It’s just four months from now before the release of Windows 7, and Microsoft has already announced that there are three major versions: The Windows 7 Home Premium, Windows 7 Professional, and Windows 7 Ultimate.

If you are going to use your computer at home, you are better off with the Windows 7 Home Premium since the functionalities included in it are more than enough of what you need. These functionalities include:

1. Except for European version, the Windows Home Premium already has an Internet Explorer 8 installed for your faster and better web experience

2. Users has the ability to watch and record TV as well as the standard pause and rewind abilities

3. It allows you to create home network and should be able to connect PCs to a printer

If you are using a personal laptop and are going mobile, I suggest you consider the Windows 7 Professional edition because it features a better and advanced security features.

And lastly, if you don’t want limitations and is an advanced user, the best choice is the Windows 7 Ultimate. This version of Windows has all the features of Windows 7 Home Premium, Windows 7 Professional and all the other features not found in lower editions like the Bitlocker technology which allows you to encrypt and secure your data, a protection against loss or theft.

If you are planning to buy a computer anytime soon, you can start planning your budget for your OS as well.

Image from Windows 7 brochures.

Windows 7 has a lot of great features and one of them is called Aero Peek which is built on top of the Windows Vista Aero technology. In Windows 7, the Aero peek is a large improvement in usability compared to Vista and this allow users to take a peek on the various windows that are opened. Users have the ability to focus on the front of the window you choose and the rest of the open windows goes into a transparent nature called “glass sheets”.

The Peek technology also works on the Windows 7 desktop, whenever you move your mouse over the “Show Desktop”, the whole desktop can be seen.

Image from Windows 7.

This should be rocking good, one of the problems I had with my Lenovo S10 is the lack of optical drive and as such I had to borrow an external DVD drive to be able to install Windows 7. While there were a lot of options, like copying the files locally and booting the drive from a USB, the easiest way for me was just to borrow a DVD drive.

Today, Microsoft is contemplating on offering Windows 7 on thumb drive to address the the netbooks target. They have understood the explosion of netbooks and have moved quickly when this market was taking off by extending Windows XP on netbooks. Today, Microsoft continues to give importance to netbooks. By offering Windows 7 on thumb drives, users should be able to install the operating system via thumb drives and there isn’t much need for manufacturers to include optical media to netbooks that would only drive the price.

Are you favorable on this? I am surely looking forward for this.

Image from Windows 7 brochures.

A lot of users are visual people who like to beautify their desktops and every item in their Windows Vista system. Aside from the conventional desktop background, screen saver, icons, you can also customize your Windows Vista sidebar using the Vista Sidebar styler.

The Windows Sidebar Styler is an application which maximize the new technologies found in Windows Vista™ to be able to provide extensions to functionalities of Windows® Sidebar.

The custom styles would allow you to resize and customize the appearance of Windows Sidebar. This should make the sidebar fit various UI elements like the Aero Glass colorization or an actual third party theme. These visual styles can be saved and restored/applied by other Windows Vista users. Wow, this is similar to themes in wordpress or sites.

Anyways, go ahead and try this application via – Windows Vista Sidebar Styler.

Image from Windows Vista Sidebar Styler.

Errors were reported that Windows Vista “explorer.exe” would not start during boot up. Below are the steps you can do to fix this error:

1. As always, try booting up Windows Vista thru “safe mode”. If explorer.exe doesn’t start then serious problems are in your system. But don’t lose hope, we still have steps to try and fix this problem.

2. In safe mode, go ahead and scan the system for infections, malware, viruses

3. Windows Vista has system restore, see if the last system restore would get your system up and running.

4. Check your registry settings. Click on run and type in “regedit.exe”. Navigate to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon.

The value of “Shell” should be “explorer.exe” (see image below)

Hopefully you can get the system up and running with the steps above. If not, you can consider, repairing your Windows Vista through the installation disk, either by re-installing or installing a fresh copy.

Image from my Computer.

Mapping an FTP drive can be achieved using Internet Explorer or an FTP program, however, you can map an FTP drive in Windows Vista explorer. Below are the steps to achieve this:

1. Click on the Vista Orb

2. Type “explorer”

3. Click on “Computer”

4. Click on “Map Network Drive”

5. Select the drive you wan the FTP to map into.

6. From there type the ftp folder in the text box (see image below)

7. You should not see the mapped ftp drive

Image from my Computer.

A lot of people are annoyed by the User Access Control of Windows Vista especially with all those pop-ups here and there. Most people turn this feature off, but in case you want to keep this feature turned on, you can still minimize the pop-ups by making an application always run in Administrator mode.

Below are the steps you need:

1. Click on the application short cut that you want to run in administrator mode

2. Click the “Advanced” button

3. Put a tick mark on the “Run as administrator”

4. Click Ok until all windows close up

That’s it, you should no longer be annoyed by the UAC pop-ups on programs you always use.

Image from my Computer.

One of the powerful features of Microsoft Windows 7 is it’s touch screen abilities. One of the products that is taking advantage of these features is French portable media company Archos who has released a number of Tablet PC like devices.

Their latest product Archos 9 is a mini PC that would attract a certain market. The Archos is only 0.63 inch thick weighs only 1.8 lbs. The touch screen is an 8.9 inch device which could prove useful and valuable for travelers would wants to be productive but doesn’t like the bulk of PCs including netbooks.

The Archos 9 is expected to be released by the end of October or early November given that Windows 7 is going to be released by October 2.

The Archos 9 is powered by Intel Atom Z515 1.2 GHz and runs with 1GB of DDR2 RAM. It has a built-in Wi-FI (802.11 b/g), Bluetooth 2.1, a 10/100 Ethernet port and two USB 2.0 ports.

I am contemplating on this gadget as it seems more portable than a netbook which I currently have, Lenovo S10.

Image from Archos product brochures.

Microsoft has already announced the removal of Internet Explorer 8 for Windows 7 that are going to be released in Europe. The European Commission comes down hard on companies that have been judged guilty of anti-monopoly. Intel was previously slapped with $1.45 billion dollars after the chipmaker was found guilty of anticompetitive practices four years ago in 2004. Microsoft was slapped by the same European commission by an amount that is equivalent to around $790 million dollars today.

Microsoft’s statement is that they want to ensure they are compliant with European law, and releasing a customized copy of Windows 7 that has no Internet Explorer 8 installed is one of their steps to avoid any penalties.

I am using Internet explorer and happy to have it installed with Windows 7. Some of the applications I do not like include the Windows Media player, meeting space, photo gallery, etc.

What do you want removed from Windows 7?

Image from Microsoft.

Today, it is most likely that Microsoft has implemented a code freeze. There might be changes but these are small changes in branding, icons, or anything that is not in the core functionality of the operating system.

This is the time that the packaging department are busy, the marketing doing all the finishing branding touches, the sales department are going through their channels hoping to get their quotas thru pre-sales.

In other words, as far as the developers are concerned, they have done their job and waiting for the release of their redemption operating system.

If you are a decision maker in your company, expect a call from your Microsoft sales account lead.

Image from Microsoft Windows 7.