-(Xyphox)-
Supreme [H]ardness
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yep that seems really nice
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18 Cool Things Windows 7 Does That Vista Doesn't
- Thread starter HardOCP News
- Start date
yep that seems really nice
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Love the Calibration tool, ran it on my HDTV last night after work, was great! Now to get HD DVDs to play.
Nope. Very different from Quick Launch. Ever use the OS X Dock? Same concept.
Monkey God
Mangina Full of Sand
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Liking alot of it but the new taskbar. ill need to play with settings until I like it better.
Can the show desktop icon be move from the far right corner to the left?
Can the show desktop icon be move from the far right corner to the left?
Joe Average
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Actually, it doesn't, because Aero Shake minimizes everything else but leaves the particular window you're shaking alone unscathed. And shaking it again brings all the other windows back to their open state - Win+M isn't reversible with another press, you have to restore everything manually.
Good for you. If you didn't care you would even mention it. Think about the time you took to create that post to begin with...
Uh huh.
So you regularly have a need to press Win+(cursor left) or Win+(cursor right)? Even accidentally that has never occurred to me with nearly 15 years of using keyboards with Windows keys on 'em. That's a helluva key combo that you couldn't possibly activate accidentally so, for all intents and purposes for someone like you, it's off already.
Makes sense as you're already running XP, most likely.
No other OS in XP's day could do it as effectively out of the box either, so... technology improves, things get easier to do, more efficient. It's progress, and since you won't use it, why bother even commenting?
Haven't got a clue what it is, what it does, or you don't have any portable devices that matter, eh?
Not quite the same thing in XP and Vista.
My god, you actually found something you'd use? Awesome... perhaps someday you'll move off XP and join the future...
Uhmmm...
Most media software uses file tags to display the information, not the filenames. In fact, most software will show nothing at all if you don't have at least some tag info. Always nice to know you can tell what you're listening to by sight, that's some talent there...
Works better than anything else out there with any other OS I've ever used, and does exactly what it's designed to do.
So you don't have to have multiple copies of the same file floating around all over the place. Welcome to the future, where a home server (for most people) becomes the centralized storage point for everything. More efficient, and it just works.
Right, disable all the stuff that makes the OS what it is. Like I said, you'll be using XP for quite some time I suppose.
This is so full of massive ignorance it's not even funny.
Which means you operate your computer by touch, just the old school methodology. As you'd never spend the money on a multi-touch device, most likely, it's not an issue. You can slide on this one...
In with the old, still with the old, sticking with the old, stuck in the past, excellent. Right where folks like you belong...
Enjoy your substandard factory miscalibrated image quality... because nothing out of the box "just works" with respect to display technology. Nothing.
Bleh.
DeathFromBelow
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I really don't see the point of Homegroup networking either. I have all my music/movies/etc shared from one machine, and accessing it from Start->Network or a mapped drive is a snap. Does using a homegroup add some extra functionality I'm unaware of?
Joe Average
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HomeGroups work primarily with the Libraries to make sharing files/content over the LAN easier. It takes "Simple File Sharing" to it's logical conclusion and makes everything just work seamlessly with practically no intervention whatsoever on the part of the user. You set up a HomeGroup with a password, the other machine(s) connect with the password and wham, everything works.
It's just easier to me than needing to deal with accounts, permissions, more passwords, etc.
YMMV, as always.
It's just easier to me than needing to deal with accounts, permissions, more passwords, etc.
YMMV, as always.
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Homegroup + Libraries = Pure Win!
Its networking an 11 year old can do, now if it would only let you do Homegroups over the internet. Then again, that is what Hamachi is for.
Its networking an 11 year old can do, now if it would only let you do Homegroups over the internet. Then again, that is what Hamachi is for.
That was admittedly a very self centric view of the features for Win7. It definitely does not apply to everyone. That is how it is for me the way that I use the computer. I have used Win7 since beta and used rc1 also. Right now I am mostly using Vista though, I got sick of punkbuster failing to work and wanna play some games lol As for XP I haven't used that much on my own machine since early 2006, it was mainly to play games once again where punkbuster didn't work. Anyways I will explain in some more detail to what Joe Average had to say.
1. Shake 'em away
The only time I ever used shake is when I was playing with the mouse as I often do and the windows just disappeared I was like OMG
what happened? Then I realized I stumbled onto some gesture thingy or other. I don't like gestures personally because of how I mess with the mouse while thinking lol
4. Snap into place
7. A personalised Stage for your device
Nope I don't have any portable devices not even a laptop lol I have used my phone once or twice to transfer pics but I prefer using it as a removeable storage device. I really don't like these fancy frameworks for something that is simply a flash drive, it makes me do more work when all I want to do is copy a file.
11. A new way to preview your music files
I tell what I'm listening to by looking at the file name/directory then clicking on it. I only use VLC. I organize my music like any other files using directories. I'm not one to go make a playlist and then save it for later use, I just play whatever I play.
12. Homegroup Networking
I prefer simple file sharing, works great in vista and win7, this is another example of a framework that does something I can already accomplish easily using existing technology. Once again I simply use filenames and directories to organize and then open the file.
13. Stream Music directly to another computer
I don't have multiple copies of music files I simply make a network share as you say
14. Action Center
I don't disable UAC no way, UAC separates the evolved solid OS from the unevolved roots-r-us OS when an intelligent user is at the keyboard. I don't use antivirus and have a rather elaborate way to keep the computer and files secure, sometimes I even use VM's. What I really turn off is the nag screen that I don't have an antivirus and I am updating manually and I may turn off the firewall everyone once in a while. It's a pretty complicated bunch of stuff I do to stay secure and you probably don't want to do that much work and learn the quirks. Because of the wide array of machines I have used I have worked with many antivirus programs Norton, Mcafee , AVG, Nod32, Kaspersky, Bitdefender, Trendmicro, Clam, Panda, Avast, FProt, PCTools, and Avira which is the best but still misses too much for my taste. A quick trip to virustotal.com and some real actual in the wild virus and spyware samples will demonstrate how spotty antivirus reliability is across ALL vendors, though some are better then others. Would be nice to see a simple real world antivirus comparison here at Hardocp where lots of real actual live virus files are downloaded and scanned with the resident and then on demand scanners. The results will not be encouraging for any antivirus, it's pretty sad.
15. Pin just about anything to the new Windows Taskbar
I do remember pinning stuff to the bar in Win7 that I couldn't in Vista but it's not really that important to me because of the way I use the computer and my habits personally.
17. Native ISO Burner
CDBurnerXP will run just fine on Win7 and its free, check it out no ad's either. It's just handy to have if i need to make a cd with extra files to update BIOS on an old machine that doesn't do USB drives or run utilities on infested overrun machine that won't get online easily. I don't want viruses propagating to my USB drive. I use magiciso also when I need to edit a bootable iso and include files on it.
18. Native calibration tools
I use the built in monitor controls instead of software. I really don't have a technically correct point of reference to calibrate to so I just do what looks good and I am happy.
1. Shake 'em away
The only time I ever used shake is when I was playing with the mouse as I often do and the windows just disappeared I was like OMG
what happened? Then I realized I stumbled onto some gesture thingy or other. I don't like gestures personally because of how I mess with the mouse while thinking lol 4. Snap into place
I have no idea what you are talking about honestly, I can't seem to produce an effect hitting Win+Right or Left buttons. Whatever the combo is I never hit it. I just plop down the window and size it and use it, the windows are never really taking up a whole side as I have them tiled in such a way I can get to 10 different windows without needing to use the start bar. The way it snaps and covers up an entire side prevents me from seeing my windows and having to resort to the start bar.
7. A personalised Stage for your device
Nope I don't have any portable devices not even a laptop lol
I have used my phone once or twice to transfer pics but I prefer using it as a removeable storage device. I really don't like these fancy frameworks for something that is simply a flash drive, it makes me do more work when all I want to do is copy a file.11. A new way to preview your music files
I tell what I'm listening to by looking at the file name/directory then clicking on it. I only use VLC. I organize my music like any other files using directories. I'm not one to go make a playlist and then save it for later use, I just play whatever I play.
12. Homegroup Networking
I prefer simple file sharing, works great in vista and win7, this is another example of a framework that does something I can already accomplish easily using existing technology. Once again I simply use filenames and directories to organize and then open the file.
13. Stream Music directly to another computer
I don't have multiple copies of music files I simply make a network share as you say
If at some point file sharing became streaming then I guess I am already streaming?
14. Action Center
I don't disable UAC no way, UAC separates the evolved solid OS from the unevolved roots-r-us OS when an intelligent user is at the keyboard. I don't use antivirus and have a rather elaborate way to keep the computer and files secure, sometimes I even use VM's. What I really turn off is the nag screen that I don't have an antivirus and I am updating manually and I may turn off the firewall everyone once in a while. It's a pretty complicated bunch of stuff I do to stay secure and you probably don't want to do that much work and learn the quirks. Because of the wide array of machines I have used I have worked with many antivirus programs Norton
, Mcafee , AVG, Nod32, Kaspersky, Bitdefender, Trendmicro, Clam, Panda, Avast, FProt, PCTools, and Avira which is the best but still misses too much for my taste. A quick trip to virustotal.com and some real actual in the wild virus and spyware samples will demonstrate how spotty antivirus reliability is across ALL vendors, though some are better then others. Would be nice to see a simple real world antivirus comparison here at Hardocp where lots of real actual live virus files are downloaded and scanned with the resident and then on demand scanners. The results will not be encouraging for any antivirus, it's pretty sad. 15. Pin just about anything to the new Windows Taskbar
I do remember pinning stuff to the bar in Win7 that I couldn't in Vista but it's not really that important to me because of the way I use the computer and my habits personally.
17. Native ISO Burner
CDBurnerXP will run just fine on Win7 and its free, check it out no ad's either. It's just handy to have if i need to make a cd with extra files to update BIOS on an old machine that doesn't do USB drives or run utilities on infested overrun machine that won't get online easily. I don't want viruses propagating to my USB drive. I use magiciso also when I need to edit a bootable iso and include files on it.
18. Native calibration tools
I use the built in monitor controls instead of software. I really don't have a technically correct point of reference to calibrate to so I just do what looks good and I am happy.
Only works with Window 7, no support for XP/Vista
I haven't seen you in awhile. We missed you.
With a whole 3.6% of PCs using Blu-ray, I am sure all the work MS put into re-architecting the kernel with DRM and protected processes is paying off. All the money spent by peripheral manufactures/consumers for drivers/hardware and time wasted on incompatibility.
I'll leave you alone now with you Vista/Win7.
DeathFromBelow
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Well, its not like sharing files is complicated:
1. Right click file/folder -> properties -> sharing
2. Add "everyone" to the permissions list from the dropdown and click share
3. Disable password protected sharing in the Network & Sharing center
Now we've got regular sharing, public folder sharing from Vista, and homegroups in 7. How many redundant sharing systems do we need? There are other features that need attention (Movie Maker, DVD maker, etc).
DeathFromBelow
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With a whole 3.6% of PCs using Blu-ray, I am sure all the work MS put into re-architecting the kernel with DRM and protected processes is paying off. All the money spent by peripheral manufactures/consumers for drivers/hardware and time wasted on incompatibility.
Facepalm. Not this shit again.
Well, for a very simple sharing scenario like yours it's probably not an improvement... It probably won't be worth much to me either at first, but I'm sure eventually I'll find some creative uses for it as well.
There are security and usability advantages to the way Homegroups work... Instead of having to share an entire directory (which might be nested deep in your personal directories), or even being forced to share actual directories, you can share Libraries which can include specific directories or simply specific file types... And the actual path to the files can be irrelevant, so it eases organization ('specially for the unorganized type, not so much for the anal ones amongst us).
'Course the security aspect of it doesn't work so well if all your systems aren't running Windows 7 since you'd then have to disable the passwords, etc (IIRC).
Basically, Homegroups isn't a revolutionary concept for someone who's already used to sharing files across the network and already has some sort of scheme in place to do so... But for the neophyte or average joe who still moves stuff across his systems on a USB key because it seems simpler, it's gonna be huge eventually and it'll pave the way for more seamless WHS usage as Joe alluded to (provided the user is not trying to do it across XP/Vista/Win 7 systems
).With a whole 3.6% of PCs using Blu-ray, I am sure all the work MS put into re-architecting the kernel with DRM and protected processes is paying off. All the money spent by peripheral manufactures/consumers for drivers/hardware and time wasted on incompatibility.
I'll leave you alone now with you Vista/Win7.
I know it's probably going to be useless, but you won't be able to say I didn't try one more time..
DRM is only so that you will be able to play Blu-ray discs on a Windows Vista/7 computer. It in no way hinders you from copying discs. Blu-ray itself does that, but can be circumvented using the usual tools of trade, such as AnyDVD HD.
If Microsoft chose to exclude DRM mechanism in Windows, you would not be able to enjoy Blu-ray contents at all. It's not Microsoft's fault, but the Blu-ray consortium's fault. It's their requirement.
Again, it doesn't stop you from doing anything at all. Violate the DCMA to your heart's content! Microsoft isn't going to stop you!
In my mind's eye I see my words bouncing off your forehead though, but like I said, at least I tried.
No offense but that's really ass-backwards, and I actually do think you have a point... But for entirely different reasons. I can see how the auto-snapping could be confusing (at first) or annoying (due to habits) for some users... But arranging windows meticulously so you can mouse over to 10 different ones is just silly. The taskbar or Alt+Tab have got to be faster than that, unless you're using 2-3 windows simultaneously... In which case the Aero snap feature would probably prove useful once you get used to it.
You seem pretty rooted in your way of doing things tho and that's probably why you have little interest in most of the new features... Navigating and organizing files by metadata (particularly music) doesn't add any extra complexity once you learn how to do so, just the opposite... I can't imagine the mess you'll encounter if you ever decide to use any kind of MP3 player, it's pretty much impossible to effectively navigate a medium-sized collection of music on a portable device by filename/directory structures alone.
Yeah, stuff on a cell phone can be managed pretty much the same as a flash drive... But having music sync to it automatically based on presets defined by you (most recent, most played, most recently purchased, by favorites or playlists, etc) has it's upsides, I can't imagine why you can't see that even if you have little interest in it. Same for the networking/sharing concepts, etc.
I'm not even gonna touch the comment about AV w/a ten foot pole...
P.S. ImgBurn > all The simplicity of burning a quick ISO on Win7 is still welcome though.
Btw, I'll easily concede that only about a third of the things listed on the article (at best) are things exclusive to Win7, it's a heck of a lot better to have many of those things integrated into the OS than tacked on thru third party apps tho, 'specially when it comes to the UI (for a lot of reasons, performance being chief amongst them). I'd say it's 50/50 amongst them between things that I'm glad are integrated for the power user and things I know will improve over usability for the average user... And there's nothing wrong with that even if you don't care for 'em yourself, it's still a leaner and more effective OS despite any of that. (TRIM, all sorta background tweaks to bootup/hibernation/etc, and dozens of other things).
About the window switching, I cannot find a quicker way then how I do it, alt+tab is slow as can be for 10+ windows but yes I would use it go back to the immediate last window. I actually came up with this method at work because the start bar was too slow a method, so now I always do it. The problem came up when I had lots of IE6 windows open on the start bar. So then you have to click the grouped button and it shows really long window names that are all identical and chopped off because the names are too long. So then I had to guess based on position in the list. Well that's too much clicking and guessing and I was not going to put up with that inefficiency because it was affecting my productivity fighting the computer. Win7 brings this grouped stuff even more forward with the default start bar, always grouping by the app, so that sent me screaming for the classic star bar options the second I saw it.
I hid the start bar on the screen at work so it gave me extra screen space for my own method. Then I memorized what window would be peeking out of what part of the screen. For instance when I needed a notepad window I would move the mouse to the upper left 1/3 of the screen but not all the way to the corner, click and there was my notepad. I could execute that move in .3 seconds or so, way quicker then having to accurately click on the start bar button because the area to click was much larger. It is almost a gesture in a way because I had the movements memorized, funny that I don't like gestures. Basically I was implementing an effectively tabbed interface that went around the entire 360 degrees of the monitor.
This method of usage is very similar to using old versions of Linux window managers that didn't have the conventional style task bar such as fvwm and twm. It takes some minor screen space but if most of your windows don't need to be huge then this works really well. I could switch between windows so fast that people doing employee evaluations with screen recorder software could not even tell what I was doing lol Commoners users would
at my 1337 window switching skillz when walking to my station lol Later on I got so fed up with IE6 I ran Firefox on the computers against work rules. When the boss people found out they even wanted to use it too because of tabs plus custom html pages I made to query multiple servers simultaneously in the same window. It made everything so much more easy to navigate and made for less frantic clicking.
I could care less about playing Blu-ray on my PC. I could care less about violating the DCMA or copying discs. What I do care about is the PC under windows is a closed system. There are processes running on the PC that no one outside of MS knows what they are actually doing. Drivers must be signed by MS [64-bit], etc. The PC under windows used to be an open system allowing developers to experiment and test. Now it a media player and game console.
With the cable industry now beginning to encrypt their digital signals, the PC will become even less of a media player.
You seem to ignore the freedoms we have lost with PC running Windows in the name of security. Kind of like what is happening the USA
Well I can see how you would have fits managing multiple open IE6 windows... When I used IE6 I was lucky if I could keep a dozen windows open more than an hour without a crash. With tabbed browsers and intelligent program grouping by Windows I dunno why you still have to do that though... When Windows groups several open windows of another non-tabbed app you can easily see the tittles, that seems far more effective for switching than hunting around for corners and edges of 10 different windows while losing screen space on the one you're actually using... Hell, if you're really that into your existing method you're probably better off just downloading one of those apps that expands your desktop 360 degrees and lets you quickly scroll around it, better than your current madness even if there's a method to it.
With tabbed browsers and intelligent program grouping by Windows I dunno why you still have to do that though... When Windows groups several open windows of another non-tabbed app you can easily see the tittles, that seems far more effective for switching than hunting around for corners and edges of 10 different windows while losing screen space on the one you're actually using... Hell, if you're really that into your existing method you're probably better off just downloading one of those apps that expands your desktop 360 degrees and lets you quickly scroll around it, better than your current madness even if there's a method to it.Joe Average
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Windows is and always have been a closed source OS - not sure what you're smoking but, Windows has never been an "open system" so...
I'm free to do anything under Windows I damned well wish to do. Artificially created constraints are meaningless when methods exist to do what I want. Not sure which "Windows" you're referring to but, maybe you should just run Linux and be happy or something.
The constant berating/bashing of Microsoft for making a product that still belongs to them and never ever to anyone else is beyond me. Would be nice to see it finally die once and for all but, alas, that's not going to happen as long as humans exist.
I'm free to do anything under Windows I damned well wish to do. Artificially created constraints are meaningless when methods exist to do what I want. Not sure which "Windows" you're referring to but, maybe you should just run Linux and be happy or something.
The constant berating/bashing of Microsoft for making a product that still belongs to them and never ever to anyone else is beyond me. Would be nice to see it finally die once and for all but, alas, that's not going to happen as long as humans exist.
I could care less about playing Blu-ray on my PC. I could care less about violating the DCMA or copying discs. What I do care about is the PC under windows is a closed system. There are processes running on the PC that no one outside of MS knows what they are actually doing. Drivers must be signed by MS [64-bit], etc. The PC under windows used to be an open system allowing developers to experiment and test. Now it a media player and game console.
With the cable industry now beginning to encrypt their digital signals, the PC will become even less of a media player.
You seem to ignore the freedoms we have lost with PC running Windows in the name of security. Kind of like what is happening the USA
That's a load of FUD... If the PC is more restricted in it's handling of BD media or cable programming it's the fault of the interest groups behind that tech, not Microsoft's, it's gonna happen whether Microsoft caters to them or not... 'Least if they do the user has the option of working by their rules (instead of not at all) and potentially finding a way to circumvent them, e.g. encryption, Cablecards, ripping software, etc.
As far as I can tell most of the changes in driver handling have only made Windows more stable and secure and the only times we've had major issues is when the hardware vendors simply lag behind in what should be their job. As for the comments on strange processes... lol A good chunk of experimental dev work today happens on the web anyway... There's just not that many new apps or ideas that really need to leverage a lot of hardware and thus need to run locally.
I don't think he was using open/closed in the typical sense when talking about OS... If he was the entire post makes even less sense than I thought it did. Windows is able to do a lot of the things it does entirely because it's a closed source OS w/a wide compatibility base tho (unlike OS X or Linux).
Joe Average
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What I love are people that come out of the woodwork when topics like this come up, and all they seem to be able to do is say things like "Oh, that feature, I'll never use it" or something like "I could care less about <insert feature here>" but they feel so strongly about it - because it's a Microsoft product we're discussing - they'll be all over it and suddenly it goes from a discussion about an OS all the way over to "Draconian rules that damage our personal freedoms."
Man, you people really need to get out more...
Man, you people really need to get out more...
What other apps have implemented interesting Jumplists besides Explorer and other native Win7 apps btw? There a list anywhere? I don't think Firefox has one yet does it? Seems like a really cool concept, I'm just worried many devs won't bother with it. Stuff that's almost always open (like Digsby and media players/managers) seem like prime candidates for it.
I've got the same worry about Device Stage but I think there's a lil' more incentives MS can dangle on that end (probably Win7 logo certification, etc.), and there's a basic default for all devices even if the manufacturer doesn't program in anything fancy.
Yeah I can see Michael J. Fox disabling this feature because he'll be minimizing his work or games all the time.
Kind of insensitive and 20 posts too late...
Kind of insensitive and 20 posts too late...
Being handicapped myself, I can tell you that I don't want anyone's pity and I hate political correctedness. You don't have to step around me when making handicapped jokes. I won't bite you.
I'm sure Michael's recieved his fair share of chuckles on Parkinson's joke and I don't think he wants your pity either.
Joke away! Life is too short to be PC.
I could care less about playing Blu-ray on my PC. I could care less about violating the DCMA or copying discs. What I do care about is the PC under windows is a closed system. There are processes running on the PC that no one outside of MS knows what they are actually doing. Drivers must be signed by MS [64-bit], etc. The PC under windows used to be an open system allowing developers to experiment and test. Now it a media player and game console.
With the cable industry now beginning to encrypt their digital signals, the PC will become even less of a media player.
You seem to ignore the freedoms we have lost with PC running Windows in the name of security. Kind of like what is happening the USA
It's just an operating system. Turn on your computer, install whatever programs you want, and have fun. Jeez.
Hard and Confused
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OMfg, Microsoft is making a Swiss Army OS @_@
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Not really, i like quick launch, now i have to click twice when beore i just had to click once = more work
i am used to it now, what i hate is how is add every file you op[en in that program, i have about 6 txt files i access frequently, i always had them in quick launch, now i use the superbar and i have to navigate through all the other text files i have opened to find the ones i use... it is a waste of time.
Post was aimed more at Draax than you... Tho I guess the reply applies either way.
I didn't even think much of it when I read the joke the first time (on your post), that thought ran thru my mind the second time I saw it tho. Meh. You're right tho, I'm sure Michael J. Fox doesn't want anyone's pity, and I'm positive he's still got an awesome sense of humor. Last I've seen of him were one or two interviews when he was promo'ing that book he put out, Always Looking Up (get it?
), and then on Rescue Me.