Les Actualites – Computing Technology, Software & Operating Systems

One of the new features of the upcoming Microsoft operating system are libraries which basically is a collection of folders on the computer system. One major problem that many users experienced in previous Microsoft operating systems was that the Documents & Settings folder was not expandable; At least not in an easy fashion.

Most users did not only save their documents, images and other files into this folder but also to other places on the hard disk. This could mean chaos as files were spread all over the hard drive without a way of accessing them in one place comfortably.

Windows 7 Libraries address that problem by allowing the user to add folders to his libraries so that all locations where the files are stored can be included in a library so that they all can be accessed from one central location.

The Windows Blog has published an extensive article about Windows 7 Libraries that is worth the read if you are new to the concept of libraries in Windows 7 or want to get a deeper understanding of the concept.

Sources: Windows 7

We have reported about the groundbreaking change in the Windows 7 release candidate that allowed users to uninstall Internet Explorer. While uninstallation was probably the wrong choice of words as it merely meant that the executable of Internet Explorer would be removed from the operating system it did prepare users for things to come. In an article published today at the Windows Engineering blog it became known that additional features of Windows 7 can be turned off by the user.

The release candidate for Windows 7 offers an extended Windows Features control panel which can be accessed from the Programs and Features menu. New features have been added to that control panel that can be removed from the computer system including media features like Windows Media Center, Windows Media Player or Windows DVD Maker, the indexing service, Windows Search or the Microsoft .net Framework 3.51.

Deselecting a feature has the following consequences:

If a feature is deselected, it is not available for use. This means the files (binaries and data) are not loaded by the operating system (for security-conscious customers) and not available to users on the computer. These same files are staged so that the features can easily be added back to the running OS without additional media. This staging is important feedback we have received from customers who definitely do not like to dig up the installation DVD.

This is a very interesting move by Microsoft that should please advanced users who usually rely on third party software instead of Microsoft programs.

Source: Windows 7 News