Preview : Windows 7: Application Enhancements

Ever since Windows has been around, especially since the time of Windows 95,

there have a been a number of applications bundled with the OS that have had

their uses. Some of these like Calculator, WordPad and Paint, have always been

around — but never really seen too many changes as the years have gone by. Other

applications like a Movie Maker and a mail client (Outlook Express/Windows

Mail), etc. were introduced later and have had minor changes with each update.

Windows 7 radically changes all of these. All the built-in applications get

extreme makeovers. So much so that at first glance you might wonder if you are

actually running the application you have known for so long or whether it's a

third party one. Another change that you will see is that some of the apps that

you were introduced to in Vista seem to have been removed — but not completely

as you will see. We'll take a look at some of the significant changes in

applications in Win7.

Calculator



This tiny applet that has been around since Windows 1.0 is probably

something that everyone uses very often to do small calculations. Calculator has

not seen any major improvement in all these years — but finally gets a massive

makeover in Windows 7 that makes it much more useful than before.

At the basic level, Calculator looks much like its earlier counterparts,

albeit with some color changes. However, even in this mode, there are some

changes that can really make a huge difference to how you use this app. The

first change is that Calculator maintains a history of the calculations you have

done. And you can browse through these by clicking on the desired one or by

using the arrow buttons on top of the “screen”. Another major change is that you

can even edit a previous calculation in case you made a mistake in any of the

values you entered by simply double clicking on it.

The basic calculator looks similar to the earlier versions.	The history options let you see earlier results as well as edit the calculation itself.

You now also have a number of new modes for it other than the Basic and

Scientific ones that have been around. You now also get a Programmer and a

Statistics mode. Not only these you also get a number of handy tools to perform

common calculations as well.

First, you get a Unit Converter that lets you convert between different units

of different types. For instance, you can select types such as Temperature,

Angle, Speed, Length, Area and many more and select to convert between different

units such as C-F, Meter-Feet, Mile-Km, and more. Next, you also get a nice date

converter that lets you find the difference between two dates or add/remove days

to a date. And finally you get an option to perform some template based

calculations for Gas Mileage, Lease Estimation and Mortgage Estimation. If you

are planning to take a loan to purchase a car or house, this last one can be a

huge timesaver.

Sticky Notes lets you save notes on the desktop.

Paint



This is another app that has been around for ages without any significant

changes. The user interface now looks like that of an Office 2007 application by

the inclusion of the Ribbon control. This lets you work with a much larger

number of tools and has a number of enhancements in what Paint can do. Although

it is not something that you can use for editing photos or very precise

graphics, this is much better than what was there earlier and can be used for

simple jobs in a much easier fashion.

WordPad



Taken as a simple word processer, WordPad too gets the new Office 2007

Ribbon interface to make finding and using features easier. Another enhancement

is that it can now open, edit and save in the new DOCX format as well.

Sticky Notes



This is a new application that, as the name suggests, displays sticky notes

on the screen. You can add as many notes as you wish and move them around,

change their shape and color and remove them when done with.

The new Paint app has a number of new features and a new Ribbon based interface.

Live Replacements



As I mentioned earlier, there are some applications that have simply gone,

starting Windows 7---for instance, Windows Movie Maker and Windows Mail.

However, there's no reason to worry, since all of these and more are now part of

the Windows Live Essentials (WLE) Suite. You can download the installer for WLE

that gives you a number of more applications:

Messenger: The MSN Messenger IM client that lets you chat with friends.

Mail: The replacement for Outlook Express and Windows Mail, lets you check

your POP/IMAP accounts as well as connect to Newsgroups and read RSS feeds.

Photo Gallery: Lets you manipulate photos on your machine as well as upload

them to a gallery on the Internet.

Toolbar: Adds a toolbar to Internet Explorer that gives you a number of

search and other options.

Writer: If you are into writing blogs, this is a must-have application as it

allows you to compose your posts offline and post them directly to your blog.



Family Safety: Controls the content that your children can access on the
Internet.

Silverlight: Installs the Silverlight runtime that lets you view rich

interactive content (such as on the DLF IPL site at www.iplt20.com) Movie Maker:

A replacement for the Windows Movie Maker, it allows you to create home movies

easily.

Your Choice



Many of the other apps such as Media Player and Media Center also get a UI

makeover. However one of the most significant change is that you now have

control over which apps remain installed on your system. In the Release

Candidate for May, you have the option to uninstall built in applications such

as Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, Media Center and others. This does

not however, remove their core systems — only their user interfaces, so that

other apps that depend on services that say, Internet Explorer provides, can

continue to function. However, the executable for these applications will be

removed so that there is no way to directly launch them anymore.

All in all, Windows 7 gives you a whole bunch of updated applications as well

as many other new apps that can be installed and uninstalled at your choice. The

Release Candidate shall be out in May, so make sure you do get your hands on it.