10 things I love about Windows 7

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10 things I love about Windows 7

12 October 2009 487 views No Comment

Windows 7 will be released soon. October 22nd to be exact. I have been using the Windows 7 RC (Release Candidate) for some time now. But ofcourse as all Windows or OS for that matter you will encounter small issues here and there.

Let me list down here 10 reasons why I love Windows 7:

1. Improved Performance

Boot up time might be debatable as from what I notice it could be same or slower than Windows Vista or Windows XP. On my machine Boot up and Shutdown is fast. Definitely better than Windows XP.

Performance is snappy and fast even with the Aero GUI on. I have not noticed any lag in opening and closing Windows.

2. Uses less Memory

I have no idea what the fellas at Redmond did. Windows 7 is definitely less resource hungry. Memory is well managed too.

It takes much less resources than Vista does. It has been succesfully installed on various low powered PC and even netbooks. Go figure!

3. Installation and Drivers

Most devices should be detected and installed without any hassle.

All my devices were recognised correctly and the correct drivers were installed.

I will not expect any issues with drivers as OS is based on Vista model and whatever driver issue Vista encountered back in those days has been resolved.

4. Task bar and Task bar preview

I like this feature where by similar open windows docks onto itself. Moving the mouse over the docked application will pop-up a small preview of the app.

Another feature is the Contexual Task Window – Right-Click on an application icon on the taskbar and you will get relevant histories or short-cuts. As far as I know this feature only works with Microsofts own applications and Google Chrome. There might be other new apps available but I have not tried them.

5. Libraries

This is one good feature implemented by Microsoft.

Instead of looking for Doucuments, Pictures or Music all over the hard drive all you have to do is add the relevant folders to relevant libraries. This way you can access your most used stuff directly from the libraries.

6. Device Management

Now you have a centralised place for device management. All your connected devices like printers and thumbdrives and others are shown neatly with icon representing them.

7. Side-by-side window auto-resize

A very good feature when typing or comparing documents. I can drag a window to the edge and it will auto snap and adjust to half a screen. Do the same to another window and you have two windows adjusted nicely side by side. Even better, if you drag the window back away from the edge, it goes back to the size it was before.

sidebyside

8. Resource Monitor

An excellent resource monitor is included with Windows 7. For all those tinkerers who would like to see what is going on behing the scenes and would like to trouble shoot some app or system issues, this is one good utility.

9. Fine tune notifications

You can tune on how your notifications appear in the taskbar. If you’d like to continue to get notifications from some applications but not from others Windows 7 allows you to customize the behavior by simply clicking the little arrow next to the tray and selecting Customize.

10. Unified Window Size

I used to get annoyed when opening multiple windows like the explorer or recycle bin or games folder, each one opens in different sizes. Now Windows 7 has unified it to be just one size. You set it to size you want and it is remembered till you change again.