Windows 7 has a lot of new or improved features. One of my new favorite features is the Sticky Notes – they are not only useful but they are fun to work with. You can find Sticky Notes from the start menu. These can be used to create notes and reminders. You can drag them around your desktop and re-size them to your heart’s content. They will stretch as you write and best of all they look like just like Post It Notes. You can even right click on them to change the color. If you would like to clear the notes from your desktop; right click the notes icon in the task-bar and click on close,...

This is my second article in my series on Virtual PCs. Last time I talked about installing Virtual PC 2007 on Vista. Today I installed Windows 7 Enterprise on this Virtual PC. If you are involved in the IT industry and would like to test Windows 7 Enterprise you can download an evaluation copy until December 31st 2010. If you haven’t already installed Virtual PC 2007 you can get it here. Now I would like to talk a little bit about installing and configuring in general. Often times when it comes to computers there are several ways to do different things. It is also true that depending on your...

I got my first Microsoft Certification back in 2000. In those days, in order to run more than one operating system on the same machine, we would have to partition our hard drives and then install the operating system on the new partition. This was commonly referred to as a dual boot system. Tools such as Partition Magic and Boot Manager helped make the process of dual booting easier, but it was still a process that most chose to only run on their extra practice machine. Today things are much easier thanks to Virtual PCs. A Virtual PC is a software tool that you can install on your current machine. The...

Pin Programs To Taskbar – The Windows 7 Task Bar (the bar on the bottom of the screen) comes with 3 default programs pinned to it; Internet Explorer, Windows Explorer, and Windows Media Player. To pin programs of your choice to the task bar go to programs and then right click on the program and choose Pin to Taskbar. You can also drag desktop shortcuts to the taskbar. You can also drag around, rearrange, and delete these icons. Jump Lists – Let’s say we use Word a lot so we pin Word to the taskbar now if we hover the mouse over the Word icon in our taskbar and right click, we will get a jump...

If you have more than one computer at home running Windows 7 it is very easy to share files and printers using Windows Home Groups. When you first start Windows you will get a screen to set a network location. Click on Home network to set a Home Group. Select what you want to share including pictures, music, videos, documents, and printers. Then click on next. As this Home Group is created a password will be generated, write it down so that you can add other computers to this Home Group. Click on Finish. You can now browse your library and see the files in your Home Group. When you click on the...

It’s time to install Windows 7 on a couple of my older computers. How do I know Windows 7 will run on them properly? Fortunately for me, the guess work is taken out of the equation with Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor. Go to the Microsoft Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/get/upgrade-advisor.aspx) page, and then make sure that all USB devices such as printers, external hard drives, and scanners that you normally use with this machine are plugged in and powered on. Then click on the Upgrade Advisor link which will take you to the Microsoft Download Center. Then click...