My Windows 7 Upgrade – Part 3

Like looking through glass

Bear in mind that I never really used Windows Vista, which also had some pretty features that I am now seeing for the first time in Windows 7. With that in mind, I find that I like Windows 7 very much.

For starters, the Start menu and the taskbar have continued to evolve. The Start Menu now, in many ways, provides access to the key areas of the O/S that was once distributed between the Desktop, Windows Explorer, and the Windows Search feature. The taskbar has blended together its traditional function of displaying which applications are running, with that of the Quick-launch Toolbar that provides one-click access to programs that you use all the time. The combined functionality relies on some large-ish icons, some of which (the icons designated for Quick-launch) are always present, while others (those representing open windows or software) appear as needed. All of them get a somewhat vague translucent highlight around them to indicate applications that are currently running, and they get an orange highlight when they need the user’s attention. It all sounds a bit clumsy when you read it, but it really works quite well. See the pic below for a sample of a taskbar with the Windows “Start” button at the left, and a bunch of application icons arrayed to the right of it.


On the right side of the taskbar, we’re used to seeing the clock and the icons of the System Tray. They’re still there, but now they have a pop-up box when you want to see them all, and I find it more useful than the little arrow you could use to expand the system tray when a desired icon was hidden. But the new-fangled System Tray hides an even more powerful tool, and it’s so sleek and unassuming that you might very well miss it. It’s a simple vertical bar, the same height as the taskbar and quite narrow. You’d miss it entirely except for some frosted shading at the corners. But if your screen gets all cluttered with open windows and applications and you just want to see your pretty desktop background again, simply hover over the bar with your mouse and all of your open windows instantly become transparent boxes with thin outlines to show where they were. I honestly haven’t figured out a meaningful use for this capability as of yet, but it certainly looks impressive. If it’s useful functionality that you’d prefer, a simple click of that same vertical bar serves to minimize everything to the task bar, fully revealing the desktop. This is no different than the old button that used to sit on the Quick Launch Toolbar and do the same thing, but if nothing else it’s prettier. In the picture below, you're looking at the desktop THROUGH my open Microsoft Word window.


Windows 7 also adds a useful capability for creating a secure home network. If you’ve ever wondered whether you were putting your personal data at risk by enabling “sharing” of files, folders and printers on your home computers, you’ll appreciate the new “Homegroup” feature. Any given Windows 7 computer on your network is able to create a Homegroup password, that you then enter into any other Windows 7 PCs on your home network. They can then access whatever files you want them to from the various storage areas for Music, Video, Documents, and so on. Printers can be shared in this manner as well, and the password (which is case-sensitive) gives it a level of security that should ensure that your files are kept private.

Another feature of Windows 7 that I found very useful was the updated task manager and resource monitor. It works (and looks) very similar to past versions, but includes a breakdown of the services that are running and how much RAM each of them is using. Better still, it includes a button to launch the “Resource Manager,” which is a very similar tool except that it gives an even more detailed breakdown of CPU utilization, RAM usage, Disk activity and network throughput – including the ability to designate one or more individual programs to monitor. This is a wonderful tool that normally you’d have had to download from some 3rd-party.

But the improvements in Windows 7 are both great and small. They thought to include a very handy utility called the “Snip tool” that lets you select and copy graphics or text from any portion of the screen, then paste it into a document or even save it as graphics file. I confess that before I started working on my book and using OneNote in its full, glorious capacity, I still made great use if its’ ability to perform this same function – and now it’s included for free. Similarly, Windows 7 includes a tool that creates digital Post-it™ notes on the desktop so you can quickly scrawl messages to yourself. It’s not an especially remarkable tool, but it’s nice that it’s built right into the O/S. Add in the desktop gadget capability carried over from Vista and you’ve got a tremendous amount of power to make your desktop more than just a pretty picture – it’s a really dramatic and notable improvement over Windows XP. Heck, even the calculator’s been beefed up. And, of course, the Aero Glass visual effects look every bit as snazzy as they did in Vista.

It’s a shame that Microsoft took so many years and two tries to get a desktop operating system that works as well as Windows 7. In fact, even Windows 7 doesn’t include all of the features originally planned for “Longhorn” back in the early 2000s, such as the improved file system. But it’s a solid, stable, elegant operating system that is really an evolution from Windows XP. It does what an O/S ought to do – it enables you to get your work done while keeping out of your way as much as possible. It gives me new hope that Microsoft actually knows what the hell they’re doing, and helps me to believe that future versions of Windows may continue to blur the lines between the user and the computer, with the ultimate goal (in my mind, anyway) being a way to access your data and do your work without really thinking about how you’re doing it. Windows 7 nudges the bar in that direction.