Windows 7: A review and presentation of the Microsoft OS (1)

No to the Sidebar, but yes for the Gadgets!
The executable “sidebar.exe” is still visible in the Windows 7 Task Manager but as you can see, it is no longer a question of imposing a large bar to the right or left of the screen. This is good news, as for a lot of people this was something that just took up space on the side of the Desktop. If this is an important point for you, by manipulating the Registry you will be able to bring it back. The gadgets are still directly accessible by right clicking on the desktop and selecting the Gadget of your choice. You can take advantage of all Gadgets available for Vista, which is more than 500 gadgets (RSS streams, currency conversion, weather, clock, calendar…).

Customizable graphical themes and Aero
It’s the big return of graphical themes! You simply need to click on the Desktop and on the Customize link to select the ones you want. There are 20 classic themes, each with a country name and corresponding colours (France, Korea, Italy, India…), 7 Aero good themes (Windows 7, People, Nature…) for those that have video card acceleration (transparency, 3D) and 6 basic themes with higher resolution (Windows 7 Basic, Windows Classic, High Black Contrast…). Of course, the Desktop backgrounds, the windows colours, sounds, screen savers and mouse cursors are all customizable. If this isn’t enough for you then other themes are already available here.

Picture position and wallpaper that is changed every “x” seconds, minutes…
Each of the themes has 6 wall papers to choose from. The picture position is variable and it is you that determines which is the best for you (Full screen, adjust, mosaic, centre). Those that are used to using Mac OS X will also notice that with Seven it is possible to chance the display either sequentially or randomly at a precise time (10 seconds, 3 minutes, 2 hours, 1 day…). Right clicking on the desktop and selecting next Wall paper is also possible.

Changing the size of the screen font
Go to the Control Panel and click on Display. Depending on the size you want, select the text size which best corresponds to the models on offer (Small 100%, Average 125%, Large 150%) or via the Define command, enter your own size (PPP). Other settings make up the options available for the screen, which is the case for the Looking Glass which enlarges part of the screen and ClearType text which improves readability on LCD screens.

Calibrate and quickly adjust the screen resolution
After having installed Windows 7, once again go to the Display menu, but this time select Stretch the colours. This is a must do step for everyone and not just artists. This allows you to improve your screen colours so that all of the colour tones, contrast, lighting and gamma are displayed as well as possible. The wizard will guide you step by step during this procedure. Right clicking with the mouse on the Desktop and Screen Resolution option will quickly configure the screen display for you. At the same time, the available resolutions (from lowest to highest), screen orientation (landscape, portrait, rotation…) can be varied depending on your activities (looking at two work documents, reading an eBook in portrait mode), etc.

Tactile screen support
Windows 7 looks after multipoint tactile screen unlike Vista which could only integrate the functions developed for Tablet PC’s. Now we just need to wait for computers that are equipped with this hardware to arrive on the market.