• KJ
• Nov 6,2008
• In: Technology

A look at Windows 7

Taking a walk away from the recent U.S. elections, I went out and obtained the pre-beta for Windows new operating system: Windows 7. First impressions are high, as the new operating system looks cleaner and runs much more smoothly. Microsoft has made valiant efforts to not only improve the look of the system but to also drastically increase its performance - and it is shows. The operating system not only uses less memory and CPU processes but does more and looks better.

Look

One of the first things you’ve noticed (I’d hope, at least) is the new taskbar. Microsoft, straying away from the old, has changed the way the taskbar looks and feels. Each of the tasks has been condensed into a single image (64×64 I think). You can still access these tasks as you would through any other OS, but now you can fit many more onto the taskbar. You can also lock specific applications to the taskbar for quick access (essentially the quick launch merged with the taskbar). Also, the clear bar next to the clock is a simple “show desktop” button which minimizes all windows on the desktop. In the Windows 7 pre-beta, the taskbar isn’t enabled at first. There’s an unlocker out that allows you to circumvent that and enable it.

Vista had window previews, but not in this sense. You can get a preview of each of the windows that happen to be associated with a specific task. A feature not in the pre-beta (suggested that this was why the taskbar was not enabled) is the ability to ‘peek’ at one of the windows. In this case, if you had several windows up, and wanted to ‘peek’ at a window far below it, instead of switching to it all you would need to do is hover over its preview image and all the windows in its way would become transparent.

Flip 3D and Gadgets are both still in Windows 7. However, there’s no longer a sidebar for the gadgets, which are now allowed to roam freely around the desktop. Not like that was impossible for Vista, as the gadgets were not necessarily confined to the sidebar either.

The only real difference with the explorer screens is that they seem more, clean. There’s less gradients, less information. The separation between the panes is small and more smoothly done.

One of the more nifty features in Windows 7 is the window manipulation. Dragging a window to either the left or right side of the screen present a preview, showing the space that it’s going to take up. Continuing shrinks and stretches the window so that it takes up half the size of the screen. This way you can quickly set two windows to tile. Excellent for people that tend to do things between two windows on a constant basis. You can also do the same for the top of the screen, which maximizes the Window. Pulling any of the windows from their place automatically returns them to their original size.

The Start menu gets away with only a few real changes. The browsing still works the way that Vista’s does, however, several items will include a list of previous opened and modified files. For explorer it includes files/folders. Internet Explorer (and other browsers, I’d assume) will include that day’s history and Windows Media Player includes links to play music.

The control panel hasn’t really changed all too much. The only real addition here is the “All Control Panel Items” which is essentially a link to view the control panel the classic way. It is still possible to set the default view to be just classic.

New Features

One of the newest features to Windows 7 is the updated Windows Media Player 12. The interface has been cleaned up and has a slightly new tab view. In the normal view the focus is on the library, which has stayed relatively the same. When collapsed the focus is purely on the music, where the currently playing list is the only thing shown. I’ve yet to really test the new player with a large playlist, but it does load much faster and has a cleaner look than WMP11 does on Vista.

A feature that is not likely to be of much concern with the normal user, Window’s PowerShell Integrated Scripting Editor. In use it acts just like the command prompt, allowing users to type in the same commands they’d always type in. It allows for easy script creation and feedback on commands that are run. This should greatly please many system administrators. However, the old Command Prompt is still an option if you should get nostalgic, or just dislike this.

A program that caught me offguard, this “Private Character Editor” sounds more like a font creator. A cool idea though I’m sure there’s something more specific to it. It may be that they’re only able to be used in certain circumstances.

Update Features

The latest iteration of Microsoft’s browser, Internet Explorer 8, comes packaged in with Windows 7. With a slightly different look than that of Internet Explorer 7, most of its new features are behind the scenes. Taking the approach (or, more specifically, developing the approach first) of splitting each Window into its own process so that any crashes or slowdowns in any of the tabs has no affect on the rest. It’s faster and has many new tools. It still, however, does not come anywhere near passing the Acid 3 test.

Both Paint and WordPad make their triumphant return, this time sporting a serious graphical upgrade and a couple of new features. They’ve both taken on the new Office 2007 ‘ribbon’. I’ve heard that this might actually be built into the system, so it may very well be a style that many applications take in the future.

The calculator also comes back with a serious graphical update and several new features all to its own! Now sporting a few different modes such as Standard, Scientific, Programmer and Statistics. It also has several conversion functions that make doing mundane mathematical calculations simple and less painful. It also includes a history of previous calculations. Unfortunately, still no graphing.

Probably a tool that few of you use, the Resource Monitor has had a slight update, now providing much more in-depth information on the system and what is currently occurring. Nothing too major, but the extra details are nice.

There are several other updates and modifications throughout, but most aren’t significant enough to notice. Programs for calibrating your color settings and the ClearType settings have also been added. The whole networking system has been updated and made a little simpler. On that note, the security center and solution center have been merged to the “Windows Solution Center”. The User Accounts Control (UAC) has been modified to be a little less annoying.

The changes to Window 7 have been great already and it is just a pre-beta. If this is a sign of things to come then I think Microsoft is going to have one hell of a release on its hand. Windows 7 is faster, cleaner, prettier and more functional than Vista is even in its current state following service pack 1 and still has several phases to go. Microsoft said their focus for this release is on the user and their performance and it really does show. Kudos to them for doing such a good job thus far. Now, unfortunately, I must switch back to Vista for the time being.