Windows 7

by Nic Evans
11.09 V3.0

I was really reluctant to try the new operating system from Microsoft. I'm one of the loyal XP users who stuck with the aging OS throughout the Vista debacle after hearing all of the horror stories from people who tried it. A lot of them ended up returning to XP.

So with some trepidation I installed Windows 7 on a brand new 500GB hard drive and crossed my fingers. Fortunately, everything worked right from the get go. Well, almost everything. I did have to install drivers for my ancient Soundblaster Live card and my not so ancient Wacom tablet. I always keep my drivers up to date anyways so this was not much of a hassle.

The first thing I noticed is that it boots faster than XP. When I reach the desktop I don't have to wait ages for all my programs to load either. The windows and buttons themselves are quick and responsive. The ability to drag and drop windows to the top and sides of the screen to position them is not just a neat trick it adds to my productivity when working in two windows side by side. I'll admit it took some fiddling to do it correctly at first. I tried a flicking motion at first before learning you have to drag them all the way to the edge of the screen. I would actually prefer the flicking method because it seems more intuitive but this is a small quibble.

The taskbar has undergone the biggest change. Programs can be pinned to the bar for quick access. Instead of filling the task bar with window slots you simply hover over the program icon and can view thumbnails of the actual windows. The thumbnails are not just representational. I noticed if the window is active, like a file downloading or a program installing you can see it "move" in real time. You can also hover over an individual thumbnail and that window will become visible until you move the mouse away. If you want to see the desktop itself there is small tab in the lower right corner that will hide all of the active windows. The background program icons on the bottom right are easily hidden from view as well and accessed again by clicking an arrow. The start menu program list opens on top of itself instead of having branches that cascade all over the screen. All of this makes finding what you're looking for fast and efficient as well as keeping the taskbar clean and tidy.

The windows have a nice frosted glass appearance around them. You can change the color of the "glass" in the themes menu. I was actually hoping for a bit more customization but the default appearance is pleasing. You can set your desktop wallpaper to change automatically at set intervals, having it cycle through a series of chosen images. The desktop gadgets that were introduced with Vista are back. I had previously used Google's sidebar application but I like Windows gadgets just fine. In particular the weather report and the CPU/RAM usage meters are nice.

When it comes to finding documents, pictures or music these are stored in a centralized library. No matter where they are located on your hard drive you can find them quickly by using the new Windows Explorer which I prefer over the old one.

Connecting to the internet is painless as well. Your connection is displayed in a map format so you can immediately see if there is a problem between your computer and router or modem and router. If there is a problem it's marked between the two map points. By clicking on the indicator it automatically attempts to resolve the problem and offers solutions if repairing the connection is unsuccessful.

The one problem I have run across is Windows Media Player 12 not being able to recognize the tag information on my 30GBs of MP3s. I like many of the features of WMP but having 600 "unknown" songs just isn't acceptable. Every other media player I've tried had no problem automatically organizing the files by tag information.

I wish Windows 7 would quit asking for administrator permission every time I install a program or try to change a system file. There may be some option to disable this function but I have not found it yet.

So it looks like this is my new OS for the time being. I will be keeping my XP install on my other hard drive in case any problems crop up. Overall I would say it is definitely an improvement over XP and has convinced me to stick with it for now.

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