Windows Aero



Windows Aero is the new Windows 7 user interface, and it is brilliant. Through the power of your computer’s 3D graphics card, onscreen windows feature transparencies so you can see through their borders. Windows are animated in a livelier manner than in previous versions. The new screen font, Segue UI, is smoother and easier on the eyes.

Aero’s enhancements go beyond visuals, however. Microsoft prepared a new set of standards to balance its new look. Modernized wizards assist you to complete your tasks. A tonal change in dialog boxes is supposed to make their message easier to understand and more friendly. Aero is fully enhanced by changes in the Windows shell.

Shell is the user interface beyond the visual appearance, is beefier and more user-friendly than in any operating system in history. It groups a number of alterations from Windows XP:

1) Interactive paths: When you navigate through the file system using the new Windows Explorer, the path in the navigation bar is interactive. You can click on any of the folders within the path to navigate directly to that folder. For instance, if you navigate to C:\Users\<your user name>\Videos\, you can click the Users folder in the path to jump right into that folder.

2) Instant searches: Each Windows Explorer window, by default, has a search text field in the upper-right corner. You can enter a search string there to search the current location, or you can search the entire computer by clicking Search in the Start Menu (which has its own Search text box). The Windows Search feature is heavily enhanced and searches the computer almost instantly.

3) Saved search folders: After completing a search, you can save it as its own virtual folder. By default, it saves the feature in C:\Users\<your user name>\Searches. From this location, you can “open” your Search folder at any time and it will update itself automatically.

4) Live icons: When you navigate to a folder that has a number of items in it, some of the icons will change into thumbnails. This feature is not new, but this part is: The thumbnails actually show what is in the file as a preview. Many file types that Windows identifies, such as photos, videos, Word documents, and Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files generate such previews.

5) The Games folder: Windows 7 takes great pains to provide to gamers, and the Games folder is the shell’s way of welcoming gamers to the new operating system. Windows 7-aware games will automatically install their shortcuts to the Games folder, and the folder gives a centralized location for organizing games, setting parental restrictions, enabling compatibility modes for legacy games, and more.

6) Network Center: Networking is easier than ever, and the shell makes navigating networks far more straightforward than it ever was before. The Network Center, shown in Figure 1, shows all of your networks and permits you to navigate through them, change sharing settings, set Internet options, and more.

Figure 1: Network Center



7) Contextual menu bars: Each window includes a menu bar, but it doesn’t look like the menu bars in Windows XP. Depending on the nature of the window, each menu bar presents different options. Each generally starts with Organize, then Views, but after that the options depend on what is in the folder. The Games window contains a Parental Controls option; many windows contain a Burn option so that you can burn their contents to optical media. The Pictures window has a Slide Show option. Intelligent menu bars assist you to obtain the most out of your files instantly.