I am starting a series of articles here on my blog titled the 7 Windows 7 tips for week WW-YY… which (obviously) will be a weekly installment. If anyone of you out there have any tips or tricks you want to see here feel free to contact me through the comments section of this post..

In this first installment I have the following 7 Windows 7 tips;

Tip #1: Managing Your Windows

Windows 7 have made managing your windows much more easy than it ever was. You can dock your active window on the right or left side of the screen by clicking on and dragging the window to either side and then releasing it to see it fill up half the screen. You can also drag the window to the top of the screen to maximize it (or by double-clicking the top of the window). If you want to maximize the window vertically while still keeping the same width, you double-click on the top or bottom edge of the window border.

The keyboard shortcuts for achieving the same thing are;

  + LEFT ARROW  and + RIGHT ARROW docks to half the screen

+ UP ARROW and + DOWN ARROW maximizes and minimizes the window

+ SHIFT + UP ARROW and + SHIFT + DOWN ARROW maximizes and restores the vertical size of the window.

 

 

Tip #2: Use Aero Peek To Gain Quick Access To Your Desktop

In order to gain quick access to your desktop in Windows 7 you can click on the rectangle in the lower right hand corner of your taskbar.

 

You can also use the keyboard shortcut   + SPACE to achieve the same thing.

 

 

Tip #3: Missing Applications in Windows 7? Download Windows Live Essentials Suite

Have you upgraded from Windows Vista to Windows 7? Then you are probably missing a lot of applications that you were used to like for instance Windows Photo Gallery or Windows Movie Maker. Do not worry. Microsoft decided to pull all of those applications out of the OS, but are offering them for free in the Windows Live Essentials. The easiest way to get them is to click then hover over GETTING STARTED before clicking on GET WINDOWS LIVE ESSENTIALS. You can also get to them by clicking here.

Once you have started the installer you will be greeted by a window like this one (similar) where you can make your choices. Click INSTALL and you should be done.

Windows Live Essentials are highly recommended!

 

Tip #4: Hide All Inactive Windows

Multitasking is nice, but having the computing power also means that you more often than not find yourself with too many windows open at the same time. Windows 7 was all about removing the clutter, so hit  + HOME to minimize all inactive windows, hit the same key combination again to restore the inactive windows again.

 

 

Tip #5: Want To Burn An ISO?

In Windows 7 it is finally possible to burn and .ISO image from within the OS itself, without the need to revert to any third party application. All you need to do is to double-click the .ISO file in question in order to open the Windows Disc Image Burner application;

 

 

Tip #6: Reopen Your Last Closed Tab in IE 8

Tabbed browsing was for many introduced in Internet Explorer 7 (I know Opera introduced this way back when, and that for instance Firefox have had it longer – but for most users I think IE 7 introduced this feature). It is very easy to close the wrong tab with too many of them open. Internet Explorer 8 has made it easy to reopen your last closed tabs as it stores the last 10 in memory. To open your last closed tab in IE 8 click CTRL + SHIFT + T. If you have closed more than one tab just hit that key combination again, and again until you have reached the limit of 10.

 

 

Tip #7: Double Up Your Open Window

Are you for instance running Windows Explorer? You want to run another instance of it? That is easy. Just hold down SHIFT and click the icon again. Voila!

 

 

There you have it, my first 7 Windows 7 tips. Stay tuned for 7 more next week. Comments and suggestions

can be left underneath this post.

 

I got my new laptop yesterday, Friday 30 October. As you know from my previous posts; here and here, I got my new HP Pavilion dv7 2114eo as a replacement for my old HP dv9074ea which broke down for the third time due to the same error. Despite my problems with my former laptop, I really liked it and was thoroughly satisfied with its performance. Although it was purchased in 2006 it ran Windows 7 beautifully and were able to run a game like Call of Duty decently. Since it went down for the same error for the third time, I was issued a replacement PC; a brand new HP Pavilion dv7-2114eo. Being a gadget and tech lover I was really looking forward to un-boxing, setting up and testing my new machine, and I could hardly wait for it to arrive.

In this review I will cover the following;

– Specifications

– Overview

– Windows 7 – installation process and compatibility

– Performance

– Battery-life

– Conclusion

 

Specifications

Overview

The specs shows off a fairly decent laptop with a good processor, a good GPU, lots of storage and a potentially great screen. The screen resolution should have been higher though, real HD would have been nice. The machine was originally delivered with Windows Vista Home Premium (x64), but I wiped the C drive and installed Windows 7 Ultimate on it as soon as I got it. But that is all based on numbers, how does it work in real life?

Prior to setting the machine up and being able to test it, I had to unbox it. A moment I truly savored and enjoyed. For me at least, it is not an everyday occurrence to get a new laptop. Here are some pictures of it, courtesy of Hp.com;

Front side; showing off the espresso wallpaper as well as the 2 phone jacks and the microphone port.

The Espresso imprint on the lid, with the glowing hp logo

Front and left side;

Front and right side;

Left side with the VGA, HP expansion port, RJ45, HDMI, eSata (+USB), USB and card reader.

Right side with the DVD writer, 2 USB ports, the Kensington lock and power connector. (The picture has two additional ports which are not present on my model)

The machine has got the glossy (fingerprint prone) black Espresso finish with a discreet circle pattern. The lid has a glowing HP logo (taking a cue from Apple) and with the silver lined edges it gives the machine an elegant and eye-catching look. As with the previous Pavilion notebook models there are no ports on the rear side, everything is placed either on the sides or on the front as shown in the pictures above.

The keyboard, which is a full size QWERTY keyboard with a numeric pad, is comfortable to use with just about the right resistance and responsiveness. It looks great and seems to be of good quality. The touchpadThe Altec Lansing speakers are placed above the keyboard, and there you will also find the quick launch buttons. The latter are way better in this iteration than they were on the dv9074. Much more responsive, without that annoying clicking sound and placed further away from the keyboard itself, avoiding the accidental clicks. The speakers themselves deserve some additional recognition: The sound is quite good, and with the subwoofer found under the laptop they are doing a very decent job indeed. They will in no way replace external speakers, but you get quite good sound straight out of the box.

The screen looks just great, although the common problem with viewing it from the sides are still there. That said; how many people tend to work or watch a laptop at any given time? One – exactly. And he tends to be right in front of the screen – and there there are no problems. The one issue I have with the screen, is the fact that they haven’t gone to full HD. 1600×900 is a great resolution on this screen, but I see no reason why they haven’t made it 1080p.

So with an AMD processor and a good GPU plus 2 large HDDs you expect the fans to making some noise, right? Well, you are right on. The fans are going constantly and are making some noise. Less noise than my older laptop, but still much more than I hoped for when I got this machine. While playing a game or a movie you will not really notice it, but while working on your machine, like I was when I wrote this, I certainly picked up the sound.

 

Windows 7 – Installation process and compatibility

The laptop came with Windows Vista Home Premium with the normal mixture of trial versions of different software included. I contemplated removing the software I did not want and then to do an in-place upgrade to Windows 7 Ultimate, but decided against it. I have always advised clean installs to others, so I decided to follow my own advice. I prepped my memory stick according the instructions in my own complete guide on how to install Windows 7, and booted from it. I chose custom install, formatted the C drive and installed Windows 7 Ultimate on it. From the time I restarted until the Windows 7 desktop greeted me it took exactly 18 minutes, including the time it took for me to format and to enter my credentials.

HP had already put up their drivers for Windows 7 for this very machine, and I had downloaded them all. After installing them and I then went to the Device Manager to check the status, and was greeted with everything being ok, except for an unknown device;

After some digging around I found that this device has the hardware ID ACPI/HQP0004 and I have yet to find drivers for it. Hopefully HP will provide one soon…

UPDATE: Hp on 5 November had a Windows 7 Expert day over on their support forum, and they were quick to solve the missing driver issue for me. I was missing the driver for the HP Mobile Data Protection Sensor, an accelerometer that detects sudden movement and freezes the hard discs in order to protect them. For some reason that driver never showed up on my computer models driver home page, but I was given a direct link, and the problem is now solved.

So how does Windows 7 work on it. No surprises there – just great! Smooth, responsive and every way I would expect this OS to work on newer hardware. The only problem I encountered so far was when yesterday the wireless modem acted up on me. I thought my connection speed was slow, and tested it only to find that I had less than 1 Mb/s download speed. And given the fact that I have a 12 Mb/s line this annoyed me big time. After checking the router I decided that it was probably the driver that was the problem; I uninstalled the hardware, and reinstalled the drivers – and I got my 12 MB/s download speed again.

The Windows Experience Index for the machine looks like this;

The processor is obviously the weakest link scoring only 4.9 as opposed to the rest which scores around 6. Having stated that, it is time to test the performance of the system…

Performance

In order to test the performance of the system I ran it through some synthetic tests in order to see how it would perform when it came to gaming and desktop performance. I also ran a battery test to see how long this one would last, remembering clearly how poor the battery on my dv9074ea fared.

I have compared my results with my old laptop as well as well as two results from the Norwegian site Hardware.no; the very high-end and expensive Toshiba Qosmio X300 (ca 15000 NOK – $2500) and the Dell Studio XPS 16.

3DMark 03

HP dv9074ea:                                                 8265

HP dv7-2114eo:                                        17612

Toshiba Qosmio X300:                                    NA

Dell Studio XPS 16:                                            NA

3DMark 05

HP dv9074ea:                                                 3584

HP dv7-2114eo:                                          9982

Toshiba Qosmio X300:                                    NA

Dell Studio XPS 16:                                            NA

3DMark 06

HP dv9074ea:                                                   NA

HP dv7-2114eo:                                        5901

Toshiba Qosmio X300:                           10091

Dell Studio XPS 16:                                     4379

PCMark Vantage

HP dv9074ea:                                                   NA

HP dv7-2114eo:                                         2969

Toshiba Qosmio X300:                               3995

Dell Studio XPS 16:                                           NA

Crysis

I ran Crysis on Medium settings, screen resolution 1600×900 2x antialias just fine. No hick-ups or artifacts, which speaks volumes about this machines gaming capabilities.

This laptop comes up with some pretty decent results compared to the other ones. That the Toshiba comes up with better results should be expected, given the price and thus the included hardware. For me personally it is truly great having a new laptop as a replacement that is way better than what I had before. I can only say; HP dv9074ea R.I.P.

Battery life

In order to measure the battery life I ran three tests; the first two with the utility Battery Eater Pro. The first test was in the so called Classic mode, which resembles full load with no power saving options enabled ie the minimum capacity of the battery. The second test I ran was in the Idle mode, which gives the maximum capacity as all power saving options are enabled. The third and last test I did was to close all programs and start playback of a DVD (Platoon) to see how long the battery would last.

Battery Eater Pro v2.70 Classic Mode                               74 minutes

Battery Eater Pro v2.70 Idle Mode                                  190 minutes

DVD playback                                                                              90 minutes (not enough – pc was in balanced power mode)

So for graphic intensive tasks not nearly enough, but for ordinary work related tasks it should provide enough juice for getting the things done. That said, this is a desktop replacement and I at least will in 9 out of 10 cases always use it connected to the power grid. Although it would have made people look at me, I don’t see myself pulling this enormous laptop out on an airplane to watch a movie 🙂

 

Conclusion

All in all I am very satisfied with the dv7-2114eo. It looks great, is comfortable in use and packs all the power I need and then some. Being a casual gamer, this machine has more than enough gaming power to satisfy me. The downsides of it being the “non-HD” screen resolution, the constant humming of the fan and a battery that I hoped would perform better.

I have no problems recommending this machine to anyone interested in a multimedia desktop replacement system. For me this is value for money. Actually double so, since I did not pay one cent for this machine… 😉

One might believe that I would be angry and upset. Why you ask? Well, last week, on 14 October to be exact the graphics card started acting up again. For those of you that have read this blog for a while you know that I have had to send my HP dv9074ea laptop in for repair twice already due to the graphics card dying on me, rendering the laptop useless. In order to fix the problem the motherboard had to be replaced in both those instances. When I tried to start the laptop last week I got a blue screen before it finished loading the OS and it restarted again. I noticed red stripes all over the screen at boot-up and Windows offered me the option to repair the system. It did not work, and the only way to boot into Windows was to go into Safe Mode and roll back the screen card drivers to the Standard VGA driver ones. Obviously the graphics card had started its downward process of dying on me…

I contacted komplett.no, the vendor from whom I purchased the machine in October 2006. Obviously the 1 year warranty was out, but I could still complain about the product under Norwegian Consumer Purchase Laws which asserts that a product like a laptop should work for 5 years. Komplett.no approved my request to send it in, and I wrote an additional claim where I asserted my knowledge of the laws in question and wanted a so-called re-delivery. Basically claiming, under law, to have a new laptop in replacement for my old one.

The laptop arrived at komplett.no on Tuesday this week, and I was very anxious to find out how this process would evolve. I got an email reply (after several phone calls) stating that komplett.no’s technician were not allowed to diagnose the machine, and that they had to send the machine to HPs service partner Infocare. The email also stated that just the process of determining whether the machine was repairable or fell under the provision in the law could take 2-3 weeks. Yikes! I am going on a business trip to the Netherlands next week, and I really want a laptop on that trip, and the prospect of that happening were bleak to say the least.

So, after receiving that email yesterday I decided to contact HPs customer service center in Norway to see if there was any way to speed up this process. I explained my predicament to Anna and later Mads at the HP return and complaints division. They were very understanding, and agreed to have one of HPs technicians call komplett.no and perform a diagnosis of the laptop via phone. This was not exactly pr protocol, but they would try anyway. After I hung up after that conversation my hopes were up. I immediately phoned komplett.no to inform them of HPs attempt to help me. They were lukewarm to say the least. “You know, this is not exactly the way it is supposed to be done…” I insisted, and were probably considered an annoying customer by the time I finished my (several) calls to their customer service representative. The end of the story? I got a call from HP today(!) informing me that the machine had indeed been identified as having the third instance of the same problem, and that they would send me a brand new computer as a replacement free of charge, and that I would hopefully get it by Wednesday next week! Amazing! Unbelievable and just a prime example of a company putting their customers first! Huge cudos to HP!

What laptop I will get as a replacement? Sometimes next week I will be the proud owner of a brand new HP Pavilion dv7 2114eo laptop computer. Specs as listed below;

Processor	AMD Turion X2 Ultra Dual-Core ZM-82 2,2 Ghz
Memory	4096 MB
Hard disk	1000GB (2 x 500 MB 5400 rpm SATA)
GPU	ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4650 (1GB DDR3)
Screen	17.3” High Def HP LED backlit BrightView Screen (1600×900)
Ports	4 USB 2.0, 1 HDMI, 1 eSata, 1 VGA, 1 RJ45 (10/100/1000), 1 HP extension, 2 headphone,1 microphone, 1 IEEE 1394, Consumer IR
Wireless	802.11 a/b/g/n WLAN + Bluetooth
Webcam	HP Pavilion webcam w integrated digital micrtophone. VGA low-light

 

 

Click here for a product demo.

I cannot wait to get the laptop, and I will of course post a review of it here on my blog once I have run it through its paces.

A big thank you to the customer team leader at komplett.no and a thousand more and then some to Mads and Anna at HP. They understand what customer care is all about!