Bettering Windows 7…

 

Windows 7, good not great, by no means perfect but a hell of a lot better than Vista. And if like many your upgrading from Vista the change is appreciated but not too significant that your lost, but if your  coming from XP you can get a little lost in all of 7’s shiny new features. Here are a few ways to improve 7’s looks, features, and functions leading to a more convenient upgrade.

1. Ninite..

I’ve said it before I’ll say it again, Ninite, use it, love it, appreciate the time you save. Moving on.

2. Gmail in Your Taskbar..

If Gmail is your priority mail, Gmail Notifier Plus not only subtly informs of you of new mail by changing its taskbar icon, but provides a subject line preview of new messages when you hover over its icon. Giving you shortcuts to writing new messages, opening your inbox, the perfect little tool to keep you on top of your incoming mail.

3. Bored of your Logon screen?

You can customize a lot of your system's look in Windows 7, but the login/password screen remains fairly opaque and unchangeable. Tweaks.com offers a Logon Changer for Windows 7. Simple effective and all without the hassle of going into your registry. One catch: images have to 256kb or less.

4. Creating a Recovery Disc..

If you'd like to ensure you can save your system from common boot-up and system errors in the future, NeoSmart offers its own Windows 7 System Recovery Discs that can repair damaged files, restore System Restore points, and even pull in full backups for restoration. If you upgraded to 7 from a student discount package that only delivered a single .exe file, Download Squad explains how to make a DVD upgrade disc from student discount files.

5. Stacking your Desktop..

The taskbar in 7 is fantastic, Microsoft out did themselves, but its missing on thing. “Stacks”. But fear not, one quick download later with either StandaloneStack or 7stacks and you can start getting right to the file after you’ve added a custom collection of shortcuts. Scouring for files is a thing of the past.

Bonus..

For those of you that don’t know, press Alt + Tab and you can switch between any open window on your desktop, not a tweak but in every way a helpful hint when using 7 especially if like me, you have a million and  one different programs running.

What 7 Can do Over Vista…

1. Shake it Away

Do you have over a million programs open at once and find them cluttering your desktop? Want to clean them off the screen without actually closing them? Simply just grab the top of the window you want to keep open and shake it about on the screen to scare away all the other applications.

2. Jumplists

This simple yet innovative idea to come with 7 can save you a lot of hassle. Giving you a list of recently accessed files without the need to even open the application, all you have to do is click the arrow on the right hand side on the application in the taskbar and there it is. All your recently accessed information.

3. Snap into Place

This is surprisingly useful. Simply drag your window to the left or right edge of the desktop to snap and resize the window to one half of the screen. Drag the window to the top to maximise it, or use the simple Windows key plus any arrow key (depending on where you want to put it).

4. Homegroup Networking

Always wanted to share your folders and files wirelessly with other computers and networks with little hassle? Windows 7 finally does it, well with Windows 7 it does anyway, using the 'Homegroup' wizard, check the default folders you would like to share. This will give you a passcode that will have to be entered in another computer on the same network to share the files. Sounds too good to be true? There is a catch: only a Windows 7 computer can join a Homegroup.

5. The Taskbar

I don’t know what it is about the taskbar in 7 that makes it so great, it might be the fact that I don’t actually want to hide this one away, it has a use. Its large but so helpful allowing you to pin almost any program you want to it, giving you easy access right there in front of you rather than trawling through the start menu.

Bonus. XP mode

For those XP applications that do not work under Windows 7, you can download XP Mode free from the Microsoft website and run XP applications in an emulated XP environment in Windows 7. Imagine Parallels on Mac OS X without the need to fish out money on an extra OS.