Experienced users on the other hand will like the direct accessibility of all tweaks and setting changes that are offered by the Registry tweaker. Lets take a closer look at the user interface of the program and the tweaks that are offered.

The screenshots above show all of the user interface. As you can see, options are tightly packed, and divided in groups that are hard to distinguish. some users will probably go as far to call the interface messy, maybe even a usability disaster.

But usability is only one aspect, and the program could still prove to be very useful if the features are right and interesting.

The Registry tweaks are sorted into groups such as Desktop and Taskbar, Security, System, Visual Effects or Internet Explorer. Tweaks are applied by clicking in the checkboxes of individual entries in those groups.

Another problem arises for inexperienced users as there are no explanations or detailed information about the tweaks. That may not be a problem for some (like Disable Aero Shake or Use Small Icons under the taskbar group) but for others it may very well mean additional research before the user knows what a tweak actually does (Enable Avalon effects, disable drag from maximize or tool tips under desktop).

Do not get me wrong though, the options offered are very extensive, with the majority being about adding shortcuts, context entries and disabling features in the operating system.

A reboot is required after the modifications have been made. It is possible to kill the explorer process instead and restart it to avoid having to reboot or log off and on again. The program offers to create a system restore point before applying any tweaks.

RT Windows 7 Registry Tweaker offers a lot of different tweaks which is the biggest strength of the program. The developer should consider adding at least some color to the program interface to better distinguish groups of tweaks, and some tooltips so that the tweaks are explained in the program.

Windows 7 users who want to take a closer look at the tweaking software can download the latest version from the forum post over at the RT forum. The program is compatible with both 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows 7.

It is for instance not possible to change the desktop wallpaper in Windows 7 Starter, or access other personalization options that the other Windows 7 editions offer.

The portable software Personalization Panel tries to change that by offering a solution to Windows 7 Home Basic and Windows 7 Starter users.

The developer has created two videos that demonstrate the programs capabilities in the operating system editions.

Windows 7 Home Basic

Windows 7 Starter

The software basically integrates several features into the Starter and Home Basic editions, namely:

• Option to change themes in both editions
• Ability to change wallpaper in Windows 7 Starter editions
• Ability to change color schemes
• Access to personalization features such as changing mouse pointers, sounds, screensavers, account pictures, display settings and icons.
• Integration of a context menu entry to launch the software from the desktop right-click menu

The program is easy to use, and can be started without installation. It supports various display languages that are automatically set on startup. It does require the installation of the free software UxStyle though, which is needed to make the editions compatible with non-native themes.

The program download is available at the developer’s Russian website. (link, Google translate link, via)

Users of Windows 7 Starter and Home Basic have finally a tool at hand to personalize their operating system, almost the same way that users of other Windows 7 editions do.

The free portable program Network Activity Indicator brings back the “two-monitor” icon in the System Tray go give the user a visual indication of computer network activity.

It will display the network activity icon in the System Tray upon startup. A right-click on the icon displays a host of options including a link to the program’s settings to change the design of the icons from XP to Vista style. The settings can also be used to change the traffic that is indicated.

The Network Activity Indicator by default will display traffic from all network adapters. This can be changed to display the traffic of only a selected adapter. It is furthermore possible to define the traffic type. Only TCP packets are indicated by default. The indicator can be switched to UDP or ICMP packets instead or a combination of the three.

The right-click menu contains links to other options as well. It is for instance possible to open network statistics, Windows Firewall Settings, Network Sharing Center and other network related settings and options.

The program uses roughly 4 Megabytes of computer memory while running which should be fairly acceptable for users who like to see the activity indicator icon in Windows 7. The program, including its source code, is available for download at the developer’s website.

Today Microsoft decided to finally make the Microsoft Touch Pack for Windows 7 available for download for everyone. Windows 7 users who want to download the touch pack can head right over to the Microsoft website to download it.

The touch pack requires a genuine validation before it can be downloaded. It has a size of 239 Megabytes and is only available in English.

The Microsoft Touch Pack contains three applications and three games:

• Microsoft Surface Globe: Uses the Virtual Earth 3D engine to display a 3D version of the world. Using multi-touch, you can navigate to different regions, get local information, and “pin” your favorite locations. You can even “fly” around 3D models of buildings in some cities
• Microsoft Surface Collage: Arrange and resize digital photos with this application.
• Microsoft Surface Lagoon: An interactive screensaver.
• Microsoft Blackboard: A physics puzzle game
• Microsoft Rebound: Use your fingers to propel a ball and annihilate your opponent
• Microsoft Garden Pond: Guide your origami creations to peaceful areas on the pond or direct them with gestures to complete goals that have been set for you

The Microsoft Touch Pack for Windows 7 obviously requires a touch capable display. Only primary display multitouch monitors are currently supported.

ShellFolderFix is a lightweight program for Windows 7 that provides the means to save individual folder positions and sizes in Windows Explorer.

The program is a background application that will record the folder positions of every Windows Explorer folder that gets opened to restore those settings whenever the folder gets opened again.

The default limit is set to 500 folders which can be increased in the program’s options. Users might start with the default figure and increase it if they notice that folder position information get lost after a while.

Other options provided are to start the program automatically during system start, show window titles and window title icons in Windows Explorer if Aero is enabled, disable flashing folder window titles or configuring auto saves and behavior when navigating to a new location.

ShellFolderFix uses roughly eight Megabytes of computer memory while running which is fairly acceptable especially for users who find the problem annoying.

The software program to save folder positions in Windows 7 can be downloaded from the forum it was released.

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.

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 speed up Windows 7, 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.

It is furthermore possible to drag folders into the jumplists which can be a very comfortable way of linking folders to specific applications. This could for example link download folders and P2P applications, document folders and word processing applications or movie players and movie folders.

While it is possible to drag folders into the jumplists menus it is not possible to do the same with applications. This would also be interesting in cases where applications are used together. It could for instance be useful for webmasters and bloggers to link a web browser like Firefox, Internet Explorer or Google Chrome with software programs that can take screenshots or upload files to ftp servers.

Jumplist Launcher has been designed for this purpose. While it does not provide the means to drag and drop applications into existing jumplists it offers its own jumplist that can be used to add programs to it. These computer programs can be grouped for quicker access. The Jumplist Launcher can list up to 60 different applications in its interface. Names and icons are customizable giving the user full control over how and where the applications are displayed.

Jumplist Launcher is compatible with Windows 7.

The two main features are the following: Feature 1 displays previews of each unread email message right in the Windows 7 taskbar. It makes it possible to preview each unread email message right there and go to the Gmail account with the click of the button.

The second feature is the Gmail jumplists. Jumplists basically display information and links to common tasks. The Gmail jumplists displays the unread email messages of the Gmail account; Again with the possibility to access the account with the click of the button. Common tasks like going to the inbox or writing a new email are displayed in the jumplist as well which allow a user to quickly access some of the most used features of Google Mail.

Gmail Notifier Plus is only compatible with Windows 7 and can be downloaded at the Neowin forum.