Recently a couple of new Windows 7 themes have appeared that are fun. You can get these by right-clicking on your desktop and selecting Personalize followed by a click on the Get more themes online link (assuming you are running Win7).
The first that I’ve been installing on my home and work systems is Surreal Territory by Chuck Anderson:
which contains some decent environmental shots with a touch of creative color correction:
The second one is Bing Dynamic:
Which is an RSS feed of some of the best Bing Images. As new ones come out, so they will get downloaded and cycled through your desktop automatically.
Enjoy.
If you want to add a network share to a Windows 7 library you are out of luck unless you want to resort to writing code.
Luckily, Zorn software just released a tool that allows you to:
- Add network (UNC or mapped drive) and any other un-indexed folders to libraries.
- Backup library configuration, such that a saved set of libraries can be instantly restored at any point (like after a re-install of the OS or for transfer between multiple computers).
- Create a mirror of all libraries (using symbolic links) in [SystemDrive]:\libraries. This means you can reference all your files using a much shorter path, and also provides another entry-point to your files in many places in the Operating System (e.g. file open/save dialogs).
- Change a library’s icon.
Cool.
This is quite an interesting Windows Hack.. GodMode is an uber settings view that aggregates configuration settings into a single pane.
Create a new folder and rename it to:
GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}
and you’ll then see an icon like this:
which launches a view like this:
basically a searchable list of configuration options similar to what you would get if you searched the start menu.
[Source: http://www.ithinkdiff.com/enable-the-secret-godmode-in-windows-7]
One cool feature that this enables is the ability to a create shortcut to a particular setting (by right-clicking on the desired setting) that can subsequently be bound to the keyboard.. so if, for example, you want to have speedy access to your network adapters, open GodMode and search for the keyword adapters. In the search results right-click on view network connections and make a shortcut. Then, drag the shortcut into the start menu and assign a keyboard shortcut by right clicking and selecting properties on the shortcut
and typing the key combination you want:
Now, whenever you press ctrl-shift F1 you’ll get your network connections:
As an aside it seems that GodMode shares the same search bug as the start menu in that if you type adapters, it finds the required View network connections accelerator:
where as if you type connections, it doesn’t find it.
Oops.
Anyhow, enjoy your keyboard accelerated acts of God.
First up, congrats to the Windows 7 team for getting their baby out the door. Phenomenal effort all round.
Speaking personally rather than as an MS employee I must say I really really like Win7 and have ever since the early milestone builds. I have personal experience running it on 10 or so machines across work and home day to day including the three and a half year old HP laptop that I’m writing this on which was transformed by moving to Win7. It runs really well on my netbook. All of our home machines are running better with 7. And my 8 core dev box running the 64 bit edition screams. Personal experience, not opinion.
The one piece of advice I would give to folks running Vista who are thinking of upgrading is: Do a clean install. Whilst upgrading is an option I’ve never had a good experience nor witnessed one be had by those that have ignored this advice (I can think of two people at least in this category :-) ) .. Instead, use Windows Easy Transfer to move your data then repave. I view that the fact you can’t upgrade from XP as a blessing in disguise.
Favorite features?
- The new taskbar
- Aero Snap
- Better personalization (desktop slideshow etc)
- Automatic printer switching home <-> work
- Powershell 2
- Nicer boot screen
- Homegroup
- Performance, stability and security (all flawless in my experience)
- Infocard (yes.. I know.. bizarre but it actually rocks for signing into Live)
- DX11, WARP, D2D, DWrite and all the goodness that these will bring to future apps
There is so much more.
If I could have 3 wishes for whatever comes next it would be:
- Thumbnail previews for minimized windows
- Glass on the secure desktop
- In box PDF viewer
Not that I’m greedy or anything.
But seriously, great job to the team. If you are a PC user still running XP I implore you to give this thing a try (there is a free trial).
Oh and check out the cool animating social widget that tracks #win7 twittering activity:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/social/
We had ours at the weekend.. a somewhat low key affair. Still can’t believe show bad “that” video was. Luckily the product rocks.
