For a lot of people, Internet Explorer 8 will be a new experience.
It has some important security improvements. One of these is the SmartScreen
Filter. It can help you avoid unsafe web sites. I haven't had any crashes
of Windows 7, but IE8 has crashed several times. It's still early, so hopefully
it will be a lot more stable by the time Windows 7 is officially released.
The
SmartScreen Filter in Internet Explorer 8 helps you avoid bad
web sites.
Action Center is good for showing all the security related information
in one place. The Action Center has a little icon in the System Tray in
the lower right hand corner of the screen, so it's easy to get to. It's
also available through Control Panel. Under the security related items are the maintenance items, all in one
place. Clicking "Recovery" launches System Restore.
Under the security settings in
Action Center is the Maintenance section.
The System Tray looks different, but is actually pretty similar to what
you are used to. You can reveal hidden icons, launch the Action Center,
see the charge of the battery in an uninterruptible power supply (UPS),
see your network connection, adjust volume, and see the clock. The item
on the extreme right shows the desktop.
Speech recognition is built in. For some reason, this type of application
never caught on very much, although it can be great for slow typists.
If you are in the market for a new PC, this version of Windows definitely
seems a better choice than Vista. But you could have to wait until the
beginning of 2010 to get a PC with 7 preinstalled. But Microsoft may allow
PC buyers to get a free upgrade from Vista to Windows 7. The program is expected
to start around
July, with consumers getting their upgrade copy when the final product is
released.
