taskbar
Windows 7 How To: Ungroup Icons & Put Text Back On The Taskbar
October 29, 2009
You may have caught the Windows 7 review week on Zath last week, with a 7 part review on the various features of, you’ve guessed it, Windows 7! If you’re already set up with 7 in tow, you may have noticed quite a few differences between it and your previous OS, be it XP or Vista (or Windows 95 depending on how clingy you are).
One thing you’ll definitely have noticed is the new Windows 7 taskbar, and the fact that all your applications are just represented by icons with no text describing what the application does! Being a minimalist individual, I quite like the new look, but if you want to get text back on your taskbar, don’t worry because there’s a way to do it!
Continue reading »Windows 7 Review – Part 4: Performance On Less Powerful Hardware
October 22, 2009
A lot of people are going to be upgrading from Windows XP straight to Windows 7 over the coming months, but not everyone’s going to get a brand new PC to go with their brand new operating system, so how will old hardware running an OS written 10 years ago cope with Windows 7?
According to Microsoft, the system requirements for 7 are a 1GHz processor capable of 32-bit or 64-bit; 1GB RAM if you’re installing the 32-bit version of Windows 7 or 2GB RAM if you’re installing the 64-bit version; 16GB hard drive space for 32-bit, or 20 for 64-bit and a DX9 graphics card. These requirements are almost identical to the stated requirements for Windows Vista, although if you wanted to keep your sanity when running Vista, you probably needed better specs than what Microsoft recommended…
Continue reading »Windows 7 Review – Part 3: Security
October 21, 2009
Ah, User Account Control – arguably the most irritating feature of Windows Vista. Sure you had the option to turn it off somewhere deep in the control panel, but then you had a balloon demanding your attention in the bottom corner of the screen telling you to ‘Check your security settings’. When Vista was in development, Microsoft made a point about security, but the answer wasn’t exactly great. So what’s changed in Windows 7?
For starters, UAC is still here, but it’s more subtle than it was in Vista, as you have the option to choose between 4 levels of notification: Always notify when programs install software, make changes to your computer or if you change Windows settings (Vista…); the default option which is the same as the top level apart from not notifying you when you change Windows settings; the third level, which is the same as the default settings, except it doesn’t dim the screen when UAC appears and the fourth level, which doesn’t notify you at all. Unlike in Vista, there aren’t any annoying balloons demanding your attention on the quick launch bar when you turn UAC off either.
Continue reading »Windows 7 Review – Part 2: Aero Features
October 20, 2009
Aero made its debut in Windows Vista with translucent windows, a newly designed taskbar and quite a bit of eye candy. Despite this, it never really added much functionality to the OS and to me it was more of a gimmick than a useful feature, although I did find myself using Aero Flip quite often. In Windows 7, however, it makes quite a few advancements with new features and improvements over old features.
I already wrote a little on some of the new Aero features in part one of the Windows 7 review, talking about features such as Aero Peek which is integrated into the new taskbar. In addition to Peek, there are two more key additions on the Aero scene named ‘Snap’ and ‘Shake’.
Continue reading »Windows 7 Review – Part 1: The New Taskbar
October 19, 2009
Rightly or wrongly, Vista has been hated by the majority since its release in 2007. The taskbar didn’t add any extra functionality compared to Windows XP, and needed a lot of resources for Aero. Cue Windows 7… Well, Aero is still there, but it’s got a purpose as well as a taskbar that adds functionality compared to XP and Vista.
The new taskbar is probably one of the first things you’ll notice if you’re looking at Windows 7 for the first time, as it’s distinctly thicker than the taskbar in Vista and comes with some quite nice features. For those of you in to eye candy, the Windows ‘Orb’ glows whenever you hover over it with your mouse, almost like a child trying to get the attention of its parent. When I first started using Windows 7 it got on my nerves a bit, but you get used to it over time and it doesn’t constantly demand your attention, so no worries there!
Continue reading »
