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Windows 7: Now that's it's been out for a while; what do you love about it?


Schot

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Recently I discovered a very cool trick with the task bar. After having my favorite programs embedded into it I now also have right-click specific functions for each. For example, (even before launching it), I now right click on the Firefox icon in taskbar that pops up a menu of various functions; the first of which are select bookmarks. This allows me to go directly to a bookmarked page before even opening Firefox. Love it. On a similar note I have the launch icon for browsing my folders set up in the same way. I can right click it to bring up a list containing folders I have "pinned/bookmarked" and open a warmhole *woosh!* directly to my pinned folder. For example I have my Downloads folder pinned which I frequent.

Windows 7 Taskbar features

 

Another nifty thing I like about Windows 7 is being able to pop an active window around and across my two screens. I hold down the windows key and then press my arrow keys to send an active window to where ever I want it.

 

 

Are there other cool tricks we can do on Windows 7?

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I like how I can maximize windows simply by draging them to the top of the screen. it is very nifty using multiple monitors in the extension mode. I can drag a small window from one monitor to the top of the other and it goes full screen instantly. or vice versa. it makes my desktop seem more interactive than clicking the min or max button in the upper right hand corner

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I like how I can maximize windows simply by draging them to the top of the screen. it is very nifty using multiple monitors in the extension mode. I can drag a small window from one monitor to the top of the other and it goes full screen instantly. or vice versa. it makes my desktop seem more interactive than clicking the min or max button in the upper right hand corner

I have to disagree with you on that one. Why would I want to click and drag a window to maximize it, when I can just double-click the title bar? Windows also frequently maximizes windows against my wishes. Of course, I have only one monitor.

 

 

I really like the single-click launching of files, and how you can select a group of files without clicking. Neither are Earth-shattering, but I look at them as the silver lining.

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Recently I discovered a very cool trick with the task bar. After having my favorite programs embedded into it I now also have right-click specific functions for each. For example, (even before launching it), I now right click on the Firefox icon in taskbar that pops up a menu of various functions; the first of which are select bookmarks. This allows me to go directly to a bookmarked page before even opening Firefox. Love it. On a similar note I have the launch icon for browsing my folders set up in the same way. I can right click it to bring up a list containing folders I have "pinned/bookmarked" and open a warmhole *woosh!* directly to my pinned folder. For example I have my Downloads folder pinned which I frequent.

Windows 7 Taskbar features

 

Another nifty thing I like about Windows 7 is being able to pop an active window around and across my two screens. I hold down the windows key and then press my arrow keys to send an active window to where ever I want it.

 

 

Are there other cool tricks we can do on Windows 7?

 

Besides the pinned taskbar items and jump lists, there's also the Aero snap feature - drag a window to the top and it's maximized, drag to the left and it's tiled so it takes up the left 1/2 of the screen - drag to the right and it's tiled on the right. VERY useful when you're trying to copy files from one folder to another.

 

Contrary to what others say - I happen to find the new start menu much more user friendly and a heck of a lot faster and easier to use. I positively find myself hating the old fly out menu thing found in versions prior to Vista. I want a DOS box - no problem just type CMD in the search at the bottom and poof - there it is. I can either run it directly by clicking on it - or I can run it as admin by right-clicking on it and selecting that option. If I need word processing, I can type in "Word" in the search box and every app I may have installed will show up (except for OpenOffice).

 

I like the system tray as well. Instead of a line of boring icons hiding, there's a balloon with most of your nonessential icons that pops up when you click on the up arrow. And it doesn't want to close prematurely on you like it did under XP and Vista.

 

That and I like the fact that it's faster than XP on the same hardware. Yes, it is. I've timed XP, Vista and Win 7 on the same box - 7 was faster by a long shot. XP came in 2nd and Vista was 3rd.

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I like simply the stability.

Windows XP and Vista has frozen on me several times, requiring a full system restart.

I have never had to do that with Windows 7.

Also, only XP used less memory while running.

My laptop ran Vista originally, which ate up over half of my available memory even in standby mode.

 

This system is quite self-explanatory and logical, and very easy to use.

I think that windows 7 is my favourite operative system.

Just the MS paint was better on XP.

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I must say I do like the jump lists, great for media players and opening folders. I also like how if you hover over a media player such as itunes or windows media player it gives you the option to pause/play, previous and next.

 

Also, the windows key+down/up/left/right allows you minimise/maximise/set to left half/set to right half of the screen if you have one window, also handy for multiple documents on one large screen.

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  • 4 months later...

I like the taskbar too - can't recall when last I actaully used an icon on the desktop...

My main gripe is the slow networking - it read somewhere that Windows 7 compresses files before transmitting, but I'm talking under correction here... all I know is it takes aaaaaaaages for large files to copy across the network. We work with large zipped files and with XP copies of 500Mb took about 3 mins over the network, with Windows 7 its better just to walk around the office with a memory stick, 'cause 500Mb files can take more than 45mins to copy sometimes...

I like the start button - and thank heavens all those pop up balloons are gone!

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Windows 7 definitely has its good points, but it also has some bad ones as well and although most are only niggles, some can be a bloody hindering pain-in-the-butt, especially when it is trying to be helpful.

 

One that really gets on my nerves is how when I am gaming and my wife asks me to go to headphones because the game is too noisy, as soon as I plug the headphone in Windows kindly minimises the game and informs me in a speach balloon that, "You have plugged headphones into the headphone socket". I know this, I did it on purpose and I don't need my game interrupted to bloody tell me and make me acknowledge it, expand my game again, wait for the graphics to sort themselves out and then find my character dead because I was not controlling it!

 

I know I am not the most tecnically savvy person in the world, but I don't seem to remember screaming "**** *** you stupid *******!" at my computer screen anything near as often back when I was using XP! Then it was just an occassional, "******, that is not what I wanted!"

Edited by podgie_bear
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:4rofl:

 

Perhaps you can try turning that off? Notifications

 

I did manage to find out how to do it eventually, I just used it as an example of how unhelpfully helpfull Windows can be. Like when it tells you the program you are trying to run needs administrator privileges, when you are logged in AS the administrator!

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I did manage to find out how to do it eventually, I just used it as an example of how unhelpfully helpfull Windows can be. Like when it tells you the program you are trying to run needs administrator privileges, when you are logged in AS the administrator!

 

Heh, or when getting a security warning when installing Microsoft products! :Just_Cuz_21:

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I like how many XP programs are compatible with Windows 7. Of course, not all programs are compatible but when they are I can run them on a much better system. There are some pretty nifty features that come with it like XP Mode.

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