Windows 7 is officially launched yesterday, 22 October 2009, worldwide, including in Indonesia. The launch in Indonesia is done with the media at Hard Rock Cafe. I’m proud to be one of the person involved in presenting demos of this great product to journalists 
After the launch, Windows 7 is officially available in all computer stores in Indonesia. Of course, while stock lasts in each stores Launch for public will be done at Pondok Indah Mall 2 on 6 November 2009, and launch for businesses and corporate will be done at Jakarta Convention Center on 24 November 2009.
To bring the spirit of Windows 7, here are 7 functions of Windows 7 that I use the most:
- Snap, for windows management. Use you mouse to drag a windows to the right side of the monitor, and the window will snap to 1/2 of the right screen. Vice versa to the left. If you drag to the top, the window will become full screen. Keyboard shortcut? Use Windows button plus left arrow, right arrow, or up arrow.
Search, directly from the Start button. Immediately after your click Start, you can type the name of the program or file that you’re looking for. For example, if you want to open Troubleshooting, you can immediately type “troubleshooting” and you can choose from the search result. For maximum result, you can use the keyboard. Just press the Windows button to show the Start menu, and type what you’re looking for, and use the up-down arrows to choose, and press Enter! Note: search is not only for file or program names, but also the content of files or Outlook emails. It can even search to your Favorites in Internet Explorer!
Peek, shows the thumbnails of all active windows. Just hover your mouse to the programs on the taskbar, and a thumbnail preview will show for each window. This makes searching for a window much easier.- Zoom, for zoom in and out of the screen. This is important for presentation or demo, when you want to show a certain part of a program or the screen. Just press the Windows button plus the button “+” for Zoom In, and Windows button plus button “-“ for Zoom Out.
- A much “cleaner” Notification Area icons, which hides unnecessary tray icons. By default, tray icon will only show icons of programs that try to notify us something. So, even though the Battery icon is always active, but it will stay hidden until it want to give certain notification, like out of battery condition. To make it more complete, we can change the setting to our own needs. For example, in my computer, the Network, Volume, Outlook and Communicator icons are always shown to make it easier for me to access.
- Rotated Wallpaper and Screen Saver. You don’t need additional programs anymore, everything is covered by Windows 7. Just change the setting of Wallpaper to show different backgrounds for a certain time. Screen Saver also can use our pictures from certain folders.
- 64-bit support that utilizes the computer memory to the maximum (more than 3 GB) but still keeps the compatibility with other 32 bits programs. It’s a waste, isn’t it, if you have a 4 GB computer but can only use 3 GB of it because of 32-bit?
The following are 7 more functions of Windows 7 that I love, but I haven’t used (or rarely used) for one thing or another:
- Multitouch! Unfortunately, I have no multitouch notebook or desktop. During the demo yesterday, we are using a multitouch Acer notebook. Cool!
- Previous Version, that give us old versions of our files. Just right click on the file, choose Previous Version. Simple, and really helpful for those unintentional file changes.
- Media Center, that transformed our computer into a home entertainment center. You can connect it to TV or internet TV, it can play video and music files, it can record TV for those shows that we can’t watch, pause in the middle of live TV, and many more. Add a remote control so you can sit back and relax, and connect it to LCD TV for a maximum experience.
- Homegroup plus Media Player that enables streaming between computers. Just right for a home audio-video network. But 1 computer with large storage as a server, and put all your video and music there. Put small computers in each room, setup a wireless network, and setup a Homegroup to connect all these computer. Use Media Center and play video and music files from each room. Simple!
- Parental Control, to manage children’s computer usage, such as time usage, which program to use, etc.
- PSR (Problem Steps Recorder), that record every steps that we make until a problem appears, and create a report file complete with screen capture of each steps, that we can send to IT support. Other use of this PSR is to create a program documentation
- Troubleshooting, which help use in all point of problems, offering the best solution automatically and can fix almost any kind of problems that we commonly face, such as checking why we can’t connect to the Internet, suggesting an optimal power setting, etc.
So, what are you waiting for? Use Windows 7 and enjoy all the facilities!
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