Though Vista and XP users can enjoy some of the Windows 7's goodies, either directly or by proxy, various highly desirable features are available only in the genuine article. Here are five that will require you to roll a 7.
Much of the excitement about Windows 7 relates to an assortment of user-interface improvements: a little eye candy here, a few window-management tweaks there. Below are some of the highlights, along with the tools you'll need to get them for your current OS.
Informal speed tests show that Windows 7 boots faster than Vista, and many users have reported that it "feels" faster during everyday operation. (Maybe that's because the User Account Control is more restrained in Windows 7 than in Vista and doesn't pester them so often.) But you can take some practical steps to goose Vista so that it will acquire some of Windows 7's pep.
While it's easy for Firefox die-hards like me to turn our noses up at Internet Explorer, the fact is that Microsoft's browser has made a lot of progress. You've no doubt heard about newfangled features like Accelerators and Web Slices (see Preston Gralla's full IE8 review for more details), but IE8 also has plenty of small but worthwhile usability improvements.
A good password can mean the difference between identity safety and identity theft. Unfortunately, too many otherwise intelligent people rely on ridiculously weak passwords, the kind that make hackers rub their hands with glee.
As you may have heard, Microsoft plans to pull the plug on the Encarta Web sites and software later this year. Bummer! I can't say I used the service all that much, but I'm saddened to see the demise of such a well-known reference resource.
For the last couple months I've been troubleshooting a vexing problem on my new quad-core HP desktop: Roughly once per week, the machine would start running as slow as molasses.
When we last left our intrepid blogger (way back on Friday), he'd pointed the finger at Vista's Disk Defragmenter and cried, "J'accuse!"
Entertainment doesn't have to be expensive, even with a large HDTV and great content.
