Windows 7

Windows 7 is in beta right now (for non-techies that's the version they release to us computer geeks to test before it is released for sale on the market). I loaded it about a week ago and here's what I've found so far.

Go to the link above for all of the features, but here my favorites:

1. It uses much less memory. Vista used about 49% of my memory for the desktop and background services but Windows 7 Ultimate only uses 31%.

2. Task bar highlighting is wonderful. Just roll your cursor over something on the task bar and a thumbnail pops up. move your cursor over the thumbnail and the program goes full screen so you can see what's going on with it. Best of all once you move your cursor back to the task bar everything goes back to the way it was. No more having to switch back and forth between programs when things are running in the background.

3. Even better is the Start Menu highlighting. As you open files, the program that runs that file gets an arrow next to it in the start menu. If you need to open that file again you just click Start then highlight the program and all of the recent files slide out to the side so you can open it quickly. Also, with Windows Explorer, the recent folders you opened slide out so you can get there quickly.

4. The task bar is much cleaner and easier to work with. You can easily set which icons will be on the task bar and which ones will only show you alerts.

Windows 7 is slick! This is the most efficient, clean and easy to use version of Windows to date in my opinion. All of my programs and hardware work fine with no noticeable problems so far which is really good for a beta.

If you're adventurous, download the beta and check it out (after backing up your computer, of course). Just be forewarned, if you do install the beta as an upgrade to your system you will need to buy Windows 7 when it comes out or you will have to re-install your old Windows from scratch. Also, it is a beta so you can't get upset if some things don't work right at times. That's why they release it as a beta first to find the bugs.