Enormous developments in IT field have made IT administrator permanent students as they came across new advancement each day which they have to engulf. It is not easy to keep a track of each new expansion in technology in this competitive world. Windows 7 comes with loads of features and thus it is difficult to keep track of each feature. The article enlists 20 easy tips and tricks that are unique features of this new operating system developed by Microsoft.

  • You should have observed that there are shortcuts for few applications pinned to taskbar. These shortcuts can be accessed from keyboard just by pressing Windows key and a number representing shortcut.
  • There is feature which enables you to move icons on taskbar. Though it sounds familiar with earlier versions of Windows, it is unique in Windows 7.
  • Improvement in the small applications many times gets ignored by us. In Windows 7, Microsoft has added new paint brushes and ‘save as’ option in paint and WordPad but still you can not open more than one file in both applications.
  • If your friend or family member is facing some problem understanding some feature in Windows 7 or you want to explain a detail procedure regarding some documents then you can record your steps in Windows 7. It provides a tool called as Problem Steps Recorder which can take video of step by step procedure of what person is doing. When you stop the recording, file of format MHTML get saved and converted into compressed format so that it can be emailed.
  • Many times you have to match up your time with the clients working in other time zone. Instead of checking the world clock for time in different cities, you can arrange another clock on your taskbar. It can be added by accessing addition clocks tab in ‘Change date and time setting’ window.
  • In Winodws7, to access any application program you usually go into the start menu, right click on the program and select ‘Run as administrator’ in submenu that appears. Instead you can type the application name in the search box that appears in start menu and press ctrl+shift+enter to open it.
  • Security and maintenance is now possible with the help of Action center which is replacement of the security center present in the earlier versions of Windows.
  • The main reason for the failure of Windows Vista is that it used to prompt even for very small changes that user itself is trying to make to the system. By accessing User Account Control slider you can change this prompt level in Windows 7. You can higher it to make it resemble with Vista or can go lower to completely turn it off.
  • It is now very easy to either turn on or turn off built in features like IE, DVD maker etc. you have  to type features in the search box to access ‘Turn Windows Features On or Off’ to either confirm or conceal the features.
  • In a public place or in a meeting if you want to keep your search in IE private then it sin now possible through Inprivate mode of IE. It can be accessed through various ways but what is more important that it does not remember any of the keywords typed by you.
  • There are few sites which try to identify your location and actually do it when you access them. You can use Inprivate filter feature to filter information while accessing site as you wants.
  • HomeGroups feature can be used to share data between the members connected via home network.
  • If you are facing problems in which your applications hang or completely crash, then you can type reliability to find out what have caused problem in history over a definite time span.
  • Rather then accessing various options and suboptions, you can type perfmon/report in the search box to access System Diagnostics.
  • By using parent control in home as well in institutes you can set time limit or gaming restrictions on users.
  • Features like Windows mail or MovieMaker can be downloaded from website which is missing in Windows 7.
  • A new version of PowerShell is included which includes semi-GUI version names PowerShell ISE. It has three panes each dedicated for different tasks.
  • AppLocker is the tool that defines control measures on access of applications. The software provides flexibility which lets you modify the settings as per your requirements.
  • If you want to get notifies about the event error that has occurred before, you can do it from Event Viewer. You have to select the event and fasten a task like send e-mail or run a program to it.
  • Want to know where your system stands? Well, it’s possible in Winodws7 through Windows Experience Index. Type wei in search box to get the overall system and individual performance scores.