Windows 7 Home Premium

From the very start of Windows Vista, people have been begging for something different. Although Vista did not really reach the perfection it was striving for, Windows 7 is promising to be what Windows XP was to ME; a beacon of light in an otherwise unpromising terrain.

There is no question that there is a buzz forming around Windows 7 in the technological circles, but what does Windows 7 Home Premium have to offer, and how does it differ from older operating systems? Well, for starters the company decided to do a lot of their building on the idea of feedback. They asked what the consumers wanted; what they liked and disliked, and came up with some exciting new features, as well as improvements on old flaws. For instance, this edition offers a change in taskbar; in the new version your icons will be much larger; you will be able to make any program easily accessible by pinning it to the taskbar, and you can rearrange all of your items with a simple click and drag.

Another example would be the new ‘jump lists.’ This feature keeps track of your most recent activity and makes it easily accessible. This is not necessarily a new idea; however, they have attempted to improve it by creating jump lists for just about everything. For instance, if you click on the Word icon, it will display a list of your most recently saved documents.

A new feature for Windows 7 Home Premium is HomeGroup. If you have several computers in your home – all running the new Windows operating system – you can connect them with this program. You can choose what files you want to share between computers (and other devices), plus your connection automatically allows every computer to print text and pictures from a single printer. They have attempted to design this in a fool proof manner by automatically setting up HomeGroup when the first computer is placed on the network. After that, it is a simple matter of adding the information for each additional computer.

It seems that Window 7’s new media features have become more adept as well. Windows Media Center, for instance, has been updated with an extra fast scroll feature; you can also connect your computer with USB TV tuner, and record your favorite television shows. With HomeGroup and Windows Media Player you can share and stream music to other computers in your network, or other devices in your home. Play To is an especially interesting new device, as with a simple connection to other devices in your home; you can play any piece of music from your computer on any device. It also converts music files into the appropriate format for each media device.

Another new feature that people are really excited about is Windows Touch. If you have a touch screen monitor, you can use it to scroll, click, resize media and zoom in and out of pictures. Although many people may not find a use for this, it is suggested that this particular form of usage will make using your computer faster and easier. It will certainly aid in keeping things clutter free, as in many cases, you can cut out the keyboard and mouse altogether.

Two of the biggest complaints that many people had about the older versions of Windows were that they were bogged down and took far too long to shut down, start up, and recover from standby; the second being that their security measures tended to interfere. To fix this, rather than having intrusive pop-ups that seem to appear endlessly, they have created a new program called the Action Center. The Action Center is integrated with the Control Panel, and only displays a small icon on your system tray when it feels that something important needs to be addressed. What makes this particularly appealing is that you do not have to deal with it right away. The icon remains in place until you are ready to work with it; when you are, all you have to do is click it. This version of Windows is also said to have cut out a lot of unnecessary programs, and is supposed to give you a lot more control of what you do and do not want to run, thus making start-up and shut down faster.

Deciding which edition to use is always the biggest problem; do you use a lot of business software, or are you more inclined towards general computer use, or even media? What makes Windows 7 Home Premium a good option is that it offers a complete package; whereas with Windows 7 starter, or Home Basic, your features might be limited. Home Premium offers Windows Media Center, Windows Touch, premium games and HomeGroup, but leaves out the office programs you wouldn’t necessarily use.

Although Windows 7 Home Premium sounds very promising right now, they are still very much working on it. Many of the testers have had great things to say about this new operating system, and only a few complaints. In the end, only time will tell.