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Five secret features in Windows 7

Windows 7 has launched, but it's already in the hands of many people across the UK thanks to a postal strike sparking Microsoft to begin deliveries early. If you've already installed your brand new operating system then you might be interested to hear about a few features that haven't been well-documented, but could prove useful.

If, on the other hand, you haven't had a chance to get everything backed up for the install process yet, you might want to bookmark this page so you can have a butchers at it over the weekend once everything is up and running again. But without further ado, let's take a look at the top 5 secret Windows 7 features.

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pocket-lint.com
Christopher6058d ago

Oh, right, none of them.

Installed Win 7 last night. I hate having to reinstall everything when I'm coming from Vista, but I decided to do it anyway. Anyway, it was a good way to 'clean my HDD' in some ways. Going to have to play with it tonight, but I don't expect my gaming to be worse than Vista, but likely not better at all either.

Luckily haven't run into any issues with installing Vista drivers on the system.

The Lazy One6058d ago

If you went from vista to 7 you didn't have to do a clean install. You can install and bring everything you had in vista over...

lsujester6058d ago

Clean installs are always better, though. Always.

As for why this is here, if you play a PC game, you have to go through the OS. So even the specifics of this article aren't gaming related, they are something the average PC gamer moving to 7 might want to know. The website is News for Gamers, not Gaming News.

Same reason you'll find articles on here about Linux on the PS3, or Netflix on the 360. Neither of those have jack to do with gaming.

Christopher6058d ago (Edited 6058d ago )

Yes, you do if you went from Vista Home Premium to 7 Professional. The problem is that features that were in Vista Home Premium are now in 7 Professional or above only, so I either got the basic version or kept the features I was looking for and have to do a clean install.

Check out the upgrade chart, you'll see that many people will have to do a custom install (meaning, clean install and having to reinstall applications) depending on what they buy.

http://www.technobuzz.net/w...

@lsujester: I come here for news about gaming, not news about general PC stuff that doesn't relate to my gaming experience. If I were looking for news not related to gaming, I'd look elsewhere. That's my opinion, though, that's all. I only mention it here since I can contribute to the conversation otherwise, otherwise I stay away from these type of topics.

Elven66058d ago

There's a tech category on this site as well you know, and Windows 7 has a lot to do with PC gaming, DirectX 11 and all those other gaming improvements for one.

Major_Tom6058d ago

Windows still doesn't shut off unnecessary spooler apps or background programs when you're playing a game it just ties up your ram and your processess in the background, running cycles that it doesn't even have to. They could've done alot more but yet again leaving it up to the user.

Dx11 really hasn't even proved itself either, you need developers to make you want it and so far it's not worth it. The cards themselves will be worth it however.

The Lazy One6058d ago

who would go from home premium to 7 professional? that seems a little bit the opposite of what you'd want to do.

Elven66058d ago

The OS came out yesterday and the PC game development industry has "changed" so it might take a while before we start seeing DX 11 adoption, maybe even a bit longer to see it in "full action".

Christopher6058d ago (Edited 6058d ago )

As I said above, certain features that were available in Vista Home Premium are now only available in Professional or Ultimate. The problem is that Vista overlapped too much from one to another, and now that they've downsized to only 3 versions, there's going to be some features in Win 7 Professional instead of Win 7 Home.

And it's fine that you guys disagree with me. It's kind of the expected thing. It's only my opinion, which I'll share whenever it comes up.

sikbeta6058d ago

I only want to know for real, if eat ram as vista do

Christopher6058d ago (Edited 6058d ago )

I've found the start up time to be about the same as Vista for me.

RAM use hasn't been an issue, but then again I've always had 4 gigs, which is been more than enough since I don't run games at full capability since I'm on a laptop and not a gaming desktop.

I do like the MAC-like icon pinning to the taskbar, though I wish there was a bit more in the way of customizing the look of it.

I got my upgrade 50% off from Amazon.com months ago. I don't think I'd be that happy paying the $199 for the software right now and I do believe these prices are fairly exorbitant on MS' part.

+ Show (8) more repliesLast reply 6058d ago
Ninjamonkey6058d ago

Haha tried them pretty neet.

The first one is hugely pointless but quite fun =P

DevastationEve6058d ago

I get mine for $10 since I joined Microsoft ExpertZone which is for employees of electronics stores.

70°

Microsoft Gaming Revenue Drops 7% Year-on-Year, Content and Services Down 5%, Xbox Hardware Down 33%

Microsoft announced its financial results for Q3 of fiscal year 2026, including an update on its gaming Xbox business and more.

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simulationdaily.com
Jin_Sakai25d ago (Edited 25d ago )

Not looking good. Hopefully Asha Sharma is able to turn Phil’s disaster around.

dveio25d ago

To me it's still quite remarkable how they can cash-in 5.3bn in revenue in a single quarter, since their hardware is basically dead.

Jingsing25d ago

The stock mark is what makes Microsoft remarkable, They have convinced every institutional and retail investor to just keep piling money into them. Like many big tech giants they are just a big growing pyramid scheme. As long as people keep dropping money into ETF's that cover the market Microsoft will always be liquid. At the same time it is completely stifling innovation and competition. People need to start being more discreet in how they invest their money as it's killing the system.

Tanktopmaster9225d ago

Once they re-evaluate exclusive all will be fine….

S2Killinit25d ago

Riiiiight because people will just flock back to them for one or two games per year.

Jingsing25d ago

15+ years of bad performance is what they call irreparable in business. It is time for them to sell off the assets and get out of entertainment.

Tanktopmaster9225d ago

These declines are on the back of extra revenue received from releasing games like Forza horizon 5 on PlayStation. So I’m being sarcastic here when I said they should go back to exclusives. Killing off a revenue stream from Ps5 sales will only make things worse

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50°

Report: Injustice 3 in Development at NetherRealm Studios

Thanks to the slip-up of an artist working on the title, we now have more evidence that a new Injustice game is in the works.

50°

Spiders Studio, Developers of GreedFall: The Dying World, Announce Liquidation of the Company

Spiders: "We're going to cut straight to the chase so you're not left wondering: After a long period without clear answers, we have received confirmation that Spiders is being liquidated.

What does it mean? This means the company as a whole no longer exists. We'll cease our functions immediately. The planned DLC will release via Nacon, and then-- well, that's it.

We're sorry that it's come to this and would like to thank each and every one of you for your support over the years.

If you have any questions or run into issues with your games, please contact Nacon directly as we'll no longer be able to reply."