Windows 7

ACS
Jolanta Soltis

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Where were at

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2006-2009
Windows Vista didnt exactly get a positive
reception.
That said, it delivered on Microsofts promise to
update the foundation of Windows to something
more modern.
That foundation is used in Windows 7.

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Windows 7

Windows 7 is all about delivering on the failures of Vista.

Performance improvements

Boot-up time is faster than with Windows Vista, and Windows 7 resumes
from sleep and reconnects to wireless networks more quickly.
Search has been optimized to return results faster.
Services that aren't in use are turned off, and memory is used more
efficiently than in Vista, increasing performance.
USB devices are ready for use in less time after you plug them in.

Power management

Automatically dims the screen after a period of inactivity when on battery

power
Powers off unused ports
Uses less power for DVD playback

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Features
Improved desktop navigation, featuring
Aero Shake, Aero Peek and Snap
Quicker program loads with enhanced
desktop search functionality
Internet Explorer 8 pre-loaded for safer
surfing
Enhanced Media Center functionality
Access Windows XP productivity programs
in Windows XP mode
Join corporate networks more easily with
Domain Join
Protect and recover your valuable data
more easily with automated backups to
your home and business networks

Home
Premium
Yes

Yes

Ultima
te
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Yes

Yes

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No

Yes
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No

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Yes

No

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Yes

Pro

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Windows 7 for end users

(the fun stuff)

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Windows 7 System
Requirements

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

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Setup
Setup has been simplified.
Clean install in 15-20 minutes.
Upgrade: Averages a couple of hours.
Windows XP users: No upgrade for you.
Dont forget the Upgrade Advisor.

NJIT Windows 7 page - http://ist.njit.edu/support/windows7/index.php

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User experience
Biggest end user changes are in the UI...
Personalization with Aero Themes and slideshows.
Major changes to the Taskbar Pinning, Jump Lists,
Live Previews, and more.
Notification area clean-up.
Libraries and Windows Explorer.
Windows Aero desktop effects: Aero Peek, Aero
Snaps, Aero Shake.

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Aero interface features

With the new Aero features of Windows 7, it's easier to get work done.

Desktop and Taskbar

You have more control over the
arrangement of your desktop
with the removal of the sidebar,
which was introduced in Windows
Vista.
Gadgets can still be placed on
the desktop, wherever you want
them.

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Get what you need in an

instant
Accessing
frequently used
programs andfiles
Many of us have a fairly small
group of programs and files we
use often. So it makes sense to
keep them handy all the time. The
Start menu is essentially a blank
slate that you can organize and
customize to suit your
preferences.

Click the Start button

. If you
dont see the program you want,
simply type it into the search
box.
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Get what you need in an

instant

You can then pin your favorite programs to the Start

menu for easy access by right-clicking the program
and clicking Pin to Start Menu.
You can also pin your favorite programs to the
taskbar by right-clicking the program and selecting
Pin to Taskbar, or by dragging the program from
the Start menu or the desktop to the taskbar. You
can rearrange the buttons on the taskbar any way
you like by dragging them.

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Jump Lists
Lists of recently opened items,
such as files, folders, or Web sites,
organized by the program that you
use to open them.
To open an item from the Jump List
on the Start menu, click the Start
button . Point to a program on the
Start menu to open the programs
Jump List, and then click the item.

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Jump List
To pin your favorite files to the Jump
List, point to the file in the Jump List,
and click the push-pin. The item then
appears at the top of the Jump List. To
unpin an item from a Jump List, point
to the item, and click the pushpin.
(Notice that the push-pin has a
different tooltip, Unpin from this
list.) The item is no longer pinned to
the top of the Jump List.

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The taskbar
The horizontal bar at the bottom of the screen , gives
you a quick way to access the programs and files you
have open.
With this new feature in Windows 7, called Peek, you
can point to a taskbar button to preview open files or
programs. Point to the thumbnail to preview the
window full-screen. Click the thumbnail to open the
window, or click the x in the upper-right corner of the
thumbnail to quickly close the window.

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The taskbar
When you right-click a taskbar
icon, you see a jump list that
displays files you've recently
opened with that application as
well as common tasks that you
can perform directly from the
jump list.

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Snap, Shake and Peek

New to Windows 7.
Help you organize and resize windows and reduce desktop clutter:
Aero Snap makes it easy to display two windows side-by-side by
dragging them to opposite sides of the display.

To maximize a window, drag it to the top. If you want to extend a window to the full
length of the screen but keep the current width, resize it to the top of the screen.

With Aero Shake, grab a window with the pointer and drag it back
and forth quickly to minimize all other windows. Shake it again to
bring the other windows back.
Aero Peek puts a transparent button at the extreme right end of
the taskbar (if it's horizontal) or the bottom (if it's vertical), after the
notification area.

Hover over it with the pointer and all windows become transparent so you can see
your desktop and gadgets. Move the pointer away and the windows are restored.

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Snipping Tool
Snipping Tool captures a screen shot of any object on your screen,
like a paragraph in a document, a picture youre editing, or a section
of a Web page. When you want to share an idea or ask a question,
its a great way to show your students what youre talking about.
Click the Start button and type snip in the search box. Click
Snipping Tool in the Programs section at the top of the Start menu.
On the New menu, select the type of snip you want:
Free-form Snip. Draw a free-form shape around an object.
Rectangular Snip.Drag the cursor around an object to form a
rectangle.
Window Snip.Select a window, such as a browser window or dialog
box, that you want to capture.
Full-screen Snip.Capture the entire screen.

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Snipping Tool
Then select the area of your screen that you want
to capture. It's automatically copied to the
Clipboard and the Snipping Tool mark-up window.
From the mark-up window, you can write on, draw
on, highlight, save, or e-mail the snip.

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Snipping Tool

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Sticky Notes
Sticky Notes are colorful reminder notes you can
stick on your desktop. They are even handier in
Windows 7. You can format the text, and speedily
resize, collapse, and flip through notes.
To create a sticky note, click the Start button and
type sticky in the search box. Click Sticky Notes in
the Programs section at the top of the Start menu.
To create additional notes, click the New Note
button. You can also open a new note by pressing
CTRL+N.

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Sticky Notes
To resize a note, drag an edge or corner of the note to make it
larger or smaller.
To delete a note, click the Delete Note button. You can also
delete a note by pressing CTRL+D.
To change the color of a sticky note, right-click the note and
then choose a color.
To format text in a sticky note, select the text you want to
change. Use the following keyboard shortcuts to format the text
on your note:
Type of formatting
Bold text
Italic text
Underlined text
Strikethrough
Bulleted list
Increased text size
Decreased text size

Keyboard shortcut
CTRL+B
CTRL+I
CTRL+U
CTRL+T
CTRL+SHIFT+L
(Press this keyboard shortcut again to switch to a numbered list.)
CTRL+SHIFT+>
CTRL+SHIFT+<
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New Windows Explorer

Features
Improvements
to Windows 7's Windows Explorer file manager make it easier
to organize and find your files, whether they're stored on your hard drive, an
external drive or on the network.
Libraries
The biggest change to Windows Explorer is the
addition of libraries. Libraries are virtual folders that
give you an aggregated view of the contents of
multiple actual folders. This lets you see all files of a
particular type (such as pictures) together, even
though they may be stored in different physical
locations. There are four default libraries: Documents,
Music, Pictures and Videos. You can also add your own
libraries. Figure 3 shows a library for downloaded
programs that has been added.

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New and improved built-in

applications
Some applications included with Windows have been updated and improved, and handy
new ones added.
Internet Explorer 8:

Windows 7 ships with the latest version of Internet Explorer, which includes many new features:
Accelerators: Provides a quick way to perform common tasks from a website by highlighting text and then
choosing the action. For example, highlight an address and select to see a map of the location or highlight a
sentence and select to translate it with Bing. You can add accelerators from the Accelerators Gallery.
InPrivate Browsing: Allows you to browse the web without leaving tracks in the form of Internet history,
temporary Internet files (cache) or cookies.
Web Slices: Enables you to subscribe to a part of a web page, which will be automatically updated when it
changes.
SmartScreen Filter: Protects you from malicious websites such as phishing sites.
Suggested Sites: Suggests websites you might be interested in, based on the sites you've visited most
often.
Tab isolation and crash recovery: Each tab runs in its own process so if one crashes, others aren't
affected. A crashed tab automatically reloads. You can also reopen closed tabs or reopen your entire
previous browsing session.

Internet Explorer 9:

Fast, simplified design, one-click access to your favorite sites, integration with Windows 7, etc.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/internet-explorer/help/ie-9/9-reasons-to-get-internet-explorer-9
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Desktop gadgets for

teachers
Windows contains mini-programs called gadgets,

which offer information at a glance and provide

easy access to frequently used tools.
Right-click anywhere on your desktop and then click
Gadgets. Double-click a gadget to add it to your
desktop. You can also add additional gadgets by
clicking Get more gadgets online in the lowerright corner. To remove gadgets you already have,
right-click the gadget, and click Close gadget.

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Desktop gadgets for

Many of the available gadgets are really handy for teachers,

teachers
including gadgets for a dictionary/thesaurus, Wikipedia, multilingual

vocabulary, periodic table, unit converter, currency converter, moon

phases, astronomy center, a to-do list, and more. You can even
watch NASA TV Live or listen to radio stations from around the world.
You can customize a gadget by moving it, resizing it, and making
other changes:
To move a gadget, drag it wherever you want it.
To change a gadgets options, right-click the gadget, and then click
Options. Change the options and then click OK.
To resize a gadget, right-click it, point to Size, and click the size you
want the gadget to be.
To keep a gadget on top of your other windows so its always visible,
right-click the gadget, and click Always on top.

Watch a video on how to customize desktop gadgets here:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/customize-desktopgadgets.
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Accelerators

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New and improved built-in

applications
Calculator
The built-in calculator in Windows 7 adds two new modes:
Programmer: Calculates in and converts between hexadecimal,
decimal, octal and binary numbers, and displays byte, word, Dword
and Qword data types.
Statistics: Adds keys for statistical calculations involving linear
regression.
Another handy addition is a calculation history, which appears at
the top of the entry field.
New unit conversion pane, which handles units of area, angles,
length, volume, weight/mass, energy, power, pressure, time,
velocity, temperature and more.
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Paint
The built-in Paint program now uses the familiar ribbon
interface from Office, as shown in Figure 6, making it
easier to use. It now supports opening transparent .PNG
and .ICO files, adds realistic digital brushes and supports
multi-touch, so you can paint directly on the screen with
your fingers with a touch screen monitor.

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Improved search
Windows 7 includes the Explorer search box as in Windows
Vista but it adds a new feature: search suggestions.
When you click in the box, you see a list of recent searches, as
well as search filters (customized for the type of files in the
folder) that you can select to filter search results.
These improvements make it easy for you to use the search
bar to quickly search across file types and libraries for all
documents pertaining to a particular client.
To use arrangement views, search filters and suggestions, you
must have library locations indexed. When you include a
location in a library, Windows 7 automatically adds those
locations to be indexed. Locations on another machine are
indexed if that machine is running Windows Search 4.
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Connect to a wireless
network

To open Connect to a Network, click the network icon

( or ) in the notification area in the lower-right corner of
your screen. In the list of available wireless networks,
click a network, and then click Connect. If prompted,
type the network security key, and then click OK. Now
youre connected to the network.

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Location-Aware Printing

If youve got Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate on your laptop, you can automatically switch
default printers for each network you useat home and at school. Then you wont have to manually
switch printers when you move between locations. So when you print at school, Windows 7 will
automatically print to your school printer. When you print at home, Windows 7 will automatically
select and use your home printer.
First, be sure that your computer is connected to the printer you need. You can add a local printer or
add a network, wireless, or Bluetooth printer.
To add a local printer that is directly connected to your PC:

First, connect the printer to your computer following the manufacturer's instructions. Windows attempts to
automatically install the printer. If Windows can't automatically install it or if you've removed the printer and
want to add it again, follow these steps:
Click the Start button , and then click Devices and Printers.
Click Add a printer.
In the Add Printer wizard, select Add a local printer.
On the Choose a printer port page, make sure that Use an existing port and the recommended printer port
are selected, and then click Next.
On the Install the printer driver page, select the printer manufacturer and model, and then click Next. Note,
if your printer is not listed, click Windows Update, and then wait while Windows checks for additional drivers. If
none are available and you have the manufacturer's installation CD, click Have disk, and then browse to the
folder where the printer driver is stored. For additional help, refer to the manufacturer's instructions .
Complete the additional steps in the wizard, and then click Finish.

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To add a network, wireless, or Bluetooth printer:

To change a default printer:

Make sure you know the name of the printer that you want to add before you begin. Sometimes the name is displayed on
the printer itself. If the name is not on the printer, contact the printer owner or your network administrator to find out the
printer's name before you follow the steps below.
Click the Start button , and then click Devices and Printers.
Click Add a printer.
In the Add Printer wizard, select Add a network, wireless or Bluetooth printer.
In the list of available printers, select the one you want to use, and then click Next. If your computer is connected to a
network, only printers listed in Active Directory for your domain are displayed in the list.
If prompted, install the printer driver on your computer. If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation,
type the password or provide confirmation.
Complete the additional steps in the wizard, and then click Finish.
Click the Start button , and then click Devices and Printers.
Right-click a printer, and then click Set as default printer.

To manage Location-Aware Printing settings:

Click the Start button , and then click Devices and Printers.
Click a printer, and then click Manage default printers on the toolbar.
Click Change my default printer when I change networks.
In the Select network list, click a network.
In the Select printer list, click a corresponding default printer.
Click Add.
Repeat steps 4, 5, and 6 to select printers for any other networks you connect to. When you're finished, click OK.

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Resources
Take a Windows 7 tour, and watch videos about Windows 7
features here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows7/videos-tours.aspx.
For faculty, visit http://www.microsoft.com/win7
For faculty, visit http://www.microsoft.com/win7
Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor http://tinyurl.com/w7advisor
10 Cool Tools in Windows 7:
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=738
System Requirements:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/get/systemrequirements.aspx
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Tune Up you PC
How to get information about your PC?
How to update Windows 7?
What is notification area?

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How to get information

about your PC?
Start
Type: system information in the
search box
Select: System Information from
the resulting list

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How to update Windows 7?

Windows Update is a utility that downloads and
installs updates to your system, and it's configured
to run automatically by default in Windows 7.
Start > All Programs > Windows Update,
select Tools> Windows Update in Internet Explorer

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What is notification area?

The notification area appears on the right side
of the taskbar. Sometimes it's called the
system tray, or just the tray. Standard icons
displayed in the notification area are the flag
(to open Action Center), the power icon (on
notebook PCs), the network or wireless icon
and the volume icon.
Windows 7 groups other background program
icons in a hidden area to keep the notification
area clutter-free. Just click the up-facing arrow
to display the hidden icons. In this example,
you see the hidden tray icons for the
Bluetooth device applet, Windows Update, an
antivirus program, a pointing device and a
virtual machine program.
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Here are some ways to put these icons to work:

Double-click an icon to perform the default action for the related
program. In most cases, this opens a window for its configuration
or use.
Select a command from the right-click menu that closes or
disables the application and removes its icon from the trayuntil
the next time you start your PC (if it's set to load at startup) or
until you restart that application manually.
As software programs load, the number of small icons on the
system tray increases. Each of these small pictures represents a
program running in the background, and each one consumes
valuable system resources. Move the mouse pointer over each
small picture to find out which program it represents.
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Cleaning up the desktop

Over time, a Windows desktop can get cluttered
with shortcut icons for programs you don't use.
The simplest way to get rid of these icons is to
delete them. Select one and press Delete, or drag
it to the Recycle Bin. You aren't deleting the
program itselfonly the shortcut to that program.
You can still run the program from the Start menu.

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Deleting unnecessary files

Disk Cleanup helps you save hard disk space by
offering to delete files (either yours or everyone's
files) it thinks you don't need. These files could
include the contents of the Recycle Bin, temporary
internet files and other folders.
Select Start, type disk cleanup in the search text
box and then select Disk Cleanup in the resulting
list.

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 In addition to deleting unnecessary

files, uninstall any applications you
don't need. Windows uses hard disk
space for different types of operations,
such as caching and virtual memory.
The computer might not run reliably if
free disk space drops below 10 percent
of total space. To see how much space
remains on your hard disk, click Start
> Computer, and then view the bar
graphs results for each drive that
appears in the Hard Disk Drives pane.
Use the Programs and Features applet
in Control Panel to uninstall programs
you no longer use.
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