Desktop enhancements windows 7

Get free ground shipping on all U. Shop now. Windows 7 is slated to be on the shelves and available online by late October. You might be asking these questions:.

You'll see one of the final Release Candidate versions of Windows 7, in which we'll examine the desktop, taskbar, and start menu. You'll also discover the new taskbar buttons, the improved pinning functionality, the new Jump List feature, tricks to move and manipulate windows, and more. Back when XP made a hit, we were shocked by the almost-neon blue and grass-green color scheme. Then Microsoft toned it down in Vista with a cool-black taskbar and start menu.

The change to a light chrome-looking blue taskbar and start menu isn't the big surprise. More shocking is how the taskbar buttons for programs and windows are handled. In just about every Windows version to date, the taskbar buttons sport the program or window icon and a text title. However, as you see in Figure 1 , you won't see text titles right off the bat; just the program or window icons are shown.

Figure 1. An icon and text title is shown when hovering over the main icon. This is similar to Vista, but in Windows 7 it shows each file or window; not just the first one when hovering over a grouped icon.

If you find that the taskbar changes are a bit too much, you can bring back the text titles and smaller icons such as Figure 2 shows : Right-click the taskbar and click Properties. Figure 2. Remember the Quick Launch toolbar that was usually on the left of the taskbar in Vista and previous versions? Well now that's gone or you could say replaced with another feature. Can't find the shortcut to quickly bring up the desktop? Don't forget that you can also move to the desktop by right-clicking the taskbar and clicking Show the Desktop.

Now you can "pin" shortcuts to the taskbar and start menu. You probably won't have any icons pinned to the start menu by default. However, you can add some. They will appear on the top of the start menu, separated from the icons for recently opened applications, as in Vista.

Though it might be confusing at first, the pinned icons look very similar to the regular icons of currently opened programs. Plus it might be hard to tell at first whether you have a pinned program currently open. When it is open, it will be highlighted, as you see for the Internet Explorer icon in Figure 1. If you want to pin a shortcut that's on the start menu to the taskbar or top of the start menu, simply right-click it and select one of the pin options.

A totally new feature in Windows 7 is the Jump List. It offers shortcuts for popular tasks, recently opened files, and other related items for programs on or pinned to the start menu or taskbar. For example, as Figure 3 shows, the Jump Lists for Internet Explorer might show sites you frequently visit and common tasks. Figure 3. On the start menu, you simply hover to the right arrow and the Jump Lists for that application if any will appear.

On the taskbar, right-click the icon. Remember that the exact Jump List types and shortcuts differ depending upon what you do with the program. Trying to find the pop-out Recent Items menu on the start menu to reopen a file?

The Jump Lists are supposed to replace this feature, but if you must, you can bring back the old feature. Right-click the taskbar, click Properties , select the Start Menu tab, and hit the Customize button. Then mark the Recent Items option and click OK. These features give you more ways to move and manipulate your windows around. For example, to maximize a window, you simply click the title bar very top of the window and drag the window to the top of the desktop.

Want to compare two open windows? Simply grab a window and drag it to either side edge of the screen to fill half the screen. Wanna shake? To get all but one window out of the way, grab the window you want to keep and shake it. This will magically minimize the others to the taskbar. Then simply shake the window again to get 'em all back. There's still more. Don't forget to check out all the new Windows themes.

Right-click the desktop and select Personalize to explore the themes and other settings. I would like to receive exclusive offers and hear about products from InformIT and its family of brands. I can unsubscribe at any time. Pearson Education, Inc. This privacy notice provides an overview of our commitment to privacy and describes how we collect, protect, use and share personal information collected through this site.

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If you have elected to receive email newsletters or promotional mailings and special offers but want to unsubscribe, simply email information informit. On rare occasions it is necessary to send out a strictly service related announcement. In recent years, with the continuous improvement of multimedia, 3D applications, and user experience, remote desktops under Windows have been unable to meet some of the growing demands.

In Windows 7's RDP design, a very important concept is rendering 3D image graphics, which are usually done on a local computer when we play 3D games. In the RDP of Windows 7, 3D rendering can be done either on the local computer we call it the Host machine or on the computer running Remote Desktop we call it the Client. W ith these protocols, 3D games and HIGH-definition video playback software can transmit data streams through the RDP to the Client computer where Remote Desktop is located, and then rendered and executed by the hardware on the Client computer.

With such an architecture, it is not difficult to understand why 3D games can be run smoothly on the remote desktop! You may be more interested in what kind of application is on the Host machine to complete the rendering, what kind of application is on the Client machine to complete the rendering, the specific division of tasks is as follows:.

Another magic weapon of RDP in Windows 7 is to make full use of and compress network bandwidth. We've made it clear that if you want to play games and watch movies smoothly on the remote desktop, you must meet the following requirements:. If you want your own application to support the latest RDP protocols, you need to look at these three things.

Developers can use the following APIs to detect that the application is currently running in a remote desktop session and to optimize and adjust as needed. I won't go into the details of development, so you can look at the courses on PDC.

Finally, post a few more pictures of the windows 7 remote desktop found online:. Introduction to 15 foreign mobile game engines and development tools. The best foreign game development station. What are the IOS development environment, certificates and authorization files? Use Jenkins to configure automated builds. Summary of getting started with Jenkins.

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