If you’re coming to Windows 7 from Windows Vista, you’ll probably land with all guns blazing. Most of the layout, techniques, and functions are very similar. If you’re coming straight to Windows 7 from Windows XP, though, you might feel as though you came home from college to find that your parents turned your old bedroom into a home office. Where is everything? A lot went on while you were away.
Here’s a heads-up to some of the biggest changes:
Security. You could fill several books with information about the security enhancements Microsoft has made to Windows. A lot of them are so technical, they’d make your eyes glaze over, but here’s a sampling. User Account Control is a dialog box that pops up whenever you try to install a program or adjust a PC-wide setting, requesting that you type your password. It means that viruses can no longer make changes to your system without your knowing about it. You’ll see one of these dialog boxes, and if you aren’t the one trying to make the change, you’ll click Cancel instead of Continue.
Windows Defender protects your PC from spyware (downloads from the Internet that, unbeknownst to you, send information back to their creators or hijack your Web browser).
A cosmetic overhaul. Thanks to a new design scheme called Aero, window edges are translucent; menus and windows fade away when closed; the taskbar shows actual thumbnail images of the open documents, not just their names; all the icons have been redesigned with a clean, 3-D look and greater resolution; and so on.
Not everyone gets to enjoy these Aero features. Some PCs are too slow to handle all this graphics processing; on those machines, the transparency and taskbar features are missing.
The Start menu is a better-organized, two-column affair; that awful XP business of superimposing the All Programs menu on top of the two other columns is long gone.
New programs and features. Lots of new or upgraded software programs and features debuted in Vista. For example:
Instant Search. With one keystroke (the windows key), you open the Start menu’s new Search box. It searches your entire PC for the search phrase you type—even inside files that have different names.
New apps. Check out the Snipping Tool (for capturing patches of the screen as graphics, for use in illustrating computer books) and Windows Fax and Scan, one-stop shopping for scanning and faxing. Speech Recognition lets you dictate email and documents, and even control Windows itself, all by voice.
Laptop goodies. You’ll find folder synchronization with another computer, more powerful battery-control settings, and a central Mobility Center that governs all laptop features in one place.
New Explorer features. Explorer windows can now have information panels and controls on all four edges, including the Navigation pane (left); task toolbar (top); Preview pane (right); and Details pane (bottom). The new address bar, which displays the path you’ve taken to burrow into the folder you’re now inspecting, is loaded with doodads and clickable spots that make navigation far easier.
