Tim Sneath of Microsoft has written up a great list of Windows 7 Secrets and Tips. Now, that the Windows 7 Beta is out for public to download, a great listing of some of the new hidden features in Windows 7 was needed. Tim did not disappoint with his long list.
Here are some of my favorite secrets from his list:
- Windows Management - By now, you’ve probably seen that Windows 7 does a lot to make window management easier: you can “dock” a window to the left or right half of the screen by simply dragging it to the edge; similarly, you can drag the window to the top of the screen to maximize it, and double-click the window top / bottom border to maximize it vertically with the same horizontal width. What you might not know is that all these actions are also available with keyboard shortcuts:
- Win+Left Arrow and Win+Right Arrow dock.
- Win+Up Arrow and Win+Down Arrow maximizes and restores / minimizes.
- Win+Shift+Up Arrow and Win+Shift+Down Arrow maximizes and restores the vertical size.
This side-by-side docking feature is particularly invaluable on widescreen monitors – it makes the old Windows way of shift-clicking on two items in the taskbar and then using the context menu to arrange them feel really painful.
- Standards Support - Every review of Windows 7 that I’ve seen has noted the revamped WordPad and Paint applets that add an Office-like ribbon to expose their functionality. Few, however, have noticed one small but hopefully appreciated feature: WordPad can now read and write both the Word 2007-compatible Office Open XML file format but also the OpenDocument specification that IBM and Sun have been advocating.
- ISO Burning - Easy to miss if you’re not looking for it: you can double-click on any DVD or CD .ISO image and you’ll see a helpful little applet that will enable you to burn the image to a blank disc. No more grappling for shareware utilities of questionable parentage!
These are only few of the many great secrets and tip that Tim has listed. Be sure to check out his post. Let me know in the comments what your favorite hidden Windows 7 secret is for you.
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