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.

In this how-to article I am going through how you can set up and use XP Mode in Windows 7 for solving an application compatibility issue.

First of all; What is XP Mode exactly? XP Mode for Windows 7 is Microsoft’s new and brilliant solution to legacy compatibility. One of Microsoft’s biggest challenges has always been backwards compatibility. Their biggest customers are businesses and selling a huge corporation on the idea of upgrading their OS’s is not an easy task to undertake. Being backwards compatible has thus been important. The problem with this has always been that keeping legacy code around hampers the development of a new and better OS. Windows 95 had to be backwards compatible with Windows 3.11 and thus kept support for 16bit applications around while introducing 32 bit computing to the masses. In Windows 7 Microsoft has not made a clean break with the past, but still keeps legacy code in the OS, but they have – I think – introduced the way to solve this problem for the future; XP Mode. XP Mode is a version of Windows XP running in a virtual machine within Windows 7, but made seamless so that it appears that application are running in Windows 7. In order to run the applications in XP Mode you find them exactly where you would have found them had they been running in 7, you can even pin them to the taskbar, like native Windows 7 applications. This implies that in future versions of Windows, Microsoft may make a clean break with the past and remove redundant legacy code, and solve that particular problem with a solution similar to XP Mode – plain brilliant. In Windows 7 XP Mode is available for people running Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate and Enterprise editions.

I had thought of testing XP Mode, but had put it off for the time being. Then I encountered serious problems with an application (Elkjøp Fotoservice – a brand specific version of CEWE Fotoservice) in Windows 7. I just could not make this app run in Windows 7. So I decided that it was time to test XP Mode on a real problem…

Installation

In order to download the RC of Windows XP Mode, head over to this site and follow the instructions there.

NB! It is important to note that in order to run XP Mode you need Windows Virtual PC and that this again requires a CPU with the Intel Virtualization Technology or AMD-V feature turned on. The Microsoft download site for Windows Virtual PC and Windows XP Mode RC provides links to pages where you can check whether your PC is capable of this and whether this feature is turned on or not. I recommend that you perform this check prior to downloading and installing XP Mode.

After downloading the two applications; Windows Virtual PC and XP Mode, you start off by installing them in the reverse order pr Microsoft’s installation guide;

To install Windows Virtual PC RC and Windows XP Mode RC

 

1. Install Windows XP Mode RC:
Double-click WindowsXPMode_nn-NN.exe (where nn-NN is the locale, for example: WindowsXPMode_en-us.exe) and follow the instructions in the wizard to extract and install Windows XP Mode RC.

2. Install Windows Virtual PC RC:
Double-click Windows6.1-KB958559-x86.msu or Windows6.1-KB958559-x64.msu (depending on your architecture).

3. Reboot Windows 7 to complete the installation.

4. To start Windows XP Mode RC Setup:
Click Start, click All Programs, click Windows Virtual PC, and then click Windows XP Mode.

5. Follow the instructions in the wizard to complete Windows XP Mode RC Setup and Configuration. Record the password that is provided during the Setup because it is required to log on to your virtual machine.

Setting up XP Mode

While setting up Windows XP Mode you will be greeted with a tutorial explaining what XP Mode is, as well as an intro to how you install an application. The following screenshots show some of these;

Underneath you can see the familiar warning that Windows XP is loading your personal settings.

And here is the XP desktop ready for first use. Note that you need a separate Anti-Virus application for the XP Mode.

Installing applications is done exactly like you did in XP itself. Here I have double-clicked the .exe file for the Elkjøp Fotoservice.

Running applications in XP Mode

The really neat thing with XP Mode is that once you have installed your applications in it there is a seamless integration with Windows 7. As you can see from the screenshot beneath I go into the Start menu – All programs – Windows Virtual PC – Windows XP Mode Applications to find my application and can run it from here. As I stated above you can also pin an XP Mode application to the taskbar if you need easy access to it.

And here is the application running in XP Mode;

Does it work?

The big question then is; Does it work? Well – yes, it does. But –  do not expect stellar performance. When starting an application in XP Mode it takes quite a while before the application shows up on the desktop, and although this is just my personal experience, I don’t think that the application will run as fast as it would in a native XP environment. But as a solution for having just that particular application that you just have to have run on your Windows 7 system, and you have exhausted all other efforts to make it run, XP Mode works just fine. For me, I could not get the Elkkjøp Fotoservice application to work satisfactory in Windows 7, and after having installed it in XP Mode it is working just fine, and I can once again make and order my Photo books online. That said, I am looking forward to a Windows 7 compatible release of the said application. 

XP Mode is at the time of writing available as a RC download. I expect that the final version of it will be available as a Windows Update for Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate and Enterprise by the time Windows 7 hits the store shelves on 22 October.

Try it out, and tell me what you think.

In January the European Union stated that Microsoft most likely broke European antitrust laws since they were bundling Internet Explorer with their Windows Operating System. Today cnet news’ Ina Fried broke the story of Microsoft’s response to the EU; they will release a version of Windows 7 aimed for the European market without IE in it. As Microsoft themselves states it in their leaked memo;

"To ensure that Microsoft is in compliance with European law, Microsoft will be releasing a separate version of Windows 7 for distribution in Europe that will not include Windows Internet Explorer," the software maker said in the memo. "Microsoft will offer IE8 separately and free of charge and will make it easy and convenient for PC manufacturers to preinstall IE 8 on Windows 7 machines in Europe if they so choose. PC manufacturers may choose to install an alternative browser instead of IE 8, and has always been the case, they may install multiple browsers if they wish."

The whole case is so stupid in so many ways, and I have the following comments;

1. This antitrust case comes at a time when there has never been more competition in the browser market than there is now. Firefox, Google Chrome and Safari are all doing very well, thank you very much. While IE had a market share that hovered around 90 % 5 years ago, it barely brakes 70 % today – and is on a steady decline.
2. The main complainant in the case, Norwegian Opera Software, is (of course) not happy with Microsoft’s solution, saying that it will “not restore competition in the marketplace”. There are a lot of Opera fans out there, especially in Europe, but obviously not enough to make much of a dent in the charts when it comes to market share. But how come this browser is not gaining, while the other choices are? Might it be that the other products are perceived as better?

   

3. If the European Union accepts this solution from Microsoft (which is not entirely sure) who thinks that PC manufacturers will actually provide a PC without a browser on it? And if they install one, which one will that likely be – IE most likely. Google might have the money to persuade manufacturers to bundle Chrome, but in no way does Opera Software have that money available. And what about retail versions of the OS? Does this imply that you go home with your copy of Windows, perform an upgrade or clean install only to have an OS with no internet browser at all? (This of course leads to the rebirth of internet browser CD install disks – back to the 90’s :-D) Stupid, stupid, stupid.
4. In 2009 an internet browser is integral to any operating system. Apple Mac OS X without Safari? If this legal battle had taken place in the 90’s I could have understood it, but not now. The world has changed and the thought of having an operation system without an internet browser is just stupid. How in the world would you get on the net? You couldn’t even download a competing internet browser! As I have stated above there is more competition in this market than it has ever been, and Safari, Google and Firefox seems to be gaining market share at the cost of Internet Explorer every day. There obviously is no need for an antitrust case since the market seems to be functioning just fine.
5. My last point: I am deeply sorry for this embarrassing legal battle instigated by a Norwegian Company (and we are not even members of the EU!).

What are your thoughts on this issue? If you reside in Europe will you purchase a European Internet browser free edition of Windows 7, or will you do as I will, get the US version?