All programs that are listed below are fully compatible with the Windows 7 operating system.

1. Web Browser Firefox

Windows 7 ships with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and while IE 8 is a perfectly fine browser it does not offer the same level of speed and extensibility that the Firefox web browser offers. Yes there are other web browsers, specifically Google Chrome and Opera, both excellent web browsers. The reason for not picking them is that Google Chrome feels – in many regards – like a beta browser with its missing extension support in the release versions while Opera’s way of handling extensions is not optimal for a good workflow. And Firefox is the only web browser that comes with extensions that we do not want to live without anymore, namely the security extension No Script, the password manager Last Pass, Greasemonkey and several SEO extensions.

Mozilla Firefox homepage

2. Desktop Email Client Thunderbird

Another sure pick for us. There are different email clients that work under Windows 7 with the most popular ones being Windows Live Mail (formerly Outlook Express), Microsoft Outlook and Mozilla Thunderbird with the first and third being free to use.

Some users might prefer to use an online email service like Yahoo Mail, Hotmail or Gmail instead. Our reason for sticking with a desktop email client are the following:

• Ability to access emails offline
• Ability to use different email providers and servers from one email client

Thunderbird offers the same advantage that Firefox offers: Extension support. There are hundreds of extensions for the email client which can increase the functionality tremendously.

Mozilla Thunderbird homepage

3. Media Player SMPlayer

Microsoft has really improved the media playback capabilities and other features of Windows Media Player. Especially the ability to playback additional video file types over previous Windows systems and the Media Player lite interface while playing videos are two features that increase the value of the player. One still has to install different codecs to be able to view unsupported video file types.

That’s where SMPlayer comes into play. The player uses binary codecs which are shipped with the media player. These codecs work out of the box and nearly every different video format is supported by this MPlayer variant.

SMPlayer homepage

4. FTP, sFTP and SCP client WinSCP

Webmasters need a way to upload, download and manage files that are hosted at a web hosting company. The usual way to do that is to connect to the web server with an ftp, sftp or scp client. WinSCP combines all three possibilities in an explorer like interface. It offers several additional features including Windows integration, integrated text editor, batch file scripting or sessions making it one of the few all-in-one clients for the Windows operating system.

WinSCP website

5. Feed reader FeedDemon

There are two basic options for selecting a feed reader. It can either be an online feed reader like Google Reader or a desktop feed reader. There are a lots of programs that offer desktop feed reading capabilities. This ranges from web browsers like Firefox or Opera over email clients like Outlook or Thunderbird to applications that have been specifically designed for the purpose like Feed Demon.

FeedDemon offers a comfortable way of reading news feeds. It comes with a lot of options that most other integrated feed reading solutions do not offer including the ability to create watchlists to monitor specific keywords. Many integrated solutions, like that in Firefox, felt like they were slowing down the web browser once a certain threshold was reached.

FeedDemon homepage

6. Data encryption software True Crypt

Windows 7 Ultimate and Enterprise come with the Bitlocker data encryption feature that can be used to encrypt data in those operating systems. All other editions of Windows 7 do not offer this feature. The alternative is True Crypt, a reliable data encryption software that can be used to create encrypted containers, partitions and even full systems.

True Crypt comes with an incredible set of features including:

• Encryption is automatic, real-time (on-the-fly) and transparent.
• Parallelization and pipelining allow data to be read and written as fast as if the drive was not encrypted.
• Provides plausible deniability, in case an adversary forces you to reveal the password: Hidden volume (steganography) and hidden operating system.
• Encryption algorithms: AES-256, Serpent, and Twofish. Mode of operation: XTS.

True Crypt homepage

7. Image viewer XnView

XnView is a fast image viewer for the Windows operating system supporting over 400 different image formats. It works extremely well even when viewing images in folders with thousands of images. It does offer basic image editing features like rotating images or exporting images in more than 50 different image formats, batch editing and renaming, slideshows or filter and effects. Another feature is Twain and WIA support.

XnView website

8. Image editor Paint .net

Windows Paint was redesigned by Microsoft in Windows 7. It now comes with a ribbon interface and improved functionality. It still lacks many of the features that most users would expect from an image editor. That’s where paint.net comes into play. The image editor loads fast and offers an advanced functionality that does not need to fear comparison with other solutions like GIMP or Photoshop.

Paint.net homepage

9. Text editor Notepad++

Notepad is a fast opening text editor in Windows. It is great for editing smaller text files but lacks features that make it as good when it comes to larger files or scripting languages like php. Notepad++ is an enhanced – but unrelated – Notepad clone that offers many interesting features including syntax highlighting, multi-document support, regular expressions, macros, plugins and auto completion. Best of all, it opens as quickly as Notepad in the operating system.

Notepad++ homepage

10. CD and DVD burning software ImgBurn

Windows 7 comes with advanced image burning options. It can for example burn ISO images without additional software, something that other Windows operating systems don’t offer. A third party CD and DVD burning software is on the other hand still a requirement for burning other image formats and creating custom data, audio and video CDs and DVDs.

ImgBurn is a free solution that is slightly more complex to use than many of the other burning software programs. It is however one of the most reliable and feature rich programs available for the Windows operating system and therefor our first choice when it comes to installing a third party burning software.

ImgBurn homepage

11. Audio player AIMP2

It is possible to play most audio formats in Windows Media Player. Users who prefer alternatives usually pick Winamp. AIMP2 is an alternative that comes with an excellent set of features and options. Chance is that if Winamp can do it AIMP2 can as well. The audio player is lightweight and uses less system resources than Winamp.

AIMP2 website

12. PDF reader Foxit Reader

Windows 7 users need to install a third party software to be able to view pdf documents. The natural choice for most is Adobe’s PDF reader. Experienced users on the other hand prefer different programs. This can be mainly attributed to the performance of Adobe Reader and security concerns.

One of the most popular alternatives is the Foxit Reader which opens PDFs much faster than Adobe Reader does.

Foxit Reader homepage

Got anything to add? Let us know in the comments.

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Is it comparable to Gimp or Adobe Photoshop? I honestly cannot say so and do not care the least. It allows me to do the image editing things that I need to do which are basic image manipulations, e.g. resizing, copying, pasting, and basic editing.

Paint.net 3.5 final was released today. Users who are interested in the changes in this release can take a look at the post over at the official blog to find out more about them. Those that do not care about that can download the latest version of the image editor from the developer’s website where it is available for all supported operating systems (Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7) and languages. Paint.net, as the name suggests, requires the Microsoft .net Framework 3.5 SP1.

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All In One Runtime offers an efficient (critics would probably call it unnecessary or overkill) solution to the problem. The program checks the installed runtimes of the Windows operating system and will automatically display and install the runtimes that are not installed on the PC system.

The supported runtimes are:

• Microsoft .net Frameworks
• .net language packs
• System runtimes
• Visual C++ runtimes
• Microsoft Visual J#
• Adobe Flash Player
• Microsoft Silverlight
• Shockwave Player
• Java Runtime Environment
• DirectX

The program will display the runtimes that it intends to install. A 30 second countdown will be displayed allowing the user to pause and cancel the installation or remove runtimes from the installation. All In One Runtime is a portable software program for Microsoft Windows operating systems. Supported are 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. The download is available on a German website. The developer’s website is also only available in German.

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The program will display a list of programs on startup that can be restarted in the next Windows session. All the user needs to do is to place a checkmark next to any program that should be started again on the next Windows startup.

The program makes use of the run once key in the Windows Registry to launch these applications again. What this means is that while the programs will be launched the last session in the applications will not unless the application itself support sessions. This means that it is possible to launch a web browser like Firefox with the tabs open that have been open during the last session. Applications like Notepad, Adobe Photoshop or Word on the other hand will be launched with blank screens instead.

Cache My Work can also remember the open Windows Explorer windows to recreate them on the next start of the operating system. The program is intuitive to use and should not pose any problems even to inexperienced users. Interested users can download the program from its Codeplex profile page. (via Download Squad)

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Groups can consist of radioboxes or checkboxes. Only one paragraph can be selected per group if radioboxes are selected while checkboxes allow the selection of multiple paragraphs.

The example above consists of three groups with two of the groups using radioboxes and one checkboxes. Here is what Mouser has to say about his program:

The Form Letter Machine is a program that will help you to write letters and emails by mixing and matching from pre-written paragraphs.

It’s useful for people who regularly need to send out emails which include different components in different circumstances. For example if you field technical support requests, or if you need to reply to various inquiries, etc.

It enables you to assemble text from multiple paragraphs, each one customized for a specific type of inquiry or response. You can build your own configurations using checkboxes and radioboxes and nested groups, and then easily write new letters or respond to inquiries by checking off the components you want to include. A real-time preview allows you to view the message as it is composed. The program also supports user defined variables, which allows you to quickly personalize the template with a name or other data that is specific to the task. The text is then copied to the clipboard and can be used in your e-mail program or word processor.

One interesting option is the use of variables in texts (for names and other parameters that might change). Variables can be easily defined in the interface and filled with values which appear instantly in the text.

Mouser has created a website for the program which is a repository for user generated form letters that can be used in the software program. The Form Letter Machine is available for download at the Donation Coder website.

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The free software program Windows 7 Taskbar Tweaker is a portable application for the Windows 7 operating system. It can be used to modify several of the default options of the Windows 7 taskbar, to be precise:

• Right-click on a taskbar item to either display jumplists (default) or the standard window menu
• Change grouping from grouping applications to not grouping them
• Change dropping items to the taskbar from pinning them to opening them
• Change the middle-click behavior from opening a new program instance to either closing the window or focusing the window
• Change left-click on grouped item button from opening the thumbnail preview to cycling through the windows.
• Disable the thumbnail preview

The new settings become available after clicking on the apply button in the program window. The software program is available for download at the developer’s website for both 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Windows 7 operating system.

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The focus of Double Anti-Spy Professional is a complete spyware protection of computer systems running the Microsoft Windows operating system which includes protection against spyware and adware but also against other forms of malware including backdoors, computer bots and trojans.

The installation of the anti-spyware software and the interface of the program have been designed with ease of use in mind. The program will always start up with the status report window which will display relevant information like the date and time of the last scan, the freshness of the definition files or the results of the last scan. The four buttons on the left side are used to switch between sections of the software.

Double Anti-Spy Professional can perform three types of scans: A quick scan that will only scan important locations, a full scan to scan all files and locations and a custom scan that the user can define individually. A full system scan is recommended after installation and updating the definitions to find all traces of spyware that might be located on the computer system.

The anti-spyware software protects the computer system from spyware that tries to attack the PC. It does so by actively monitoring the system for suspicious files. The depth and level of protection can be configured in the Active Defense section of the program.

Here it is possible to configure the active defense and email defense settings to block and quarantine files and software before it can become a threat. Email defense works with several popular desktop email clients including Microsoft Outlook, Windows Mail and Mozilla Thunderbird.

The very same menu can also be used to schedule scans and add programs and files to a whitelist or blacklist.

The fourth and final tab Settings can be used to configure the different scans that Double Anti-Spy Professional can perform, set the update check interval, configure a proxy server and scan optimizer or disable Windows Explorer automatically if it is running on the system to avoid compatibility problems.

Now, how good is the anti-spyware software? Avanquest show test results conducted by AV-Test on their homepage which tested Double Anti-Spyware Pro against PC Tools Spyware Doctor and Webroot Spy Sweeper. Other tests have not been published yet and it is not even possible to find the AV-Test results anywhere on the Internet. But what about the two engines that the security software is using? According to users on some web forums the program is using the engines of Outpost AntiSpyware + VIPRE (CounterSpy) which both did receive good reviews and recommendations.

Update: The software is using the following engines: Double Anti-Spy includes Sunbelt’s VIPRE (Engine A) + Outpost AntiSpyware combined with Virus Buster SDK (Engine B)

Verdict:

Double Anti-Spy Professional utilizes two scanning engines from respected companies to protect the computer against spyware which makes it more effective. Resource usage was a bit high on a Windows 7 test system if the window of the program was active (about 80 Megabytes). The program itself is compatible with Windows XP and 32-bit or 64-bit editions of Windows Vista and Windows 7. More information are available at the Double Anti-Spy Professional homepage.

Giveaway:

We have ten download copies and licenses for Double Anti-Spy Professional. Just leave a comment below for a chance to win a copy. Every comment in the next 24 hours will take part in the draw and the winners will be emailed. The email will contain the download link, license key and instructions.

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The web proxy checker is a lightweight tool for the Windows operating system that can check various proxy servers. The types that it can check are:

• SOCKS4
• SOCKS5
• HTTP
• HTTPS

The user who wants to check proxies can either load them from a text file or paste urls that point to proxies in the interface directly. The free web proxy checker will then parse the urls or text documents line by line and check the proxy servers against the rules configured by the user.

It is possible to check the proxy server against a url (the default is the Gmail url) or a host name and port with a ping always being performed in the beginning to sort out bad proxies immediately that do not respond positively.

The web proxy checker comes with extensive options from selecting random user agents, connection settings, detecting a proxy server’s country of origin or running a distribution web server to logging options and statistics. Some of the options are for advanced users only but users with little to no knowledge should be able to start their first proxy check in under five minutes with the default configuration.

Web Proxy Checker is available for download at the developer’s website. It is compatible with most versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system including Windows 7.

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Flickr Drive Shell is a similar plugin for Windows Explorer which can display the photos hosted at the Flickr photo hosting service. The program will display a new Flickr Drive icon in the My Computer window in Windows Explorer. The service needs to be authorized which is done by entering the username in the popup window that is being displayed after clicking on the icon for the first time. This will lead to the Flickr website where the user needs to login to authorize the desktop application.

Flickr Drive will work like any other drive after the authorization. It provides access to the private photos of the user and access to the two public folders Today’s hot tags and Today’s hot photos. The photos are displayed as thumbnail images in Windows Explorer with options to interact with the photos that are displayed. This includes copying, printing and viewing photos, moving them or even editing them in the default Windows image editor.

Photos can be easily copied to the associated Flickr user account which can then be accessed from the Flickr website normally. This is actually a very comfortable way of adding files to Flickr. Flickr Drive Shell is available as an executable and source at the developer’s website. The program is compatible with Windows Vista and Windows 7. (via Techie-Buzz)

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One would think that an easy task. It actually is, once you know how it is done.  And in this article I am going to show you two different ways of making the connection to your Samba server. You will need to have a working knowledge of how the Samba server is set up as well as a username/password configured on the Samba server. There are also a few steps to take on the desktop for one certain method of connection.

The two methods I will describe are: Using GNOME’s Connect To Server dialog and the command line. The latter will be used to show you how to set up auto mounting for Samba.

The graphical method

Figure 1

If you take a look at the GNOME Places menu you will see an entry labeled “Connect to server…”. This is what you want to use in order to connect to your Samba server. When you click on that a new window will open. From the Service type drop-down select “Windows share” (see Figure 1).

When you select that entry some of the configuration options will change. As you can see (in Figure 1), I have entered the necessary options to connect to a Samba server on my internal network. You will want to replace the information so it reflects your needs. The only tricky bit of information might be the Folder entry. If you are connecting to the root directory on the share you will not need to enter anything there. Say, for instance, you share is /media/samba/user. If you want to connect to that directory leave the Folder entry blank. Say, however, you want to connect directly to a sub-folder within that share – you can enter that folder here. This, of course, isn’t needed because you can always traverse the sub-directories with simple navigation. You can also choose to add a bookmark instantly, from in this window.

Figure 2

Once you have all of the information entered click Connect and you will be greeted with a new window that requires you to enter a password. Also, if you do not supply a Domain name in the previous window, you will be required to enter it here.

You can also set this up to remember your password either until you logout or until, well, forever. Once you have entered the password/domain click the Connect button and a new Nautilus window will open inside of your Samba Share.

Using the command line

Now we’re going to use the command line to accomplish a similar goal. The biggest difference is that we are going to actually mount the Samba share into another directory, very much the same way we would mount a second hard drive.

There are a few pieces to put together before we actually take care of the mounting. First let’s create a directory that the Samba share will be mounted to. So from the terminal window issue the following command:

sudo mkdir /media/samba

Now let’s make sure our users can read/write to this directory with the command:

sudo chmod -R u+rw /media/samba

Okay now let’s make sure we can see the Samba shares from the command line. We’ll do that with the smbclient command like so:

smbclient -L //SAMBA_SERVER_ADDRESS

Where SAMBA_SERVER_ADDRESS is the actual IP address of the Samba server.

Figure 3

You will be prompted for your username and password. If you get an error it could be that the usernames don’t match on each end. If that’s the case you could add the -U switch to the command like so:

smbclient –user=jlwallen -L  //SAMBA_SERVER_ADDRESS

You should see output similar to that shown in Figure 3.

Now it’s time to try to mount the Samba share to the /media/samba directory. To do this issue the command:

sudo mount -t cifs //SAMBA_SERVER_ADDRESS/SHARE -o username=USERNAME /media/samba/

Where:

• SAMBA_SERVER_ADDRESS is the IP address of the Samba server.
• SHARE is the share name.
• USERNAME is the username to connect with.

If that works you can now make this an automated mount by adding the following line to your /etc/fstab file:

//SAMBA_SERVER_ADDRESS/SHARE     /media/samba    cifs  credentials=/etc/samba/user.cred 0 0

Where SAMBA_SERVER_ADDRESS is the IP address of the Samba server and SHARE is the share name.

Notice the user.cred file. This is one last thing we need to create. With your text editor create this file and place into it:

username=USER

password=PASSWORD

Where USER is the username to log in with and PASSWORD is the password to use for authentication. The final step is the give this new file the proper permissions with the command:

sudo chmod 600 /etc/samba/user.cred

You can ensure this works by issuing the command mount -a which should mount your Samba share.

Final thoughts

You should now have an auto-mounting Samba share – or the ability to easily connect your GNOME desktop to a Samba share. Samba is a very powerful tool that not only can share files with Windows machines, but with Linux machines as well.

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A few settings need to be configured after installation,especially the language the text should be translated to. The software is configured to automatically detect the language of the text that the user wants to translate. This text can be selected with the mouse. A small G icon will appear next to the text. If that icon is pressed the area is expanded automatically and the translation displayed.

Several controls are displayed below the translated text including options to copy the text to the Windows clipboard or to select the languages manually for the translation which comes in handy if the translation service detected the wrong language.

The very same principle can be used in other applications with one difference. The application needs to be added to the Client For Google Translate before the translate options become available there as well. This is done by bringing the application window to the front, right-clicking the system tray icon of Client for Google Translate and selecting to enable the feature in the application.

From then on it is possible to translate text in the selected software program as well. The software client can also be used to translate text directly by copying it into the interface.

Client For Google Translate is a software program for the Windows operating system. It is compatible with most versions including Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP. A commercial pro version is available as well which adds Wikipedia articles and dictionaries as new features.

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DataMiner is a portable software program for the Windows operating system that can be used to recover data from optical media such as CD or DVD. The program will analyse the data on the disc using heuristic detection algorithms. The analysis of the data on the disc is highly influenced by the type of disc, the data and the type of error that is encountered when trying to access the data.

Dataminer will analyze the whole disc, a process that can be terminated at any point. The files that have been found up to this point are then displayed in the interface. The display is basic as it will only list the file name (if it was discovered), the size, type and offset of the file on the disc.

It is possible to extract selected files or files of a certain file extension to a local storage device. Other options include a basic search to find a specific file name and saving project related information to continue working on the project at a later time. the CD and DVD data recovery software can also create and load images of physical discs which is obviously the safer way to go as it is then possible to analyze the disc image instead of the disc itself which will reduce the chance to further damage the disc.

The data recovery software is available at the Greenfish website. It is compatible with most versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system including Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP.

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Zilla JPG To PDF Converter is a software program for the Windows operating system that has been designed for this exact purpose. It can be used to convert multiple photos into a single pdf document. The process itself has been streamlined for ease of use. It actually takes less than a minute to configure the program to turn selected photos into a pdf document. The time it takes to create the pdf document itself depends largely on the amount and quality of the selected photos and the processing power of the computer system.

Only two steps are mandatory and a few additional ones option. The mandatory steps are to select photos or folders containing photos that should be included int the pdf document and to initiate the conversion by pressing the convert to pdf now button.

Optional steps include selecting a document title, author, creation date, subject, keywords, the output path and the compression quality.

The result is a pdf document that is made up of all the photos that have been selected during the selection process.

Zilla JPG To PDF Converter is an easy to use program that can create pdf documents showing selected photos in no time. The developer could improve it further by allowing layouts added to the pages that can contain text or other objects. An option to select several photos from one folder simultaneously is also missing as it is only possible to either select one photo or a folder full of photos in the application.

The software program is available at the developer’s website. It is there available for most Microsoft Windows operating systems including Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7.

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Microsoft has therefor created a solution for this problem by introducing the Bitlocker To Go Reader so that the data on the portable device can be read in operating systems that are not supporting Bitlocker. Microsoft’s solution is the Bitlocker To Go Reader, a software program compatible with Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 that can be used to decrypt the data on a Bitlocker encrypted removable storage device.

Bitlocker To Go Reader is added to the removable storage device when it is encrypted. The program will automatically be displayed if autoplay is enabled on the computer system when the user connects the removable storage device that has been encrypted with Bitlocker To Go. A right-click on the device and the selection of autoplay or a double-click on the drive icon in Windows are the other options to display the Bitlocker To Go Reader window.

The user only needs to enter the password the data was encrypted with to decrypt and access it on the other operating system. An alternative to encrypt file systems, removable storage devices and other data is the open source software True Crypt which we have reviewed in the past. True Crypt offers the advantage of encrypting and decrypting data not only in Windows but also Linux and Mac OS.

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Luckily though Ghacks reader Dante found a solution for the problem which he send in as a tip to share here at the website. The Avira update problem seems to only affect the automatic update of the antivirus software. What is not affected at all is the manual update process.

To fix Avira Antivir Update problems a user would therefor need to aquire a new virus definition file and update the software manually with it. This fixes the broken automatic update in Avira Antivir:

• Download the latest antivirus definition file for Avira Antivir at Softpedia.
• Bring up the Avira Antivir interface.
• Select Update and there Manual Update
• Use the file browser to select the downloaded updated definition file
• Wait until the update has finished.

The manual update of the antivirus software will fix the broken automatic update in Avira so that it can be used again afterwards. Thanks go to Dante for sending in the tip.

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The eSecure Office add-in has been designed to provide Office users with the means to delete the Microsoft Office history from within the Office suite. To be more precise, it offers that functionality for the Office programs Word, Excel and PowerPoint at this point.

Classified Documents Anyone? No more worries from internet hackers and computer viruses. The eSecure Delete Office Ad-In is the only application of it’s kind that works right from the office application. With 1 easy to use menu in the office Ribbon and the Office Button you can easy delete your computers tracking history without even having to stop and open up a new window.

The Office add-in needs to be installed separately for each supported Office application. It will automatically add a new entry to the ribbon menu with the option to clear the Office history. The same functionality is also available in the Office orb menu.

The eSecure add-in is available for Microsoft Office 2007 and Office 2010 running on Windows Vista or Windows 7. It can be directly downloaded from the developer’s website. (via Addictive Tips)

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This gives Windows 7 users another option of contacting the Microsoft Customer Service division. How does it work? A new support request or question can be directed at the Microsoft Support team by sending a message to their official Twitter message.

The limitations of Twitter make this a less than ideal method of contacting support for questions that require in depth explanation. It can however be a quick and efficient way to get a response for basic or short questions. Questions that have already been answered include hardware problems (network adapter or video card not working), other errors users encountered in the operating system or software related questions.

The support is currently limited to Windows 7 but Microsoft stated that they are planning to expand the scope of their support over time.

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Windows 7 did introduce some new features that can increase the productivity. Since my recent switch to the operating system I have discovered five that I like a lot as they help me speed up processes which increases my productivity throughout the day.

1. Taskbar previews

The taskbar has been completely revamped in Windows 7. It is now possible to stick applications to it, see the number of open windows and thumbnail previews or make use of jumplists. The features that I personally like the most are the thumbnail previews, as they allow me to quickly find the Firefox, Thunderbird or Internet Explorer tab that I was looking for and the new icons that show the amount of open windows and that display file transfers.

Especially the previews save lots of time. Think of Firefox with ten open tabs. If you wanted to access a specific tab you previously had to display the window again, locate the tab in the web browser and click on it. Now you simply hover the mouse over the taskbar icon, locate the tab and click on it to be taken directly to it in Firefox.

2. Libraries

If you are like me you store multimedia files in various locations of the operating system. They are located on various hard drives and in various structures. Vista and XP were highly inflexible by concentrating on the My Documents hierarchy for those files. This could lead to a lot of file searching or a lot of self-discipline and work to build a centralized storage location for multimedia files. Even then users could run into trouble if they ran out of hard disk space on their primary hard drive.

Windows 7 introduces libraries. Libraries are basically virtual folders that can display the contents of multiple folders in its folder structure. With that it is now possible – or shall I say more comfortable – to access multimedia files in one folder on the hard drive even if those files and folders that are displayed are spread over multiple locations and hard drives.

3. Aero Peek, Aero Shake and Snap

If you want to arrange two windows next to each other in Windows 7 you can do so by one of the windows to the right side and one to the left. They will automatically be positioned so that each is taking up half of the screen estate of the computer monitor. That’s the new Snap feature. It is also possible to move the window to the top to maximize it.

Aero Shake can be used to minimize all but the active window by shaking it around on the computer desk. Aero Peek finally can be used to peak through the windows to see the computer desktop which might be handy for users who make use of gadgets in the operating system.

4. Automatic recognition of digital cameras

Back in the days of Windows XP I had to install a software program for my digital camera so that it would be recognized by the operating system when connected. This was the only option to directly connect the digital camera to the system. I still had the option to remove the memory card and place it in a card reader but all of that meant more work than it should be.

Imagine my surprise when I first connected the digital camera to Windows 7. The operating system automatically recognized the camera and offered to copy the pictures that I had taken to the hard drive in a menu that was automatically be displayed. This was comfortable and without any pre-configuration on my part.

5. Windows 7 Homegroup

Windows 7 Homegroup makes it easier to create a home network and share files and printers with other users on the network. Setup has been simplified and takes only a few minutes tops to set it up. The shared folders and printers then appear in the places sidebar in Windows Explorer from where they can be accessed.

Verdict:

I’m still discovering new features in Windows 7. Have not even touched some of the new tools yet, like the snipping or note taking tool. While the similarities to Vista are still very clear and dominant Microsoft managed to add and change features in Windows 7 that actually aid the user in completing tasks faster and with less knowledge required. Some of the features in this list can be emulated by installing third party software that provides that functionality.

If you have worked with Windows 7: What is your experience in this regard? Do you like other features that have not been mentioned in this article? Let us know in the comments.

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You might be wondering why anyone would ever need multiple WLAN adapters on the same PC, well to be honest, you don’t need but its sometimes good to have. In any case where you’re connected to an existing wireless access point and want to connect to another network whether that be a separate access point or even set up an ad-hoc connection, Virtual WiFi will allow you to do just that. But perhaps the scenario that is more appealing is the idea of a mesh network. In a mesh network, every client becomes a repeater, growing the network organically as more clients connect. Virtual WiFi enables this, since every client can become an access point too.

Connectify is a first beta software program that makes use of the Virtual Wifi capabilities of Windows 7. Windows 7 users can use the Connectify software to share the Internet connection of their computer system through a secure WPA2 encrypted hotspot. Other computer devices with wireless capabilities can connect to the hotspot to make use of that connection.

The program is currently provided as a beta version after registration on the Connectify homepage. Configuration of the service requires the following steps:

To get started, click on the Connectify logo in the Notification Tray.

1. Select the Internet connection you wish to share
2. Choose a name for your new wireless network
3. Choose a wireless passphrase
4. Press the Internet Sharing button to turn on your wireless network
5. Now, from your other devices, you can see your wireless network. Choose to join it, and enter the wireless passphrase to connect.

It is expected that the public release version will turn commercial with the likely probability that free software alternatives will be released eventually. Connectify is only compatibly with Windows 7 at this point. The software can be downloaded from the Connectify homepage.

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The latest test by independent security researchers AV-Comparatives is another confirmation that Microsoft has developed a solid security software for the Windows operating system. The latest test concentrated on virus and malware removal capabilities of selected free and commercial antivirus products.

The test itself pitted sixteen different security products against ten malware samples. Six of the sixteen security software programs received an advanced plus rating. Among them Microsoft’s Security Essential product which was also the only free product to score the highest rating and one of three that scored a good rating in the two tested fields removal of malware and removal of leftovers.

While the test certainly does not make Microsoft Security Essentials the best free antivirus software that is currently available as Lee described it over at the Download Squad it certainly can be seen as an indicator that Microsoft has delivered a quality software program for the Windows operating system.

The test results are available in a pdf report on the AV Comparatives website.

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