DACS General Meeting
January 4, 2010
Program Review:
Rob Limbaugh—Jumping into Windows 7

by Richard Corzo

Windows users have been waiting for the successor to Windows Vista, and those in attendance got to see Windows 7 explained at our January general meeting. Our own DACS president Rob Limbaugh, a system administrator by day, has spent some time digging into Windows 7 and offered up his valuable assessment.

Right off the bat he addressed some of the improvements over the much avoided Windows Vista. We should expect improved startup, shutdown, performance, and stability. Although there are other editions, here in the U.S. home users will find Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate editions. Unlike Windows Vista Business, Windows 7 Professional is a complete superset of Home Premium, and thus includes Media Center functions.

One of the first things users will notice is the task bar, for which Rob showed the evolution from Windows 95/98, Windows XP, and Vista through Windows 7. A taller task bar allows for the docking of running and pinned program icons (rather than a task bar item for each window) and Aero Peek shows thumbnails of active windows when hovering over a task bar program icon. He noted that for a large number of windows and/or tabs open in one application like IE, the Aero Peek view doesn’t necessarily scale well.

Vista Ultimate allowed for the choosing of a movie as a desktop background. Windows 7 (any edition) allows for the selection of photos as a desktop slide show that changes at an interval you specify. An updated Windows Explorer supports a new feature called libraries that enables you to collect pictures or videos, for example, from different locations on your computer and network.

The presenter shared a number of useful keyboard shortcuts in Windows 7, many of which require the Windows key found on most newer PCs. Some come in handy if you have multiple displays, to move the current window to the left or right display. Pressing Shift+click on a task bar program icon opens a new instance of the program. Wikipedia is a good reference for keyboard shortcuts.

He reminded us that standard support for Windows XP has already ended (extended support is still available to corporations), so we should start thinking now about upgrading. If you bought a machine after June 26 with Windows Vista, you should be able to get the upgrade to Windows 7 from your PC vendor (for example, HP or Dell) for just a shipping charge.

When asked if it was possible to upgrade from Windows XP, Rob recommended doing a clean install. In fact, using the Windows 7 disc, there’s no way to do an in-place upgrade from XP that would preserve your installed programs. An in-place upgrade from Windows Vista is supported.

If you have desktop hardware that’s no older than five years, or laptop hardware no older than one year, Windows 7 should have drivers built in. Otherwise, you’ll need to obtain drivers from the manufacturer. Rob has personally had good luck with drivers that support Windows Vista, even if they don’t specifically say they will work with Windows 7. In general you’ll need to have 32-bit drivers or 64-bit drivers for your PC and peripherals according to which version of Windows 7 you install, with 64-bit drivers harder to come by for older hardware. (Each Windows 7 edition comes in both a 32-bit and 64-bit version.) It’s recommended to use 64-bit applications if you are planning to run 64-bit Windows, although some 32-bit applications such as Microsoft Office 2007 should run fine. For 32-bit versus 64-bit questions you can consult the Windows 7 Compatibility Center.

There is a Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor that will show you how well your current system might run Windows 7. Generally machines that already run Vista will run Windows 7. When looking for drivers, check with the system vendor first, then the chip manufacturer of the device (for example, a sound card). For less aggravation, consider upgrading older peripherals (say, more than five years old).

Rob mentioned that Windows Easy Transfer (formerly File and Settings Transfer) will copy your files and settings from your existing system to a new system, but it will not migrate applications.

Note that the Windows classic menu has gone away, so be prepared to make a clean break with the past. Windows Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, Calendar, and Mail have been removed from Windows 7, but you can get them back by downloading Windows Live Essentials. On the other hand Backup and Restore Center, which started with Vista, is an improved backup solution that can now do a complete system image backup.

With this practical information under our belt, Rob proceeded to give us a hands-on demonstration of Windows 7. One feature that Rob was eager to show was the tablet support built in to Windows 7. If you don’t have a tablet computer, you can still benefit from the handwriting recognition by connecting a Wacom tablet to your PC. Windows 7 was able to easily recognize Rob’s longhand writing.
Another strong feature is speech recognition. An audience member reported it work very well with his built-in laptop microphone, as long as he could avoid background noise in the room.

Rob gave us a really good introduction to Windows 7 for the why, and some very practical advice for the how to migrate to the new system.

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