Windows 7 - BetaA few people ive spoke to have expressed a bit of an interest in this so I thought I would put some stuff up here!Windows 7 is currently under development and is Microsoft's latest operating system following on from Vista. If your a vista user you should recognise alot of the things in 7, which have been refined, tweaked and improved to offer the best and fastest expeence.Pics: This is the main Windows 7 desktop, as you can see, apart from the tool bar there's very little difference between this and Vista. One thing they have changed is that the Gadgets are now desktop wide, not just limited to the Sidebar.If you own a mac, this will more than likely remind you of the Dock! This is the new task bar in Windows 7, text has been removed, icons have been increased in size and the old Windows "Quick Launch" feature has been merged into the task bar. (You will be glad to know the icons do not bounce up and down!)An improvement to "Show Desktop" which used to sit on the Quick Launch bar. There is now a small tab to the right hand side of your clock, when you hover over this it quickly turns all your open Windows into "Transparent Glass" to give you a peek at your desktop, when you move your mouse from the tab, your windows will re-appear as they were. Clicking on the tab will take you directly to your desktop allowing you to make changes etc where needed!Another welcome fix in 7 is that the area around the clock has been cleaned up. By default icons which applications try to add are hidden and accessible only by clicking the see more. This can be changed so you can only see those important to you making it much more clutter free!If you own a mac this will be nothing new to you! Windows 7's toolbar now has a nice little feature called "Jump Lists" This allows you to quickly control certian most used parts of the programs with just a couple of clicks.Jump Lists also make an appearance in the Start menu.Hovering over a open application will bring up all the open windows, along with lighting anything after your attention. In here, you are able to hover over a window, much like the desktop peek feature which will bring that window to the top of the transparent windows, so you can decide it it warrants your attention from what you are doing!Now, when you drag an application to the top of the screen it will maximise it for you if you wish to do so, no biggie but its certainly usfull sometimes!Windows Media Center has had abit of an overhaul!As have many applications untouched in years such as Paint and Wordpad!A new feature is "Devices and Printers" this is basically a easy to use device manager.It helps you diagnose any problems you may be having with any software pretty easily with step by step guides.Finally the Windows Game Explorer has had another overhaul. The biggest addition from this is Windows will now help you keep on top of all them many game updates by managing them for you. Whilst I dont game an awful lot I'm sure that will be a very helpful addition, much improvement over looking all over the net for the latest updates for your new game!Considering its early beta status its very reliable, it runs as good as if not better than Windows XP. Helpfully it wont get the bad reputation vista picked up so early on.Thats all I could think of, there is loads more with networking, home groups etc but didnt want to bore you to much!If there is anything you would like to see ill do it.
