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Friday, March 19, 2010

Windows VISTA

Hardware and Compatibility Issues
First, let's take a look at Microsoft's recommended system requirements for Vista (these are not the absolute minimum requirements):

• 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
• 512 MB of system memory
• 20 GB hard drive with at least 15 GB of available space
• Support for DirectX 9 graphics and 32 MB of graphics memory
• DVD-ROM drive
• Audio Output
• Internet access

Doesn't look to bad, does it? But before you click your heels with glee and run off to place a pre-order for Vista Home Premium, hold on. This list, unsurprisingly, doesn't tell the whole story. The above list, though not the barest of bare minimums, is what you need to run the most basic version of Microsoft's new operating systems – Vista Basic – which is, indeed, very basic. Instead, what you really need to run Vista - Home Premium, Ultimate, Business and Enterprise Versions – is ...

• 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
• 1 GB of system memory
• 40 GB hard drive with at least 15 GB of available space
• Support for DirectX 9 graphics with:
• WDDM Driver
• 128 MB of graphics memory (minimum)
• Pixel Shader 2.0 in hardware
• 32 bits per pixel
• DVD-ROM drive
• Audio Output
• Internet access

The key thing to pay attention to here is the memory requirement. Though even Vista Ultimate will get by on the minimum 512MB of RAM, you won't be able to benefit from all of the interface's whizz-bang features. Some, including Flip 3D and the live Alt-Tab and taskbar previews are memory intensive and simply can't be accessed if you don't have enough memory installed. The system is still snappy and responsive running on 1GB of memory, while Vista's new Readyboost technology allows you to use compatible USB memory keys and flash memory cards to bolster performance further, but, as ever, if you can afford more it's probably a good idea to invest.
And it doesn't stop there. Since so much in the Vista upgrade is focused on the visual experience, your display hardware is going to need to be up to spec too. Though you can run it on lower resolution displays, to take full advantage I'd recommend at least 1,280 x 1,024 to take full advantage of all of that lovely eye candy. Your video card is going to have to have a bit more horsepower to spare than it did with XP as well – you'll need at the very least 128MB of memory and it should support DirectX 9 too.

It's a time-honoured tradition that any Microsoft 'upgrade', along with the increase in features, will also require an accompanying hardware upgrade. Vista is no different here, but how much of an upgrade are you going to need?
It's been five years in the making. Hundreds of thousands of man hours have gone into its development. Millions of words have already been written about it. Some have already written it off, others can't wait to get their hands on a copy.
Finally it's here. This is the latest episode in the Microsoft soap opera. This is Windows Vista. Has it been worth the wait?
On the face of it, Vista has its work cut out. There's no doubt that the move from XP to Vista was never going to be as dramatic or ground shaking as the move from the much-derided Windows 98 to XP, no matter how hard the Microsoft spin machine worked at convincing us it was. After all, there's not nearly quite so much to fix with XP, which has, by-and-large, done a decent job of running home, business and, latterly, entertainment PCs throughout the land for a good while now.There has been the odd security bump along the way and, sure, it has the odd annoying foible, but apart from the fact that it's beginning to look a little long in the tooth, XP is still in rude health. Has Vista got enough in its locker to persuade millions of users to make the switch? Read on to find out…

Just Window Dressing?

Cynics will tell you that Vista is just XP with a brand new wardrobe - underneath it's just the same old operating system. And yes, to a certain extent that's true. But in the case of Vista's rather swish-looking Aero interface, it's more than just pretty version of XP. This is a makeover that's worthy of the name.


If your PC or laptop has the hardware (we'll deal with this issue in more depth later) you'll get transparent windows that let you see through them to what's behind and much more sophisticated animations than with XP. Minimised Windows fade out and gracefully slide into the taskbar, live previews appear as you hover over minimised application buttons in the taskbar, and the whole look and feel is a lot more mature than XP. If you've downloaded and used Windows Media Player 11, you'll already have a good idea of how Vista shapes up – it's slick, no doubt about it.
There are other ways in which Vista shows off its new 3D capabilities though, apart from the transparency and glass effects. There is now an alternative to the old Alt-Tab method of switching between applications called Flip 3D. Hit the Windows key and Tab and instead of flat, anonymous icons, you get previews of all your currently open windows stacked in 3D. Hit Tab while holding down the Windows key and the stack smoothly cycles through each one, just like a virtual Rolodex. The more frivolous sidebar is a nice touch too. This takes a similar - albeit altogether more attractive - approach to Google's Desktop sidebar. You can dock various 'gadgets' here, including a clock, sticky notes, an RSS news feeder, a photo slideshow, contact list and various other handy mini-applications.
But Vista's beauty is not just skin deep. As well as new clothes, Vista gives Windows a much-needed repackaging and reorganisation that actually makes difference to the way you use your PC. The first indication that more thought has gone into ease of use is the improved Start menu. Gone is XP's unwieldy cascading list of applications and in comes a list with a scroll bar, which contains everything within the menu neatly and in a far more elegant manner than simply filling the screen with one huge menu.
More significant than this is the addition of a search box to the Start menu. So what? I hear you mutter. Windows' search tool has always been useless … hasn't it? Not this time. With Vista, Microsoft has dramatically increased the usability and speed of its search. With indexing switched on by default (XP had this but it wasn't turned on out of the box), results are instant. Click Start, then type in the name of an application or file - the search box instantly gains focus so you can search right away - and as you type, matches appear in the Start menu above. Not only does it search files and folders, but also applications, your internet browsing history and even your email.
Type Word, for instance, and Microsoft Word appears at the top of your list; type the first few letters of a folder or file you want to get to and that will appear too. Searches can be saved and stored too, should you want to come back to them later.

In fact, once you've tried getting to your files, applications and email by using the search box to get to them, you'll probably wonder how you ever put up with having to navigate through complicated menus to get to your files. I’m already beginning to forget 'where' things are in XP, because all I need to do in Vista is type a name.

The Path to Enlightenment

Equally dramatic is Vista's upgrade to the way windows are navigated. The most obvious change to Vista's window furniture, after many years of confusing users in the name of backwards compatibility with DOS, is that at last absolute paths have been given the heave-ho.

They've been replaced with a simpler breadcrumb trail, which displays each 'level' of navigation, or folder, as a clickable buttons. Go to a subfolder of your Documents folder (the rather patronising 'My' prefix has been dropped in Vista too), and at the top of your window you get Jon > Documents > Reviews, rather than the old style C:\My Documents\My Documents\Reviews. To clean things up, the Up button has also disappeared, removing the potential for confusion with the back button, which often takes you to a different location entirely.Those with a fondness for the old ways will be happy know that absolute paths still lurk behind the new interface, however. Click the breadcrumb trail bar and it transforms instantly to text, colons and backslashes.Vista's windows are also much more intelligent than XP's, dynamically changing depending on their content. Below the breadcrumb trail, for example, a set of dynamic, context sensitive buttons appear - Play, Share and Burn for MP3s, while Slide Show appears at the top of photo folders. The same goes for the content pane - open up a folder with photos in it and you're switched over to a thumbnail view, with columns at the top enabling you to sort by, among other things, Date Taken, or Tags. The same happens with Music folders. Files are displayed with smaller icons and the columns automatically change to display track id information if available.The standard user folder structure has been improved too. Instead of burying everything in My Documents, the Pictures, Music, Documents, Downloads and Videos folders are all on the same level under your user name. Other small improvements include much easier to use network connection management
The confusing Network Places of XP has disappeared to be replaced by the Network and Sharing Center, which ties all of Vista's various network views together in one neat interface. There are some big improvements here, not least to the wireless networking element, which makes a previously cumbersome task much simpler, and also the View Computers and Devices window which, with automatic Network Discovery turned on, makes the job of viewing and connecting to other computers on a network so much easier than with XP as to be embarrassing.

Goodies…


Every new edition of Windows also sees new additions and improvements to the bundled applications and Vista is no different. Many of you will be running Internet Explorer 7 and Media Player 11 already, of course, but with Vista there's a whole raft of other new and improved goodies to get your teeth into.
First, there's Windows Photo Gallery, which offers Picasa-like functionality and a handful of useful photo editing tools - red-eye, colour adjustment, exposure tweaks and cropping. It's not as good as Picasa, but a simple and effective tool that many will feel is not in need of replacement.

Other changes include the renaming of Outlook Express to, simply, Windows Mail. This is complemented, at last, by a halfway decent calendar application. Called Windows Calendar this brand new program has some surprisingly advanced features, such as the ability to set recurring appointments and specify attendees for meetings, who can then be invited via email.
Those purchasing the Home Premium version of Vista (see below for full details of what you get with the various different versions) get the fully functional version of Windows Media Center thrown in with all the features that entails, while other improvements on the multimedia front include a dramatic makeover for Windows Movie Maker. The latter now has wider codec support including the ability to compile and publish HD projects, plus many more transitions than before and a new auto-movie feature. Note though, that the HD features are only available in Premium and Ultimate Editions – not in Home Basic. Also included is the facility for transferring Movies from Movie Maker to DVD and to create and burn DVD movie projects, complete with menus, using Windows DVD Maker.
In addition to the Media Center functionality, Home Premium and up owners also get to play with Windows Tablet PC functions, which include very decent handwriting recognition. And last but by no means least you also get Windows Meeting Space - Microsoft's latest stab at enabling people to host virtual meetings, sharing documents, annotations and the like, over a network.
Alas there's still no word count feature in Wordpad or Notepad, but after waiting for that small addition since Windows 95 first hit our screens, I have to say I wasn't exactly surprised.

Don't panic!

Security, security, security. That's the maxim, if any, that the Microsoft development team, will have had at the top of its features check sheet when Vista was first conceived. As a result Vista is a big improvement over XP here.
Let's start with what's new. First, there's Windows Defender, Vista's new anti-spyware software. It's not as good as the best commercial software out there but at least it's something where before there was nothing and it does include rootkit detection and live updates.
Next, Windows Firewall has seen a huge upgrade over the rather simplistic XP offering. This is far more configurable than before, with the ability to specify individual rules that apply to ports, specific applications and inbound and outbound traffic as well. We're a little concerned that there's still no virus protection included. But with packages such as AVG now freely available to download this is an easy hole to fill.

Vista also sees a dramatic upgrade for the backup tool. Though XP did have this facility, it was woefully short on features and very difficult to use. Thankfully, Vista's Backup and Restore Center is much better. Setting up scheduled backups of your documents, pictures, music files and so on is an absolute breeze, and you can now also backup an image of your entire system direct to CD or DVD media, in much the same way as you can with products such as Symantec's Ghost.
The Windows restore features can also be accessed from here, and owners of the Business, Enterprise and Ultimate editions of Windows can also make use of a tool known as file shadow copies. This feature, which originally debuted on Windows Server 2003, runs alongside system restore, tracking changes made to files and folders. When you right-click a file or folder with the feature enabled, you now get the option to restore a previous version without having to restore the entire system.This certainly has its advantages for systems administrators and IT professionals. With restricted user accounts, administrators can now run software installs and change settings without having to log out and log in with administrator privileges - a process that proved a real pain in XP. Account privileges can simply be elevated on a task-by-task basis; you can simply ight-click an install application, choose Run as administrator, then enter your administrator username and password to install a new driver or software package.

But for home users it's not so helpful. There are two main problems with it from this perspective. First is the fact that, on most standard home PCs and laptops, the main Windows Vista user is still set up as an Administrator. This means that a careless click of the Continue button (in an administrator account, further password entry is not required) could allow a dubious item of software to go ahead and wreak its havoc. Second is the irritation factor. After a few days of installing software, updating drivers and having to click Continue every time, it's very easy to get annoyed and simply turn it off. And this is not difficult to do.
Finally, for owners of Ultimate and Enterprise versions of Vista, there's Bitlocker. In conjunction with a TPM (trusted platform module) chip or USB key, Bitlocker allows you to encrypt not only files and folders, but the whole system volume too. This means that if, for instance, your laptop is stolen, accessing encrypted files and folders on the hard disk will much more difficult than simply booting the computer using an alternative operating system or boot disk.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

W I N D O W S 7


Windows 7: System Requirements
If you want to run Windows 7 on your PC, here's what it takes:
1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver




Additional requirements to use certain features:
Internet access (fees may apply)
Depending on resolution, video playback may require additional memory and advanced graphics hardware
For some
Windows Media Center functionality a TV tuner and additional hardware may be requiredWindows Touch and Tablet PCs require specific hardwareHomeGroup requires a network and PCs running Windows 7
DVD/CD authoring requires a compatible optical drive
BitLocker requires Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 1.2
BitLocker To Go requires a USB flash drive
Windows XP Mode requires an additional 1 GB of RAM, an additional 15 GB of available hard disk space, and a processor capable of hardware virtualization with Intel VT or AMD-V turned on
Music and sound require audio output


Product functionality and graphics may vary based on your system configuration. Some features may require advanced or additional hardware.

Download the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor for a more detailed understanding of whether your PC can run Windows 7. Download now

Windows 7 ReviewWindows 7 gets the basics right. Here's what you need to know about the new OS.Harry McCracken, PC World

What if a new version of Windows didn't try to dazzle you? What if, instead, it tried to disappear except when you needed it? Such an operating system would dispense with glitzy effects in favor of low-key, useful new features. Rather than pelting you with alerts, warnings, and requests, it would try to stay out of your face. And if any bundled applications weren't essential, it would dump 'em.
It's not a what-if scenario. Windows 7, set to arrive on new PCs and as a shrinkwrapped upgrade on October 22, has a minimalist feel and attempts to fix an­­noyances old and new. In contrast, Windows Vista offered a flashy new interface, but its poor performance, compatibility gotchas, and lack of compelling features made some folks regret upgrading and others refuse to leave Windows XP.
Windows 7 is hardly flawless. Some features feel unfinished; others won't realize their potential without heavy lifting by third parties. And some long-standing annoyances remain intact. But overall, the final shipping version I test-drove appears to be the worthy successor to Windows XP that Vista never was.
Microsoft's release of Windows 7 also roughly coincides with Apple's release of its new Snow Leopard; for a visual comparison of the two operating systems, see our slideshow "
Snow Leopard Versus Windows 7." Of course, an OS can't be a winner if it turns a zippy PC into a slowpoke or causes installation nightmares. Consult "Windows 7 Performance Tests" for Windows 7 performance test results, and "How to Upgrade to Windows 7" for hands-on advice on the best way to install it. Read on here for an in-depth look at how Microsoft has changed its OS--mostly for the better--in Windows 7.


Interface: The New Taskmaster


The Windows experience occurs mainly in its Taskbar--especially in the Start menu and System Tray. Vista gave the Start menu a welcome redesign; in Windows 7, the Taskbar and the System Tray get a thorough makeover.The new Taskbar replaces the old small icons and text labels for running apps with larger, unlabeled icons. If you can keep the icons straight, the new design painlessly reduces Taskbar clutter. If you don't like it, you can shrink the icons and/or bring the labels back.
In the past, you could get one-click access to programs by dragging their icons to the Quick Launch toolbar. Windows 7 eliminates Quick Launch and folds its capabilities into the Taskbar. Drag an app's icon from the Start menu or desktop to the Taskbar, and Windows will pin it there, so you can launch the program without rummaging around in the Start menu. You can also organize icons in the Taskbar by moving them to new positions.
To indicate that a particular application on the Taskbar is running, Windows draws a subtle box around its icon--so subtle, in fact, that figuring out whether the app is running can take a moment, especially if its icon sits between two icons for running apps.
In Windows Vista, hovering the mouse pointer over an application's Taskbar icon produces a thumbnail window view known as a Live Preview. But when you have multiple windows open, you see only one preview at a time. Windows 7's version of this feature is slicker and more efficient: Hover the pointer on an icon, and thumbnails of the app's windows glide into position above the Taskbar, so you can quickly find the one you're looking for. (The process would be even simpler if the thumbnails were larger and easier to decipher.)
Also new in Windows 7's Taskbar is a feature called Jump Lists. These menus resemble the context-sensitive ones you get when you right-click within various Windows applications, except that you don't have to be inside an app to use them. Internet Explorer 8's Jump List, for example, lets you open the browser and load a fresh tab, initiate an InPrivate stealth browsing session, or go directly to any of eight frequently visited Web pages. Non-Microsoft apps can offer Jump Lists, too, if their developers follow the guidelines for creating them.
Other Windows 7 interface adjustments are minor, yet so sensible that you may wonder why Windows didn't include them all along. Shove a window into the left or right edge of the screen and it'll expand to fill half of your desktop. Nudge another into the opposite edge of the screen, and it'll expand to occupy the other half. That makes comparing two windows' contents easy. If you nudge a window into the top of the screen, it will maximize to occupy all of the display's real estate.
The extreme right edge of the Taskbar now sports a sort of nub; hover over it, and open windows become transparent, revealing the desktop below. (Microsoft calls this feature Aero Peek.) Click the nub, and the windows scoot out of the way, giving you access to documents or apps that reside on the desktop and duplicating the Show Desktop feature that Quick Launch used to offer.
Getting at your desktop may soon be­­come even more important than it was in the past. That's because Windows 7 does away with the Sidebar, the portion of screen space that Windows Vista reserved for Gadgets such as a photo viewer and a weather applet. Instead of occupying the Sidebar, Gadgets now sit directly on the desktop, where they don't compete with other apps for precious screen real estate.


Old Tray, New Tricks:
Windows 7's Taskbar and window management tweaks are nice. But its changes to the System Tray--aka the Notification Area--have a huge positive effect.In the past, no feature of Windows packed more frustration per square inch than the System Tray. It quickly grew dense with applets that users did not want in the first place, and many of the uninvited guests employed word balloons and other intrusive methods to alert users to uninteresting facts at inopportune moments. At their worst, System Tray applets behaved like belligerent squatters, and Windows did little to put users back in charge.
In Windows 7, applets can't pester you unbidden because software installers can't dump them into the System Tray. Instead, applets land in a holding pen that appears only when you click it, a much-improved version of the overflow area used in previous incarnations of the Tray. App­lets in the pen can't float word balloons at you unless you permit them to do so. It's a cinch to drag them into the System Tray or out of it again, so you enjoy complete control over which applets reside there.
More good news: Windows 7 largely dispenses with the onslaught of word-balloon warnings from the OS about troubleshooting issues, potential security problems, and the like. A new area called Action Center--a revamped version of Vista's Security Center--queues up such alerts so you can deal with them at your convenience. Action Center does issue notifications of its own from the System Tray, but you can shut these off if you don't want them pestering you.
All of this helps make Windows 7 the least distracting, least intrusive Microsoft OS in a very long time. It's a giant step forward from the days when Windows thought nothing of interrupting your work to inform you that it had de­­tected unused icons on your desktop.

File Management: The Library System

Compared to the Taskbar and the System Tray, Explorer hasn't changed much in Windows 7. However, its left pane does sport two new ways to get at your files: Libraries and HomeGroups.
Libraries could just as appropriately have been called File Cabinets, since they let you collect related folders in one place. By default, you get Libraries labeled Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos, each of which initially di­­rects you to the OS's standard folders for storing the named items--such as My Pictures and Public Pictures.
To benefit from Libraries, you have to customize them. Right-click any folder on your hard drive, and you can add it to any Library; for instance, you can transform the Pictures Library into a collection of all your folders that contain photos. You can create additional Libraries of your own from scratch, such as one that bundles up all folders that relate to your vacation plans.
Libraries would be even more useful if Microsoft had integrated them with Saved Searches, the Windows feature (introduced in Vista) that lets you create virtual folders based on searches, such as one that tracks down every .jpg image file on your system. But while Windows 7 lets you add standard folders to a Library, it doesn't support Saved Searches.

HomeGroups, Swee HomeGroups?

Closely related to Libraries are HomeGroups, a new feature designed to simplify the notoriously tricky process of networking Windows PCs. Machines that are part of one HomeGroup can selectively grant each other read or read/write access to their Libraries and to the folders they contain, so you can perform such mundane but important tasks as providing your spouse with ac­­cess to a folderful of tax documents on your computer. HomeGroups can also stream media, enabling you to pipe music or a movie off the desktop in the den onto your notebook in the living room. And they let you share a printer connected to one PC with all the other computers in the HomeGroup, a useful feature if you can't connect the printer directly to the network.
HomeGroups aren't a bad idea, but Windows 7's implementation seems half-baked. HomeGroups are password-protected, but rather than inviting you to specify a password of your choice during initial setup, Windows assigns you one consisting of ten characters of alphanumeric gibberish and instructs you to write it down so you won't forget it. To be fair, passwords made up of random characters provide excellent security, and the only time you need the password is when you first connect a new PC to a HomeGroup. But it's still a tad peculiar that you can't specify a password you'll remember during setup--you can do that only after the fact, in a different part of the OS. More annoying and limiting: HomeGroups won't work unless all of the PCs in question are running Windows 7, a scenario that won't be typical anytime soon. A version that also worked on XP, Vista, and Mac systems would have been cooler.
Federated Search, a new Windows Explorer feature, feels incomplete, too. It uses the
Open­Search standard to give Win 7's search "connectors" for external sources. That capability allows you to search sites such as Flickr and YouTube from within Explorer. Pretty neat--except that Windows 7 doesn't come with any of the connectors you'd need to add these sources, nor with any way of finding them. (They are available on the Web, though. Use a search engine to track them down.)

Security: UAC Gets Tolerable

Speaking of annoying Windows features, let's talk about User Account Control--the Windows Vista security element that was a poster child for everything that rankled people about that OS. UAC aimed to prevent rogue software from tampering with your PC by endlessly prompting you to approve running applications or changing settings. The experience was so grating that many users preferred to turn UAC off and take their chances with Internet attackers. Those who left it active risked slipping into the habit of incautiously clicking through every prompt, defeating whatever value the feature might have had.Windows 7 gives you control over UAC, in the form of a slider containing four security settings. As before, you can accept the full-blown UAC or elect to disable it. But you can also tell UAC to notify you only when software changes Windows settings, not when you're tweaking them yourself. And you can instruct it not to perform the abrupt screen-dimming effect that Vista's version uses to grab your attention If Microsoft had its druthers, all Windows 7 users would use UAC in full-tilt mode: The slider that you use to ratchet back its severity advises you not to do so if you routinely install new software or visit unfamiliar sites, and it warns that disabling the dimming effect is "Not recommended." Speak for yourself, Redmond: I have every intention of recommending the intermediate settings to most people who ask me for advice, since those settings retain most of UAC's theoretical value without driving users bonkers.
Other than salvaging UAC, Microsoft has made relatively few significant changes to Windows 7's security system. One meaningful improvement: BitLocker, the drive-encryption tool included only in Windows 7 Ultimate and the corporate-oriented Windows 7 Enterprise, lets you en­­crypt USB drives and hard disks, courtesy of a feature called BitLocker to Go. It's one of the few good reasons to prefer Win 7 Ultimate to Home Premium or Professional.
Internet Explorer 8, Windows 7's de­­fault browser, includes many security-related enhancements, including a new SmartScreen Filter (which blocks dangerous Web sites) and InPrivate Browsing (which permits you to use IE without leaving traces of where you've been or what you've done). Of course, IE 8 is equally at home in XP and Vista--and it's free--so it doesn't constitute a reason to upgrade to Windows 7.