbnail previews, which inspires them to add a similar one when it's showing as a list. Compared with right-clicking, to run down the list with close button is really a fantastic thing. This toolbar has been well experienced on Windows XP and Vista. Sans thumbnails are viewed architecturally the same as the thumbnail view. No clicking needs to open in Beta, each close buttons and the menus are realized opening on hover in RC.

While the Control Panel Jump List improvement takes users' feedback into operation. We all hope there is something shown in the Jump list when pinned to the taskbar. Now, right-clicking on the control panel icon in Beta, the control panel jump list in RC supplies quick access to recent used items. Similarly, power shell jump and desktop jump lists made us smile and enjoying their alternation. Taskbar settings could be further customized. In Beta, the OS is not shutdown properly, settings do not persist. But in RC, these settings can be saved within 30seconds. Settings will presently be more reliable. Read the rest of this entry »

When we are now enjoying the happiness and convenience Windows 7 Beta brought, the engineering team of Windows 7 are busying on RC (Release Candidate). Since we got this news, most of us feel curious about the change. What will we get from RC since Beta? Yesterday, we finally got the changes from official engineering blog of Windows 7.

Totally, there must be some improvements, many under the hood but also many visible. For the visible changes, we discuss from three points of view: Core User Experience, Find & Organize and Devices & Media.

Core User Experience
1. Aero Peeks supports ALT+TAB
Customers have overwhelmingly given positive feedback about Aero Peek. Some users wondered the reason why Peek was never made in application for the ALT+TAB window. When we hold the mouse over the taskbar, the thumbnail shows the same way. Hence in RC, Windows took this request into it.

As a new piece of improvement in Windows 7, the selected windows show normally. With a partially transparent frame，some website windows are mostly transparent. This time in RC, customers can switch them with ALT+TAB. Aero Peek will appear when more window information is needed. There is also another application. Some users are dedicated to touch benefits. So, the Aero Peek let us drag our fingers in taskbar's thumbnails. the show desktop button is improving, we can conveniently see our desktop in a press-and-hold way. Read the rest of this entry »

Security, stability, reliability… Windows 7?
The most important part of each and every operating system is security, that is vital for two reasons: user safety and data safety. Microsoft has put huge effort into securing OS environment but until Vista we haven't seen anything special about security measures in Windows platform.

In 2007 Microsoft proved that too much is for them not enough what resulted in spawning strange creature called User Account Control. If you would ask any Vista user what UAC is they will tell you: "something I have disabled long time ago". Why? Because Microsoft thought that there is never enough security for everyday user and blasted the screen with confirmation windows: "Are you sure you want to open this link?", "Do you want to run this program?", "Still want to scratch your back?" - these are all the questions we want to forget after one day with Vista, especially when they are coming on-screen every two minutes. Now you can lay back, because Microsoft introduced upgraded version of UAC.

The primary target of previous version of UAC was to annoy the user then take care of security measures. Now we can choose how we want User Account Control to react, to question every user move or stay down and ask only for permission when the important things are coming up. We have foru levels of security in UAC. The highest one is recommended by Microsoft but avoided usually by all because it causes stress and anger. It notifies user about almost everything, opening unknown weblink from IM, running unsigned programs or openning unknown downloaded files. The level of annoyance is high. Next tier of security excludes user decisions from notification system and notifies only when programs are trying to make some changes to the system settings. Level of annoyance is moderate. Third tier is basically the same as tier two but does not dim the desktop when UAC notification comes on-screen. Level of annoyance is low. The final tier lets us turn the UAC off which leaves us with no interception system and we have to rely on ourselves. There is no annoyance at all. If it comes to other changes to User Account Control, now system detects less usual safe actions and is more precise about what we are doing. Of course if you choose highest level of security UAC is going to make your life a nightmare. Read the rest of this entry »

New Toys, More Entertainment?
Previously we took a quick glance at the new Windows 7 environment, its speed and handful upgrades. This time I will take you for a ride through new Windows 7 entertainment toys and powerful upgrades to the systems main tools.

When Microsoft introduced Windows XP our way of operating the computer was supposed to change. All the necessary tools and task have been grouped into one panel with quick access, powerful core for maximum performance and cool new look. But that was about it. It was a revolutionary system at its time, but we expected more. In 2007 giant from Redmond released Windows Vista with plenty of upgrades, lots of new tools, and tons of fun. But the system was slow, had its own mind and finally was rejected by the business sector. Apart from new look this was just an updated and patched XP. Even new toys were left on the shelves because they were not as useful as we could expect (for example SideBar). How is the new Windows 7 doing then?

Apart from completely new taskbar and its functionality and an upgraded Start Menu, probably the first part you will check after that is the Personalization panel. It has been revamped form the top to the bottom, now it has new possibilities like for example Desktop Slide Show hidden in Background properties. When we choose the wallpaper we can pick not only one but many and set the background to change after specified period of time. The system will automatically change wallpaper on the desktop, it can even shuffle it. It's a major breakthrough because before we had to use special software, frequently on shareware basis which only added to our budget. Now Windows does it all in a simple and efficient way, we have more control over its look and feel. Also the Sidebar was discontinued and now we can put all our gadgets directly on the desktop. It doesn't change much, but at least now we have more space on the desktop. Read the rest of this entry »

New look, new feel, new possibilities?
With the beginning of January Microsoft has given us a great post-holiday gift: a beta version of new OS - Windows 7. After over two weeks of testing we bring you the results of the long awaiting product since the release of Windows XP with Service Pack 2. Give it up for Windows 7.

First thing you will notice after putting the DVD into the drive is the new installer system. Whole installation process takes place in completely new environment, we can forget about the keyboard-only input. After booting the system from the DVD the only thing we have to do is set up our location and default locale for our system (including keyboard) and the rest is up to the installer. The new installer is even willing to let us through the setup process without putting Windows License Key; we can do that later, after signing in to our account. The installation is stress-free, no questions asked, and is even faster than on Vista. Whole process takes about 40-60 minutes depending on the speed of your hard drive and CPU's performance.

In my case the test platform was Intel Centrino 2 Duo T7300 ~ 2.00 GHz, 2 GB DDR-667 RAM, GeForce-M 8600GT 256MB and 160 GB Seagate HDD. Microsoft says that the new system should consume fewer resources, be faster and more efficient than Vista. You can feel that just after the installation process when Windows 7 is starting for the first time. Preparation for the first start takes less time than normal boot on Vista; this is partially because my laptop has integrated Flash Cache Logic Chip from Intel (1GB) that serves as a Ready Boost component. The performance gain in the new system from Microsoft is really visible, not only because of the booting times, but also just after signing in to our account. Vista is well-known for its lack of performance during the whole shell-loading process. If we have several applications being open on autostart basis, to start working we have to wait about 2-5 minutes until every single service and program will be fully loaded.

In Windows 7, developers from Microsoft analyzed the problem and implemented very good algorithms to prevent the system from loading absolutely everything into the memory at once during system start. Now before you type your password the most important core components will be already loaded so it gives plenty of time to load the first tier of software (services and system files like Taskbar or Explorer), just after that system stabilizes and loads second tier of software (programs, components, etc). It is surprising because total system boot takes about 25 seconds and loading the Desktop takes another 30 seconds. It’s much faster than in Vista, but optimizations went even further. Read the rest of this entry »

Nothing lasts foreverrr, used to sing popular Maroon 5… and I'm sure nobody can know that better than Windows OS, Microsoft's spoilt brat, which has undergone so many updates in the sake of technological enhancement so far…

After the not very well received Vista edition, which was almost completely rejected by users all around the world, Microsoft goes for a double bet by launching a new edition of this popular OS by the end of 2008/early 2009. The final name chosen for this Windows client release, after much discussion on it, is Windows 7.

Basically, Windows 7 will be an update to Windows Vista, just as it happened with Windows 95 and Windows 98, thus preventing compatibility problems… (hope so).

With a greater focus on performance, this OS will bring a number of improvements and new functions intended to simplify a little bit the operation of PCs. This has definitely to do with Microsoft leiv motif making PCs popular and user-friendly even for the most unskillful dude. Read the rest of this entry »