Beta

Windows 7 “Power Button Action”

Bill Tudor — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 17:00:00 GMT

I log off all the time. Finished using the laptop, log off. Use the kid’s machine to check a movie listing, log off. Jump on the server to perform some admin, log off. Check the weather on the wife’s machine, log off. Log in with Administrator account to perform application installation or other maintenance, log off.

I never shut down. Just before going on vacation, shut down. Lightning storm, shut down.

I never sleep. The computer goes to sleep all by itself, so I don’t have to.

Besides, if I did want to shut down – or sleep -, hitting the real (hardware) button is faster.

In fact, of all the items on that power button (Shutdown, Sleep, Restart, Lock, Logoff, Switch User), the least likely option I would ever use is Sleep. The next-least-likely is Shutdown.

Sleep, of course, is the default setting. In Vista and Windows 7.

In Vista, you could change the default action of the power button in the start menu to “Sleep”, “Shutdown”, or to “Hibernate” using the Power control panel (all equally unlikely options). “Log off” is buried in the little sub-menu, and could not be set as default action. I was never able to discover a keystroke-sequence that got me logged off without looking. In short, logging off was a pain-in-the-butt.

Finally, in Windows 7, the “Taskbar and Start Menu Properties” allows you to change the power button action.

And you can choose “Log off” …

Yea!

Tip: Windows Key, then Right Arrow, then Enter. You’re now logged off.

Windows 7 (beta) Fax & Scan

Bill Tudor — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 05:26:07 GMT

Oops. I think its time to update this toolbar’s color scheme. :-)

The “XP-Blue” did not look too out of place in Vista, but stands out in Windows 7, which typically sports much lighter toolbar color themes.

The Windows 7 Beta

Bill Tudor — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 22:44:00 GMT

I hesitate to post on the new Windows 7 beta, but ...

Installation

My installation is a 32-bit install into a 3Gb virtual machine running under hyper-V. The result is “no Aero for me”, which removes plenty of the new eye candy, but I have a beefy host with plenty of memory. I will normally be logged in via Remote Desktop.

The installation experience is nearly identical to Windows Vista. Most of the posts I have been reading praising the installation process are likely from people who have not done a clean Windows install since the XP days – Microsoft did a great job with Vista / Server 2008 / 7 installer. Installing from USB sticks, DVD, recovery images, etc. are all excellent experiences lasting little more than 15 minutes.

First Impressions

First impression is pretty good. I really cannot comment too much on performance, although it appears to be similar to Vista and Server 2008 in the VM, which is good. The usual changes to Windows Explorer are needed (show file extensions, show OS files, turn off pop-up file descriptions, …). Explorer is again “dumbed-down” for the typical computer user, who’s biggest problem after 20+ years of personal computing is still locating their files on disk. We’ll see. Maybe even power users will like the new “libraries”. I’ve added an “Admin” library and a “Development” library to contain folders appropriate to each in order to get a feel for this feature. Might be good.

Start Menu and Taskbar

My first real comment is a good one: Search box in the start menu.

The Search box in the start menu was one of the best new features of Windows Vista, and it is on steroids in Windows 7. Typing phrases remotely related to what you want gives the right answer. For example, when I type “Blog” I get “Windows Live Writer” as the result! I don’t know about you, but I think that is cool.