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Windows 7 is here and not a moment too soon. Microsoft's two-and-a-half year old operating system is a dog, and will hopefully be put to pasture. After many years of development, Windows 7 shipped October 22, and after a full day of using Windows 7 Professional, I have to admit I am really liking what I have seen so far.Windows 7 is a more elegant operating system that does away with a lot of the complaints that Vista was an OS that acted like an overcautious granny. Read on for some nifty new features.
Snap
This feature enables you to compare documents side by side by snapping them into place. Simply drag one document to the left side of the scren until it snaps, filling half the screen with the document. Drag the second document to the right side of the screen until it snaps. Now the documents are side by side and you can compare them.
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| Snap enables you to snap windows to compare |
Windows 7 Taskbar
The Windows 7 Taskbar is all about organizing the way you want to work. New to the taskbar is the capability to arrange your open program icons in an order in which you wish them to be by simply dragging and dropping them. In addition, hover over the Internet Explorer icon in the taskbar and it will show all the IE web pages that you have open (rather than have all the pages taking their own space in the taskbar as with Windows Vista), and in some cases, the title of the article that you may be reading. Pinning your programs to the Taskbar enables you to place a shortcut to the Taskbar so you have quick access to those programs.
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| Taskbar. To arrange those program icons, simply drag them where you want them. |
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| Multiple browser windows |
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| Pinning to Taskbar |
Jump Lists
Jump Lists take you to your most widely used documents, files, and websites that you open during the course of a day. To do this, simply right click on the program icon in the task bar. In the image below, the Photoshop Elements 8 Jump List is shown. It shows the name of three images that are currently open in the editing window. Right click the Windows Media Player icon and it shows the most recent video and audio files that were played.
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| Jump Lists |
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| Jump List |
Windows Media Player 12
What was once a crappy digital media player, Windows Media Player 12 in Windows 7 has grown into an elegant player, with support for more formats, including .mts AVCHD formats. You no longer need a video editing application or a separate player to view AVCHD footage.
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| With controller |
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| Controller disappears. |
They are instantly recognized in Windows Media Player, and when you press play, the controls disappear completely and only reappear when you mouse over the player window. Windows Media Player 12 supports a variety of formats, including 3GP, AAC, AVCHD, MPEG-4, WMV, and WMA, as well as most AVI, DivX, MOV, and Xvid files. The Play 2 feature enables you to stream your media to other Windows 7 PCs in the house as well as other supported devices in your home.
Aero Desktop
Aero Desktop (available in Windows 7 Enterprise, Windows 7 Home Premium, Windows 7 Professional, and Windows 7 Ultimate) is an elegant way to enjoy your desktop experience by combining such things as graphics and animations to help better manage your desktop. With the Aero Desktop you can have a video playing in Windows Media Player, minimize it, mouse over it in the taskbar and the video still plays. Click it and it plays full screen. Point your mouse cursor over a program in the taskbar and you get a preview of what you are doing in the program
Aero Shake
Aero Shake is really one of those features that you need to see in person because it involves taking the mouse and shaking the pane on the window that you want to remain open. Give it a couple shakes of the mouse and all the other windows close. Give it a couple shakes again and the Windows reappear. This only works in Aero mode.
First Impressions
So far I am liking what I have seen in the short time I've been using Windows 7. Most of these features are designed to enhance the user experience, and they do. Watching .mts AVCHD files via Windows Media Player 12 is a very cool feature. You no longer have to drop them onto the timeline of an editing package to view what you have. Installing applications are also easy and worry free, Gone are the warning boxes that constantly popped up to warn you of an impending attack if you install a piece of software. Jump lists and the updated Taskbar tweaks are also very cool. Microsoft has finally did right with this version of Windows, giving me reason to upgrade my Windows XP work system.
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John Virata is senior editor of Digital Media Online. You can email him at jvirata@digitalmedianet.com
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