Microsoft Windows 7 – Are You Ready to Upgrade?

Windows 7, Microsoft’s latest operating system, is due to be released on 22 October 2009. Much of the appearance of Vista has been maintained and the basic functionality in Windows Vista has improved 7. Windows 7 has been designed to be compatible with Windows Vista’s hardware, applications and device drivers.

So what’s new in Windows 7? Microsoft has banished the Quick Launch toolbar to replaced it with a toolbar with large icons and improved the ability to set shortcuts to it. The icons are larger Windows 7 to allow users to take advantage of touch screen monitors.

Three new features enhance the functionality of Windows:

· Aero Peek – click or hover over this button to enable transparent windows in order to show the desktop. This feature replaces the “Show Desktop shortcut in the Quick Launch toolbar.

· Aero Shake – Highlight a window with the mouse, then Shake It – all open windows are minimized. Shake again to reopen the document view.

· Aero Snap – drag a window to the left or the right of the screen next door closure – repeated across two documents side by side tiles. Drag to the top to maximize and restore drag.

Changes have been made to the familiar concepts – all the security flaws and notification system has been consolidated into a single area, the Windows Action Center. The user has more freedom to customize the amount of messages are handled in Windows 7.

You may be surprised to learn that some popular applications are missing from the installation of Windows 7 – Calendar, photo gallery and even Windows Mail All are part of Windows Live applications Essential, available for download from the Microsoft website. This may sound strange at first, why did Microsoft ignore these? The reason is simple – these applications, because they are independent, they are easier to update that if it were integrated into the operating system. Another change is affecting users in Europe – due to legal problems of the EU, Windows 7 in Europe are the standard MS Internet Explorer. Browsers have to be loaded from alternative sources of media such as CDs in order to gain access to the Internet.

First impressions suggest an elegant, faster operating system Windows 7, with more polish than Vista. Microsoft seems to have listened to criticism and delivered what they did with Vista.