Windows 7 User Experience

Windows 7 provides two distinct user interface experiences: a basic experience for entrylevel systems, and a more visually dynamic experience called Windows Aero. Both offer a new and intuitive navigation experience that help you more easily find and organize your applications and files, but Aero goes further by delivering a truly next-generation desktop experience.

The basic experience has been updated and streamlined so you can find and work with your programs and files more easily than in previous versions of Windows. Some of the important new features include Explorer windows, Live icons, Search Folders, and Instant Search.

Windows 7 uses Explorer windows to give you more information and control while simplifying how you work with your files. Each Explorer window includes a Command Bar, Live icons, column headers, and a Navigation pane. Command Bars display only the tasks that are most appropriate for the files being displayed. Live icons are scalable thumbnails that display the first page of documents, the actual image of a photo, or the album art for individual songs in your music collection, making it easier to find exactly what you are looking for. The Navigation pane (New!) contains Libraries, HomeGroups, networks, disk drives, Search Folders and Favorites folders that you have created on your computer. A Search Folder is simply a search that you save. Opening a Search Folder instantly runs that saved search, displaying up-to-date results immediately.

With Windows 7, you no longer have to remember where you store every file. Instead, to find a file, you need only to remember something about it. The updated Start menu integrates the Instant Search box to help you quickly find and start any program or file on your computer. After you add or edit file properties or data associated with a file, such as a keyword on a document, you can use the Instant Search box to quickly find a file by the file property.