The Microsoft Windows 7 operating system was released on October 22, 2009 to a worldwide audience less than three years after Windows Vista had been released by the company. Microsoft tried to bring its Windows line of operating systems back on course with the release after luke-warm receptions that Vista received before and after its release. To do that, efforts were made to optimize the operating system in many regards to make it faster and perform better than its direct predecessor.
Initial beta tests were outright positive and it came as no surprise that Windows 7 sold more copies in the first eight hours of being officially available than Windows Vista did in the first 17 weeks of public availability.
Windows 7 is regarded by many as a worthy successor to Windows XP, and many Windows users who decided to skip Vista upgraded their XP systems to Windows 7 instead.
Several new features were introduced by Microsoft, including the new taskbar which allowed users to pin programs to it, improved overall performance, new versions of default Windows applications such as Media Center or Calculator, Windows gadgets that users could now place anywhere on the screen, or better support for Solid State Drives.
Some features, like Windows Mail, Media Center or Photo Gallery were integrated into a standalone package called Windows Live Essentials that users were able to download separately and free of charge from Microsoft.
I had some time at hand recently to run a couple of tests regarding the purchase of Windows licenses on eBay, and upgrades of said licenses to Windows 10. As you may know, Windows 7, 8.1 and 10 licenses are sold on eBay for next to nothing. There is lots of talk about these licenses, […]
The upgrade to Windows 10 of an existing Windows 7 system looks like a good deal on paper. You don't pay a dime for it if you upgrade in the first year after release, and it remains free afterwards. While there is no direct need to leave Windows 7 at this point in time as […]
The end of support for the original version of Windows 7 is near - it ends on April 9, 2013 - and Microsoft as a consequence decided to distribute the first service pack for the operating system via Windows Update as an automatic update. You are probably wondering why support is ending. Microsoft has a […]
Many of us in the tech world use Chrome or Firefox most of the time and we tend to forget that the vast majority of people still use Internet Explorer, largely because it simply comes with Windows. Earlier this week Microsoft finally rolled out IE 10 to Windows 7 users -- something Windows 8 customers […]
Update. Internet Explorer 11 has also been released for Windows 7. Microsoft up until now was tight lipped about the upcoming version of Internet Explorer 10 in regards to Windows 7. While everyone assumed that the company would release Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 7, no one knew for sure if this was really the […]
Windows 7 users have a lot of personalization options right at their hands, without having to modify system files to do so. These basic themes make a handful of modifications to the system, they change the wallpaper, sounds or cursors for instance, but leave the rest of the interface alone. Full conversions and custom themes […]
Windows 7 is Microsoft's most stable and reliable version of their desktop operating system yet, but it's still such a complex piece of software that when something does go wrong it can be extremely difficult to diagnose and repair the problem. As the author of "Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out" from Microsoft Press one of […]
With Christmas only ten days away you might well be lucky enough to receive a new PC or laptop as a present, or you may be giving one as a gift. New computers are fantastic, exciting, invigorating and more. That is once you get past the trial software, the excess software bloat, the slowdowns, the […]
I have to admit that I'm not making full use of Windows 7's library feature. Libraries are used to consolidate, or virtually merge, directories. The operating system ships with libraries for photos, music, documents and videos. Windows 7 users can add folders to existing libraries, so that their contents are displayed in the selected library, […]
Tis the season for people to buy you all manner of new technological goodies; at least you hope so. I'm running a special pre-Christmas webcast on Tuesday December 13th on the subject of Setting up and Configuring a new PC. The webcast is free for everybody and you can book your place on the O'Reilly […]
The Libraries feature in Windows 7 provides an easy interface to manage multiple file locations from a single location. Four default libraries are displayed in Windows Explorer: Documents, Music, Pictures, and Video. Many users only utilize one or two of the libraries. You can easily remove any of these libraries from the Navigation Pane and […]
Back in October 2009 Microsoft released the long awaited and highly acclaimed Windows 7 operating system. Unlike Windows Vista, the operating system's immediate predecessor, Windows 7 managed to do what where Vista failed: Snag away market share from Windows XP. Depending on which statistics you look at Windows 7 is installed on 39% (Statcounter), 42% […]
Windows 8 will be released soon, perhaps not soon enough. No big news there except that if you are a Windows fan, you probably want Windows 8 now. Windows 7 is fantastic and you may not want to let go. What do you do? It is time to tweak your Windows 7 operating system to […]
I'm really delighted to be able to announce that this morning five of my Windows 7 troubleshooting tutorial videos went live on the official Microsoft support website at support.microsoft.com. The videos, which are about three minutes each cover the subjects Using the Automated Troubleshooters, Repairing Corrupt Boot Files, Using the System File Checker, Using the […]
There's been a lot of talk recently about use use of shortcut keys in Windows 8, primarily because 90+% of the people who will be using that OS for the next few year won't have access to a touch screen. What this has brought home though is just how many people still reply on the […]
Microsoft UK are running a new Windows 7 competition with some really great prizes through their TechNet newsletter between now and the middle of December. The competition is intended to bolster Windows 7 in the business space and is called Save Sam. Sam is an IT Project Manager who has purchased a large batch of […]
A few months ago now I was commissioned by my publisher to make a series of video tutorial versions of some of their Step-by-Step books. I made four, Windows 7, Word 2010, PowerPoint 2010 and HTML5. Now they've taken the fantastic step of making some of these videos available for FREE online. It's not just […]
Update: Please note that Windows XP was retired as of April 8, 2014 and that support for the operating system -- including Windows XP Mode for Windows 7 -- has ended as a consequence. Whether your computer has Hardware Virtualization or not, this is a simple way to run XP mode on Windows 7 without […]
