1. Taskbar Improvements
The first change you’ll notice in Windows 7 is its completely modified taskbar. If you’re used to Mac OS’s Dock, you’ll have an idea of what’s going on here. Each running application
has its own icon. Mouse over it, and you’ll see thumbnails of each window that app has open. Some apps, such as Windows Media Player, even include basic controls on the thumbnail.
2. Jump Lists
Taskbar enhancements don’t end there, though. Right-click any taskbar or application icon, and you’ll see a list of your most recently used files, along with a few other key commands. Media Player’s Jump List, for example, lists recently played tracks and movies and gives you the option to shuffle through all of your tracks with one click.
3. Taskbar Preview
Not only does the taskbar show you thumbnails of all the open windows of each application, it also makes finding the window you’re looking for a bit easier. Mouse over one of the taskbar’s application window thumbnails, and all other open windows turn into completely transparent outlines.
4. Invisible Windows / Gadget View
If your desktop ever gets too cluttered, or if you’d like to quickly access any gadgets you have running, just slam your mouse pointer down to the bottom-right corner of the screen. All your open windows will go transparent. While you’re over there, you can minimize all windows with a click.
5. Better Themes
Windows 7 comes with a number of attractive themes and gives you some new options as well. Theme support is handled by an intuitive control panel that lays out all your options and provides plenty of intelligent links to other parts of the interface you might like to customize. You can even set your desktop image to change every 30 minutes.
6. Improved Device Management
Device Manager used to be the best place to manage all the various peripherals, add-in cards, and other bits of hardware connected to your computer. Sure, it wasn’t the most user-friendly place, but if you wanted to update a drive, it was the best place to go. Microsoft’s turned that around completely in Windows 7, with a new control panel that collects all your MP3 players, cameras, printers, and PC devices together in one management console.
7. Action Center (Less-Annoying Security Alerts)
Windows 7 wouldn’t be worth much if it didn’t address one of Vista’s main annoyances – its overbearing approach to security. Thankfully, the beta is much less histrionic about security alerts, which retaining UAC’s key protections. A simple slider lets you adjust UAC’s sensitivity up or down.
But Windows 7’s Action Center is the real story here. Action Center combines security alerts and maintenance tasks into one simple interface, which can be accessed from alerts that pop up in the familiar notification area in the bottom-right of your screen.
8. Resource Monitor
Windows 7 continues Microsoft’s trend of building cooler and more useful performance and resource monitors into subsequent versions of the OS. You can access Win 7’s Resource Monitor from the performance tab in Task Manager. Once there, you’ll find a wealth of information available. You can graph CPU and memory usage by process, service, or handle; Monitor network traffic, memory usage, or disk access; and track almost anything.
9. Libraries
I’m yet to see a Windows update without some significant update to Explorer, and Windows 7 is no different. Its new Libraries collect files of similar types and let you organize those files using tags, folders, and other metadata. Libraries are accessible in all Explorer dialogs, making them a useful way to find files to upload. Once inside a library, you can continue to sort through files by, size, keyword, or any other metric you like.
10. Federated Search
Windows Search continues to improve as well. This go ‘round, Microsoft has focused on speeding up its search results, and on collecting search results across multiple computers and resources. This federated search looks beyond just your PC to other computers on your network and to services on the Web that have written Federated Search Connectors. The technology is based on OpenSearch and RSS, so it should be easy for new resources to jump on board. Connectors already exist.
11. Internet Explorer 8
Sure, IE 8 is already available in beta for XP and Vista. Sure, it’s going to roll out on those OSes eventually. But IE 8 was built for Windows 7, and it has some very nice new features.
Instant Searches, for example, stream in results and thumbnails from your favorite search engine providers, saving you navigation time if the answer you’re looking for is right on top. Accelerators let you highlight bits of text like words or addresses and right-click to pull up a definition or map without leaving the page you’re on. Finally, Web Slices make it easy to check dynamic parts of frequently visited pages right from your toolbar.
12. Simplified Media Sharing
Windows Printer and File Sharing has long been a source of configuration headaches and security flaws. This time around, Microsoft plans to make most typical home file sharing tasks – streaming media music, movies, or photos among different PCs in a house – much easier. Windows 7 walks you thorough setting up a home group for connected PCs and lets you choose which get access to your media.
13. Handwriting Recognition
Pen-based input should take another step forward in Windows 7. Microsoft has beefed up its recognition engine, and added support for math expressions and customized dictionaries. Try the Tablet PC toolbar for personal experience
14. Touch Controls
You won’t be able to test it unless you have one of HP’s TouchSmart PCs and you’re brave enough to install a beta OS on it, but expect to see more touch-based PCs arrive once Windows 7 ships. The OS builds in multi-touch interface support, letting you “use your fingers to scroll, resize windows, play media, and pan and zoom,” according to Microsoft. This should make for some compelling new form factors, and perhaps give another boost to the Tablet PC market.
15. Speed
As betas (and beta OSs in particular) go, Windows 7 is pretty darn solid. It’s stable, responsive, and actually seems a bit faster than Vista. Microsoft promises speed improvements with pretty much every iteration of Windows, but this time there’s reason to believe they’ll actually deliver. Several preliminary benchmarks have shown Win 7 beating Vista already, and that situation is likely to improve as Microsoft tunes the OS for release and hardware vendors wring more performance out of their drivers.
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