1. Don't need a new PC
Windows 7 will become the first major Windows release that any of us can remember that doesn't require better hardware than its predecessor. In fact, it might even run on systems that struggle with Vista, especially netbooks.

Our real-world benchmarks show that the performance difference between Vista and Windows 7 is zilch. Our Office benchmarks and video-encoding tests completed in precisely the same time, regardless of which OS was installed on our test machine. However, there's no doubt that Windows 7 feels faster. Applications open in a snap, and there are fewer instances of the whirly waiting wheel that afflicts Vista.
Better still, it runs happily on netbooks. Although we've seen a few netbooks such as the HP Mini-Note 2133 pre-installed with Vista Basic, most resort to Windows XP. However, we installed Windows 7 on an MSI Wind, with an Intel Atom 1.6GHz processor and 1GB of RAM, and it performed spotlessly.

The Aero interface is smooth, menus responsive, even Media Center works with commendable polish. What's more, it goes from power off to booted and ready to use in around 50 seconds - only ten seconds slower than Windows 7 boots on a Dell M1330 laptop, with a Core 2 Duo T9500 running at 2.6GHz and 3GB of RAM.

2. Big-screen support
Large, high-definition displays are much better catered for in Windows 7. First, there's no more fiddling around in the Control Panel to make your desktop appear on an external display - pressing Windows + P brings up a pop-up menu with options to duplicate, extend or transfer your desktop on to the second screen.
There's also good news for those who've been squinting at the mammoth LCD panels connected to their PCs. The telemetry from Microsoft's Customer Experience Programme revealed that only half of Windows users are running their PCs at native resolution, with others artificially reducing the resolution as they're struggling to read the text.
Consequently, there's a new option to boost the text and other onscreen items to 150% of their normal size. We tested this feature on a 30in widescreen display and it instantly made the text more readable, although you obviously have to sacrifice some screen real estate - which is the main reason for choosing a bigger screen in the first place.
The art is finding a reasonable compromise. If you simply want to zoom in on a small portion of the screen, the Mac-like magnifier allows you to smoothly zoom in and scroll around the screen.

3. Start button search

The Start button search facility introduced with Windows Vista has been given a spruce up that makes it a genuine timesaver. Instead of merely hunting for exact filename and application matches, the search is more intelligent.
Search for "disk" for example, and not only do applications such as Disk Cleanup and Disk Defragmenter appear as they would in Vista, but also Control Panel tasks such as "Create and format hard disk partitions" and "Create a password reset disk".
It isn't a straight keyword search, either - "Use tools to improve performance" comes up when you search for "processor", for instance. It's a clever way of making hard-to-find Control Panel features more accessible.

4. BitLocker To Go
With USB sticks responsible for many recent security scares, Microsoft has decided to tackle the issue head-on with Windows 7. BitLocker To Go effortlessly encrypts any external USB drive by right-clicking on the drive's icon and entering a suitably secure password. You're given the option to save and print out a recovery key, which can be used to access data on the drive should you forget the password.
The USB drive can also be automatically unlocked on your mainPC, to save entering the password every time, although this obviously makes it less secure. Microsoft promises that BitLocker To Go will offer read-only support on older versions of Windows - for now, encrypted disks appear as full, inaccessible drives on Windows XP and Vista.
IT departments running the forthcoming Windows Server 2008 R2 can set a group policy that forces employees to encrypt the drive before they can copy company data to the disk, which should help prevent data leaks and the need for more drastic security measures, such as locking down USB ports.
Microsoft has boosted BitLocker support for internal drives, too, with PC hard disks also encryptable at the right-click of a mouse (Windows 7 will automatically create the hidden boot partition). Whether BitLocker will be restricted to Enterprise and Ultimate versions of the OS, as it was with Vista, remains to be seen.
5. Document libraries
Microsoft has taken a whole world of pain out of locating and searching for documents in Windows 7. The new Libraries function in Windows Explorer allows you to add network folders, SharePoint documents, and pretty much any folder you choose to your Documents Library, meaning even files that are tucked away within the nether regions of a server can be accessed within only a couple of clicks.
Better still, if the drive containing your documents fills up, you can simply change the default save location and add that new location into the Documents view. No time-consuming file copies required.
There's also a new concept of Search Connectors. Add an email search connector into the Documents view and, when you type a search term in the box at the top-right, it will search your email, too.

6. Nag-free System Tray
Your antivirus software is out of date! Wireless networks detected! The woman at number 43 has just turned on her oven! Vista's System Tray spewed out so many pop-up warnings that you couldn't see the wood for the trees. Windows 7's revamped System Tray, on the other hand, has been blissfully gagged.
Windows warning messages are now concealed in the "Windows Solutions Center" - a small lighthouse icon that sits silently in the System Tray and delivers warning messages only when you click on it. In fact, it could even be argued that Microsoft has gone a little too far.
Hidden warnings that the security software is switched off, for example, won't bother most PC Authority readers, but the average consumer would probably appreciate the heads-up.
The modern-day habit of every application barging its way into the System Tray has also been curtailed. The System Tray now consists of only three key Windows icons, with the rest banished to a new overflow area. Users have complete control over which icons appear in the System Tray, so if there's a particular app you need to keep an eye on, you can promote it.

7. Drag and snap windows
Today's large widescreen displays are perfect for comparing documents side by side, but resizing two Windows to fit on the same screen in XP or Vista is a faff. Windows 7 makes it a cinch: drag one window to the far left, the other to the right, and the two fit snugly together like old ladies on the bus.
Windows can be dragged into action in other ways, too. Pull a window to the top of the screen and it's automatically maximised. Pull it back down from the top, and the window returns to its original size. Such gesture-like controls quickly become second nature, practically sending the "maximise" and "restore" controls to the dole queue.

8. Location-aware printing
Anyone used to ferrying a laptop between work and home will be familiar with the tedium of thoughtlessly pressing <Ctrl+P> in the office, only to find Word struggling to find the home inkjet that's set as default. In Windows 7, the PC automatically detects when you're at home and at work when you connect to the network, and automatically selects the relevant printer. It's the little things...

9. UAC silencer
Windows chief Steven Sinofsky has admitted that Vista's User Account Control had proved as popular as the village serial killer. The show-stopping interruptions are now completely under user control, with a sliding scale of UAC setting that ranges from turning the security "feature" off completely, to notifications every time a piece of software raises an eyebrow at your settings.

10. Media streamer playback
Windows Media Player now includes the option to play back music on other networked devices in the home, not only the PC you're sat in front of. So, for example, you could be sitting in the lounge with a laptop and select a music track to play back through a media-streaming device with its own dedicated speakers, instead of your tinny laptop affairs.

11. Revamped Taskbar and jumplists

Replacing the Taskbar window tabs with large, chunky icons isn't big, clever, nor particularly innovative - Apple's Mac OS X Dock and the KDE interface have been doing this for donkey's years.
Sometimes, however, ‘borrowing' ideas from others is better than attempting to reinvent the wheel, and our hands-on tests with the new Windows 7 interface at the Professional Developers Conference (the user interface isn't incorporated into the Windows 7 build Microsoft has released for testing) showed that Microsoft was right to flatter its rivals with a little imitation.
Not only are the bigger icons more finger-friendly for those running Windows 7 on a touchscreen PC, they also conceal the new "jumplists".
Accessible through a right-click (or an upwards swipe of the finger) on the Taskbar icon, the jumplists spring out to reveal a bevy of handy shortcuts that are tailored to that particular application. These might be recently opened documents in Word, music player controls in Windows Media Player, or a link to open the privacy mode in Internet Explorer, for example.
Jumplists are also available from programs listed in the Start menu, with a pop-up box appearing to the right.  And, at long last, Microsoft has finally made it possible to drag and drop the Taskbar icons into the order you wish, without having to download the TweakUI PowerToy.
12. HomeGroup

With the average household now containing multiple PCs according to Microsoft, home networking is heading towards the mainstream. HomeGroup should help make it easier. After setting up your HomeGroup on your first Windows 7 PC, any new Windows 7 machine that's connected to the home network will be automatically detected and enrolled into the HomeGroup.
This means a new Windows 7 laptop can instantly share the printer connected to the desktop PC in the study, for example. It also allows any PC on the HomeGroup to share documents, photos, music, video and other files across the network. Files on other Windows 7 PCs can be searched for as if they were stored locally, using the new Libraries function in Windows Explorer.
Certain types of documents and folders can be excluded from the HomeGroup if you wish to keep those private, and companies can lock down the HomeGroup functions to prevent business data being shared when an employee fires up their laptop at home.
The obvious downside is that all the other PCs on the network will need to be left on if you wish to search their files, which still makes a NAS/Windows Home Server device a more sensible option for sharing data in the home.

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13. New User State Migration tool
Vista's User State Migration tool allowed a new OS to be installed while retaining the user's data, but it physically moved the data from one place to another on the hard disk, slowing down the process.
Windows 7 accelerates the process with ‘hardlink migration', which leaves the data in the exact same place on the hard disk, and uses a series of redirect links to help Windows 7 find the files. Microsoft demonstrated a PC being upgraded from Vista to Windows 7 in a little over 25 minutes using the new migration tool. Something of an improvement on the three hours it took for us to perform a regular upgrade installation of Vista to Windows 7 from the DVD.

14. iTunes support in Windows Media Player
In a promising sign that Microsoft is prepared to stop playing silly buggers with proprietary formats, Windows Media Player now offers support for the iTunes AAC format. Not only does this mean you don't have to open up iTunes on your PC to play those tracks, but you can also play back iTunes libraries on other PCs over the network without having the Apple software installed on your system. DRM-protected files remain off limits, of course. AVC and H.264 video are supported, too.

15. Show Desktop
Power users will be familiar with the frustration of having to minimise countless open windows to take a quick look at newsfeeds or other gadgets on the Windows desktop. The revamped Show Desktop button - which now occupies the few remaining pixels between the System Tray Clock and the right edge of the Taskbar - makes all open Windows transparent when you hover the mouse over the icon. Ideal for a quick peek at the football scores before ploughing on with work.

16. Touch controls
Multitouch is the feature that's most likely to divide the Windows faithful. Some will see it as the next stage in an evolution that was rapidly accelerated by the iPhone; others will cling to keyboard and mouse and dismiss it as needless frippery.
Touch support and the new Taskbar haven't been included in our test build, so we can only form an early judgement on the hands-on trials we sampled at Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference. In our view, Microsoft hasn't gone far enough to accommodate hands-on controls.
Yes, the new larger Taskbar icons make it easier to select apps, and Microsoft has cleverly allowed programs such as Word to benefit from touch-based scrolling, zooms and pans, without doing any work to the application itself.
But in our experience, touch only works when the UI has been specifically designed for the purpose, as with the iPhone or HP's TouchSmart PCs, which put a separate touch overlay on Vista. There's nothing to stop the likes of HP doing the same with Windows 7, but we can't help thinking that pushing the onus of UI design on to PC manufacturers isn't the path to mainstream adoption.
Unless third-party developers can create compelling touch-based apps, we suspect multitouch will go the same way as the Tablet PC - a niche within a niche.
17. DirectAccess
DirectAccess promises to take much of the hassle out of remote working by providing access to the corporate network without having to tunnel in via a VPN. Using IPv6 over IPsec, DirectAccess encrypts data sent over the public internet, allowing remote workers access to the company network, intranet, shared folders and all the other data they'd have access to in-house.
PCs logging in via DirectAccess are managed in the same way as office-bound machines, meaning they can be constantly updated with security patches and subject to the same group policy rules as office machines, giving IT departments a much more secure, "always managed" infrastructure.
DirectAccess also allows internet traffic to be separated from access to the company's network, so workers can surf the web without adding to the company's network congestion.

18. Sensor support
Touch isn't the only new way to interact with a Windows 7 PC - the operating system also includes support for various sensors that will detect location, movement and light among other variables. We put this to the test with a prototype Freescale board sporting a three-axis accelerometer, an ambient light sensor and a proximity switch array.
The test applications that came with the board allowed us to zoom in and out on documents by moving the board back and forth, while another allowed us to tilt a marble across the screen in true Super Monkeyball style.

It's conceivable that such sensors will be embedded in laptops and UMPCs, as well as dedicated peripherals such as gamepads, opening up all manner of potential applications: panning around Google Earth by tilting a laptop, for example. This is definitely one to watch.
19. AppLocker
IT managers who want to prevent employees installing unauthorised software will benefit from the tighter controls afforded by AppLocker. This group-policy feature allows IT departments to specify installations right down to the version of the software concerned.
Companies might decide to allow employees to install only Flash version 9 and above, for example, to guard against security flaws in less secure versions. Conversely, they might want to prevent employees installing the latest version of an app until it's been subject to internal testing. Such publishing rules are based upon the application's digital signature, which is easier than writing a new rule for each version of an application.

20. Gadgets are go
Desktop gadgets have been let off the leash in Windows 7, with the sidebar condemned to the scrapheap and gadgets allowed to roam freely across the desktop.

They can also be resized, allowing you to give due prominence to favoured applets, and easily view them with the new Show Desktop button (see number 15). Microsoft says that "it's also easier for the applications you use to install helpful companion gadgets". Let's hope those gadgets turn out to be as "helpful" as billed.

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21. Remote apps that feel like a desktop
Although we've been unable to verify such claims, Microsoft promises that running applications via Remote Desktop will feel just like the real thing. "Users can more easily connect to remote applications and remote desktop sessions from any Windows 7 PC, whether in the office or on the road," Microsoft boasts. "Applications launch, look, and feel just like they do when running locally.

New applications that IT professionals make available automatically appear on the Start menu, so that users always have access to the latest programs."

22. DeviceStage

DeviceStage has the potential to become incredibly useful... or Windows 7's UAC. This feature sees Microsoft create specific "homepages" for devices such as digital cameras, smartphones and printers, and hand them over to the device manufacturer.

Aside from glossy pictures and logos linking to the manufacturer's website, the pages will (theoretically) contain links to applications and services specifically tailored to that device, such as a link to a website selling ink cartridges for that model of printer or extra software downloads for a mobile phone.

The problem with the DeviceStage concept is that it relies on the integrity of the hardware manufacturers. Will they use it to genuinely add value to their products, or will it be abused as a cheap marketing tool for extra subscription services and crapware? We can only hope it's the former.

23.Bluetooth wizard
A quick peek in the revamped System Tray reveals a new Bluetooth icon. Windows 7 adds support for Bluetooth 2.1, making it easier to discover and pair devices using a simple wizard. Our test Nokia E71 smartphone was paired within seconds, although the drivers failed to install properly on the phone, meaning we could send photos to the phone, but not vice versa. Hopefully, such niggles will be ironed out before launch.

24. Problem Steps Recorder
IT support staff will need a new form of exercise, as the Problem Steps Recorder might mean fewer trips up and down stairs in big offices. The troubleshooting feature takes screengrabs of the user's PC as they run through a process that's causing them problems - a botched installation or driver failure, say.

The screengrabs are then forwarded on to IT support, packaged with a batch of telemetry from the user's PC, hopefully allowing the technician to diagnose and even fix the problem from their desk, using a Remote Desktop session.

25. One-click Wi-Fi
It's one of those features that's so obvious you wonder how it took Microsoft so long to cotton on, especially since it's been a feature of Linux distributions for years, but new Wi-Fi networks are now only a click away.

A simple click on the wireless network System Tray icon produces a pop-up of available networks, rather than having to delve into the separate View Available Networks option that was found in XP and Vista. A small but worthwhile change.

26. Internet Explorer 8

Internet Explorer 8 isn't unique to Windows 7, with a beta already available for Vista, but in terms of usability there's no comparison between the two. On Windows 7, it's a revelation: not only does it launch quickly, but the pages render in a flash. Considering that performance was our main criticism of IE8 when we compared all the major browsers recently (see December 08, page 16), this bodes well for its future.

That said, it still falls well behind Google Chrome for JavaScript speed, with Chrome on average five times faster in the SunSpider benchmark. The interface also looks crowded compared with Chrome, and we're yet to be convinced that its Accelerators - where you select text from the current web page and get given the option to paste that text into, say, Google Search or Microsoft Translate - are the revolutionary time-saver Microsoft claims.

27. Wireless USB and Blu-ray write support
New operating system, new technologies to support. Ultra Wideband (UWB) and Wireless USB (WUSB) have rather stalled in the blocks, but should the wireless alternatives to USB cables ever take off, Windows 7 will support both. Also included for the first time is native support for burning Blu-ray discs.

28. BranchCache
In a bid to help office workers struggling with limited bandwidth, Microsoft is introducing BranchCache. The idea is that content from remote file and web servers is cached locally in the branch office - either on a server or distributed across Windows 7 client PCs.

This means, for example, that if one employee spends two minutes downloading a large PowerPoint presentation off the company's intranet, the next person in the same office will have access to the cached version of the file within seconds. BranchCache will work with any app based on the HTTPS and Server Message Block (SMB) protocols, but requires the company to have rolled out Windows Server 2008 R2.

29. Colour calibration tool
Although it definitely isn't a replacement for spectrometers, the new Display Colour Calibration wizard should help make colours look more natural and text sharper on LCDs.

It tells you how to adjust the parameters available through your monitor's onscreen menus to perfect contrast, brightness and sharpness. It also calibrates the ClearType text for LCD panels.

30. Toggle Windows features
Switching off unwanted Windows features used to involve an uninstall. Now, such features can be simply toggled on and off, with the files remaining on the hard disk should you decide to use them later.

After installing a new OS, most people just jump right in and start driving it through all their favorite applications and games. Makes sense, right? The operating system, after all, should be a background player in the computing experience—a means to an end, with the end being web surfing, content editing, and wanton destruction in the first-person shooter of one’s choice.

The problem, however, is that most people, even a lot of self-described power users, never take the time to really tune the new OS, exploring its menus and setting up the interface for the fastest, most convenient operation based on personal preferences. And as operating systems offer more and more user controls, it’s the curious, performance-minded enthusiast who has the most to gain from tuning an OS to his or her liking.

It’s been about six months since Windows 7 hit the market, so we figure most of our readers have made their upgrades. For those who’ve made that jump, we present a bottle of our favorite Windows 7 tips, each designed to help you extract the very last bits of convenience and GUI-navigating performance from your own personal dream machine. And if you haven’t yet upgraded to Win7, we trust you will after reading this article, as its core features—let alone its actual Lab-benchmarked performance—kicks Vista and XP ass.

We close out our tuning session with a tip designed to supercharge the process of installing the OS. By loading Windows 7 onto a USB key, and making that key a bootable drive, you can do an end-run around slow optical-drive technology and install your OS in (pardon the pun) a flash.

It’s time to get started. Park your computer, but don’t shut down. This is one PC tune-up that can only be done with your engine running.

Keyboard Shortcuts for Committed Mouse Abolitionists

Let’s kick off this power-user party with keyboard shortcuts—tricks every enthusiast should memorize when mastering a new OS. We’re confident the following time-saving keystrokes will save you precious neural processing cycles, and make your mouse jealous with neglect.

Alt + P

In Windows Explorer, this shortcut activates a preview pane of your selected file, be it an image, sound, or video document. This panel is great for previewing images in your photos directory, obviating the need for fancier third-party software.

Windows + Up and Windows + Down

If a window isn’t maximized, pressing the Windows + Up arrow key will make it fill your entire screen. Windows + Down arrow will minimize that active window.

Windows + Shift + Up and Windows + Shift + Down

Hitting these three keys will vertically stretch an active window to the maximum desktop height (the width of the window, however, will stay the same). Pressing Windows + Shift+ Down will restore the window to its previous dimensions.

Windows + + and Windows + -

Pressing the Windows button with either the plus or minus key activates the Magnifier, letting you zoom in on the entire desktop or open a rectangular magnifying lens to zoom in on (and out of) parts of your screen. You can also customize the Magnifier to follow your mouse pointer or keyboard cursor.

Windows + Left and Windows + Right

These two shortcuts will make your active window fill up exactly one half of your screen—depending on which arrow key you use. And once a window is fixed to one side of the screen, you can repeat the shortcut with the same arrow key to flip it to the other side.

Windows + Home

This shortcut minimizes every open window on your desktop except the active window. Pressing this shortcut again restores all the minimized windows.

Windows + T

Like Alt + Tab (still our all-time-favorite Windows shortcut), Windows + T cycles through thumbnails of your open programs via the Taskbar’s peek menu.

Windows + E

Automatically opens up a new Explorer window to show your Libraries folder.

Windows + P

Manage your multiple-monitor setup more efficiently with this handy shortcut. Windows + P opens a small overlay that lets you configure a second display or projector. You can switch from a single monitor to dual-display in either mirror or extend-desktop mode.

Windows + Shift + Left and Windows + Shift + Right

If you’re using two or more displays—and you are, aren’t you?—memorize this shortcut to easily move a window from one screen to the other. The window retains its size and relative position on the new screen, which is useful when working with multiple documents.

Windows + [Number]

Programs (and new instances) pinned to your Taskbar can be launched by hitting Windows and the appropriate number key. Windows + 1, for example, launches the first application in the taskbar, while Windows + 4 will launch the fourth.

Windows + Space

This combo performs the same function as moving your mouse to the bottom right of the Taskbar: It makes every active window transparent (save faint outlines) so you can view the desktop underneath.

Track Your Actions with Problem Step Recorder

To aid their development of Windows 7 beta versions, the Microsoft engineers built in a diagnostic tool called Problem Steps Recorder that combines screen captures with mouse tracking to record your actions. You can launch this program from the Start Menu by typing psr.exe in the search field. Hit the Record button and the applet tracks your mouse and keyboard input while taking screenshots that correspond with each new action. When you stop recording, your session is saved to an HTML slide show recreating your steps, to which you can add comments and annotations. This tool is insanely useful if you need to create a tutorial for a computer-illiterate relative. Hi Mom, hi Dad!

Master Your New Font Manager

Font management is much improved in Windows 7. The Add Fonts dialog is history, and in its place is new functionality within the Fonts folder itself. First, the folder now shows font previews via each font file’s icon (visible with Large or Extra Large icon views). Second, fonts from a single set will no longer show up as different fonts; they’re now combined as a single family, which can be expanded by double-clicking the icon. Third, you can now toggle fonts on and off by right-clicking a font icon and selecting the Hide option. This prevents applications from loading the font (thus saving memory), but still keeps the file retained in the Font folder. Finally, Windows 7 includes a new fancy, free-flowing font called Gabriola that shows off the advanced antialiasing, text rendering, and “stylistic alternate” font flourishes afforded by DirectWrite (Microsoft’s API for 2D text rendering) and OpenType.

Launch Games with Keystrokes

One of our biggest annoyances with Windows Vista was the Games Folder, aka the Gaming Grotto, aka the Gaming Ghetto. In Vista, Games for Windows titles and other game shortcuts automatically install to this directory, which you can only access with a Start Menu shortcut. This scheme prevents you from starting a game from the Start Menu search bar (aka the power user, keyboard-only method). Indeed, while you can launch any other application by mashing the Windows key, and typing its name in the Start Menu field, this isn’t the case for games installed to Vista’s Games Folder. Well, this oversight is fixed in Windows 7, and the universe is now home to slightly less evil.

Burn a Spittin' Image

You can quit messing around with ostensibly free, malware-infected burning software, because Windows 7 comes loaded with a DVD and CD ISO burning application. Just double-click your image file and Windows will start a tiny program window to help burn your disc. It’s a bare-bones app, but it works!

Become More Wordly with Hidden Wallpapers

Besides its default desktop wallpaper, Win7 includes desktop backgrounds catered to your region (which is identified when you first install the OS). We Americans, for example, get six 1900x1200 images showing off National Parks and beaches. However, if your tastes run more international—don’t worry, we won’t hold that against you—you can grab wallpapers for other regions from a hidden folder. Type globalization in a search of your C: drive. The only result should be a folder located in the main Windows directory, and you should only be able to see ELS and Sorting folders nested here. Now search for MCT in the top-right search bar. This will display five new unindexed folders, each corresponding to a different global region. Browse these folders for some extra themes and wallpapers specific to Australia, United Kingdom, South Africa, and Canada.

Take Control of UAC

Despite good intentions, User Account Control pop-ups were one of the most annoying aspects of Vista, and thus UAC became a feature that most of us immediately disabled after a clean install. UAC in Windows 7 displays fewer warnings, but you can also fine-tune its notification habits by launching the UAC Settings dialog from the Start Menu. Just type UAC in the Start Menu search field and click the result. We find that setting the bar to just one tick above “Never notify” provides a comfortable balance between mindful security and incessant, Alice Kramden–caliber nagging.

Calculate Your Mortgage and Other Math Tricks

The reliable Calculator applet has been beefed up to do more than just basic arithmetic. You can now toggle between Standard, Scientific, Programmer, and even Statistics modes. In addition, the Options menu lets you pull out many new automated conversation tools, such as Unit Conversion (e.g., Angles, Temperature, Velocity, and Volume) and Date Calculation (e.g., calculate the difference between two dates). More templates give you the ability to crunch gas mileage, lease tipping points, and even mortgage estimates (yeah, right!) based on any variables you input.

Reveal All of Your Drives

If you use built-in memory-card readers in a 3.5-inch drive bay or on your desktop display, empty memory card slots will not show up as drives in My Computer. But that doesn’t mean they’re not still there. To reveal hidden memory card slots, open My Computer. Press Alt to show the toolbar at the top of the screen, and go to Folder Options under Tools. Hit the View tab and uncheck the “Hide empty drives in the Computer folder” option.

Use Devices and Printers to Quickly Dig into Hardware

Tired of switching between Device Manager, Properties menus for your devices, and the Start Menu to manage and use printers, digital cameras, mice, and other peripherals? Windows 7 comes to your rescue with its Devices and Printers dialog. Open Control Panel and select View Devices and Printers from the Hardware and Sound category. Right-click a device icon in Devices and Printers to configure the hardware, create shortcuts, troubleshoot, view properties, and run programs. Devices and Printers can save you a lot of effort. For example, when you use it to manage your computer, you have one-touch access to 12 different Control Panel and Explorer interfaces. And when you use a Windows 7–specific driver that supports Device Stage, Devices and Printers uses thumbnail art of theactual device, as shown.

Calibrate Your Notebook's Text and Color

After doing a clean install of Windows 7 on a notebook, the first thing you should do is tune and calibrate Clear Type text and Display Color. Windows 7 includes two built-in wizards that run you through the entire process, pain-free. Launch Clear Type Text Tuning by typing cttune in the Start Menu search field and opening the search result. You’ll go through a brief series of steps that ask you to identify the best-looking text-rendering method. For Display Color Calibration—useful if you’re using Windows 7 with a projector or large-screen LCD—search and launch dccw from the Start Menu. It’ll run you through a series of pages where you can adjust the gamma, brightness, contrast, and color of the screen to make images look their best.

Control AutoPlay Settings Like a Megalomaniacal Tyrant

Windows 7’s version of AutoPlay, like its predecessors’, lets you specify what to do with media types when you connect an external drive or insert a disc. Sure, you may have hated AutoPlay in Windows XP, but Win7 provides you with reasons to take a fresh look. As in Vista, Win7 lets you configure AutoPlay settings by media type, but you should poke around for more tweaking options. Open Control Panel, select Hardware and Sound, and then select AutoPlay. By default, Win7 uses AutoPlay for all media and devices; this can be unchecked, and from there you can personalize AutoPlay actions like a madman. Note that each type of media—music CDs, DVDs, software and games, media files, blank media, and video discs—offers you choices based on Windows utilities as well as third-party programs. Choose your favorite app as an AutoPlay default, or to keep the traditional pop-up AutoPlay menu, select Ask Me Every Time.

Solve External Hard Drive Hassles with Convert.exe

Windows 7 prefers hard disk drives that use the NTFS file system: Its integrated backup program cannot back up files from or to drives that use the older FAT32 file system. So, if you select a drive that uses FAT32 as the backup location, Windows 7 displays an error message. FAT32, a leftover from the days of Windows 98, works with both MacOS and Windows (which is why most external hard disks use this file system by default), but it lacks the features needed to fully support Windows 7 backup. Use Convert.exe to solve this problem. Open a command-prompt session and use the following command to change your external hard disk’s file system: convert x: /fs:ntfs(replace x with the actual drive letter of your external hard disk). Convert.exe will check your external hard disk for errors, verify there’s enough space for conversion, and then convert with abandon. While this theoretically will not destroy your data, we recommend you back up your files first.

Convert WMC Recordings for Use with Vista and XP

Windows Media Center (WMC) improved in the jump from Vista to Windows 7—you’ll find better integration of cable, broadcast, and Internet TV in the program guide, better support for widescreen displays, and a refined user interface, among other changes. But if you want to share your recordings with Windows XP or Vista users, or use the dozens of recording and file-conversion utilities made for those versions of WMC, you’re sort of screwed, as Windows 7 no longer uses the DVR-MS file format for recording. Instead, it uses WTV (Windows TV), and WTV files can’t be used by older versions of WMC or Windows Media Player.

You can, however, convert a TV recording from WTV to DVR-MS by using the conversion utility provided in Win7.

TV recordings are stored by default in the Public Recorded TV library. Open the library, right-click the recording, and select Convert to DVR-MS Format. At the end of the conversion process, the Recorded TV library contains both your original .wtv file as well the .dvr-ms conversion. The .dvr-ms file can be used with programs designed for Windows XP and Windows Vista Windows Media Center, and can be played on Windows Media Center and Windows Media Player in Windows XP and Windows Vista.

Command Windows 7 to Generate an Energy Report

As a power user, you may be concerned with power consumption, making the command-line utility powercfg.exe a must-see. To create a report on your PC’s energy appetite, press the Windows key and type cmd in the search box. Right-click cmd and select Run as Administrator. Now, select the box and type powercfg –energy at the command-line prompt, and hit Enter. Powercfg will run for about 60 seconds, then generate a report called energy-report.html in C:\Windows\system32. This report will notify you of anything in your computer that is keeping the CPU cycling, thus burning power and sucking notebook batteries dry. After you run the report, you’ll likely find that USB devices never entered Suspend state. While you might think the power consumption of a USB key is pretty insignificant, if it prevents the CPU from cycling off, that device can really hit where it hurts—in your battery’s nards.

Cling (Desperately) to Vista's Taskbar

Let’s start with the bad news: Windows 7 eliminates the option to use the classic grey Windows 2000–style Taskbar. You’re also committed to the modern version of the Start Menu. But the good news is that you can still tweak the Taskbar to make it run like it did in Windows Vista, replacing the program icons with the names of each open app. Right-click the Taskbar and hit Properties. Check the “Use small icons” box and select “Combine when Taskbar is full” from the drop-down menu under Taskbar buttons. You still get the peek-view thumbnail feature of the Taskbar, and inactive programs remain as single icons, but open programs will display their full names.

Exile Programs to the System Tray

All active programs show up as icons on the Taskbar, whether you want them to or not. While this is useful for web browsing or word processing, your taskbar can get cluttered with icons you would normally expect to be hidden away, like those for Steam or a chat client. You can, however, keep active instances of these programs hidden away in the System Tray/Notification Area by right-clicking their shortcuts, navigating to the Compatibility tab, and selecting Windows Vista under the Compatibility Mode drop-down menu. Just be aware that this only works for programs that would previously hide away from the Taskbar in Vista.

Manage Your Jump Lists

The Jump List, a list of shortcuts to files or tasks for a particular Start Menu or Taskbar item, is one of the most significant improvements in Windows 7. Each time you open a file or website, or run a task with a program that supports Jump Lists, Windows 7 stores the shortcut to the file, website, or task for reuse. Unlike Windows XP, however, Windows 7 doesn’t group these shortcuts into a single location. Instead, it stores shortcuts for each program’s files, websites, or tasks in a separate shortcut list—aka the Jump List. To see the Jump List for a program in the Start Menu, simply click the right-arrow icon. To see the Jump List for a program icon on the Taskbar, right-click the icon. Windows eventually removes items from the Jump List when it runs out of space, but you can override this. To make any Jump List item a permanent entry, highlight it and click the pushpin icon (reverse this process to unpin it). And if the idea of leaving an icon trail of all your recent history disturbs you, you can disable Jump Lists entirely: Right-click the Start Menu, choose Properties, and uncheck the two boxes under Privacy.

Organize Your Taskbar and System Tray

The programs that you pin to your Taskbar can be moved around to any order you want, whether they’re just shortcut icons or currently active applications. The Taskbar, if unlocked, can also be dragged to latch to the left, right, or even top of your desktop. As shown below, Windows 7 improves side-docked Taskbar support with better gradient rendering and shortcut support. It really works well if you’re using a widescreen monitor. Just as the Taskbar icons can be rearranged at will, the icons in the System Tray (actually called the Notification Area) can be dragged and set to any order, as well. Hidden Icons can be dragged back into view, and you can hide icons by dragging them over the white triangle, and dropping them into the Hidden Icon well—much easier than working through the Notification Area Customization menu.

Accelerate Your Start Menu

The Start Menu hasn’t changed much from Vista, but there are some notable improvements. The behavior of the power button has been changed to Shut Down, as opposed to Hibernate, which was the asinine default in Vista. But you can also change the button default to do other actions. Right-click the Start Menu, and choose Properties. From the Power Button Action drop-down, you can choose a new default button behavior. If you hit the Customize button, you’ll enter a world of opportunities that help you control what the Start Menu displays. Most options are turned off, but you may want some on, like the option to display recorded TV files, a feature that’s new in Windows 7. Also be aware that Start Menu items should be set to “Display as a link” if you want them to open up Jump Lists.

Arrange Files by Type, Month, Artist, and Other Options

Windows Vista introduced the concept of using the Details folder view to group files by criteria such as name, date modified, type, size, and other options. These choices are still available in any folder by right-clicking inside the folder and selecting them from the options menu. But Window 7 does Vista one better with its new Libraries scheme, which enables you to view the contents of multiple file locations in a single logical folder. And as you’d expect, each Library comes correct with contextual file-arrangement options that vary according to what’s being viewed. For example, in the Pictures library, you can choose from Day, Rating, Tag, and Month. For videos, maybe arranging by Length, as in our screenshot, is most relevant. You get the point.

Pin Folders to Favorites and Start Menu

Explorer’s Jump List shows your seven most frequently visited folders, but you can manually bookmark some favorites to the top of the list by pinning folder locations. Just right-click any folder—either on your desktop or from an open instance of Explorer—and drag that folder icon to the Explorer shortcut on the Taskbar. You’ll see a message that reads “Pin to Windows Explorer” before you release the mouse button. The folder will appear under a Pinned section of the Jump List, and you can remove it by clicking the “Unpin from this list” icon on the right side of the panel. You can also right-click and drag a folder directly to the Start button to pin that folder to the general Start list.

Put an OS in Your Pocket

How to load Windows 7 onto a bootable USB key

To complete your Windows 7 power-user experience, you may consider dropping the whole darn OS onto a USB drive. Whether you carry it around in your pocket or toss it in a desk drawer, it’s a perfect boot disk for emergency installs—including those times when you’re working with a netbook or some other computer that lacks an optical drive. Even better, your install times will be significantly reduced, thanks to your key’s flash memory—we shaved off minutes from our total install time.

Here’s how to create a schmancy-fancy boot key for either Windows 7 or Vista—but not for other OSes, so please don’t try! We’ve run a truncated version of this article in the magazine before, but because it was so incredibly popular—and so germane to this feature story—we’ve decided to share it again, this time with more detail and screens.

1. Format Your USB Key

Plug in your USB key and back up any existing data stored on it. You’ll need to format the key (thus erasing existing data) before you can make it a bootable device. We used an 8GB key, but a 4GB key will also work.

2. Partition that Key in CMD

Open up a command prompt as an Administrator. You can do this by searching for cmd.exe in your Windows/System32 folder, right-clicking the executable, and selecting “Run as administrator.” Alternatively, type CMD in the Start Menu search field and activate the command prompt using Ctrl + Shift + Enter.

You should now be under C:\Windows\system32 (assuming your Windows partition is the C drive). Type diskpartin the command line to enter the Disk Partition command-line tool, which lets you format and create partitions on active disks. Now type list disk to reveal a list of all your active disks, each of which is associated with a number. Make a note of which one is your USB key, based on the capacity. In this screenshot, our USB drive is Disk 2.

3. Format Away (Command-Prompt Style)

It’s now time to enter a load of commands to properly partition the key, and format for the NTFS (did you know this stands for “New Technology File System”?). In succession, enter the following—and type carefully, Jimbo!

Select Disk # (where # is the number of your USB disk. We typed Select Disk 2 for this job)

Clean (this removes any existing partitions from the USB disk, including any hidden sectors)

Create Partition Primary (creates a new primary partition with default parameters)

Select Partition 1 (focuses operation on the newly created partition)

Active (sets the partition to active, informing the disk firmware that this is a valid system partition)

Format FS=NTFS (formats the partition with the NTFS file system. This may take several minutes to complete, depending on the size of your USB key)

Assign (this gives the USB drive a Windows volume and next available drive letter, which you should write down. In our case, drive “L” was assigned)

Exit (quits the DiskPart tool)

4. Copy Windows DVD to a Desktop Folder

Insert the Windows 7 installation DVD into your drive, and view the files that it contains. Copy all of the files to a folder on your Desktop. We put the disc contents in a folder named Windows 7.

5. Turn Your Key into a Bootable Device

Now, go back to your command prompt, running it as an Administrator. Using the CD command, navigate your way to the folder where you placed the Windows disk ISO files. Your command line path should look something likeC:\Users\USERNAMEHERE\Desktop\Windows 7\ if you followed our lead on folder placement. Now type the following commands:

CD Boot (this gets you into the boot directory)

Bootsect.exe /nt60 L: (this assumes L is the drive letter assigned to your USB key from the previous step)

In case you’re wondering, Bootsect infuses boot manager–compatible code into your USB key to make it a bootable device. Also be aware that if you’re currently running 32-bit Windows Vista or 7, Bootsect will only work if you use the files from the 32-bit Windows 7 install disc. The Bootsect executable from the 64-bit version will not run in 32-bit Vista. Don’t forget it!

6. Load the USB Key with Your Install Files

Copy all of the extracted ISO files into the USB drive. You don’t need to do this from the command prompt. Just drag and drop the files from the Windows 7 folder into the USB drive using Windows Explorer. We also recommend copying your hardware drivers onto the same key so the installation wizard can find them.

Your USB key is now all ready to go! Plug it into your target system and make sure you enter the BIOS (typically by hitting F2 or F12) to temporarily change the boot order to allow booting from the USB key before your primary hard drive or optical drive. Now, when you plug the key into a machine, your system should automatically begin speedily downloading setup files off of the USB key and entering Windows 7 installation.

 

Many peoples often forgot their windows login password. I have a good method to reset password without formatting.

Download Hiren’s BootCD from the following link http://www.hirensbootcd.net/download.html?ver=9.9 the download links should be at the bottom of the page

– Boot the computer from Hiren’s BootCD

Normally, the BIOS screen tells you the keyboard key you need to press to change the boot order, on most computers is F9 or F12 but yours might be different, so watch out for that on the boot-up menu.

once you boot from the CD, Hiren BootCD startup page should look like this:

scroll down and choose Mini Windows XP from the menu. your computer should start booting:

Once on the desktop, it should look like this:

click on the BootCD WinTools diskettes icon.

that should bring the tools menu.

from the menu choose, Password/Keys > Password Renew:

that should bring the renew password utility:

on the right, click on Select a target button:

that should bring the Windows directory. on the C: drive, select the Windows directory:

click on OK. now the directory path should look like this:

on the select task menu click on Renew existing user account:

the Renew existing user password window will come up.

on this window type the New Password and then Confirm password and then click on the Install button on the left panel.

you should get a notification confirming the account password has been changed:

close out of everything and reboot your computer in normal mode. your administrator password should now be changed.

I have tested this procedure on Windows XP Windows Vista and Windows 7 and it works fine, so if yours somehow does not work, go back through the steps again and make sure you have not missed any