Were you one of the people who were in the que before Midnight to be one of the first to buy it?  One shop in London had 500 people waiting!

I went into a Computer Shop today and saw no massive rush for people to buy Windows 7 and infact there were loads of box’s for Windows 7 on the shelf’s.

It will be intresting to see how many people went out and purchased Windows 7 today.

Are you one of these people? why not leave a comment below

I have been using Windows 7 for a wee while now through TechNet and before Windows 7 I was running Vista.

Personally I have found Windows 7 to be a big improvement from Vista, as well as being alot more stable and eaiser to use.

I am sure that many Vista ‘haters’ will find Windows 7 alot better and much more stable.

For a few months Windows 7 was also on pre-order at a discounted rate with users who pre-orderd it due to recive there copys on launch day.

For those who will be upgrading to Windows 7, below is some handy hints and tips!

Start-Menu Searches: Windows key

This carryover from Vista is arguably one of Windows’ must underused and undervalued features. A simple tap of the Windows key activates the Start menu, where you can type the first few letters of a program name, Control Panel setting, Word document, or whatever and then hit Enter to launch it. Why reach for the mouse?

Minimize (Almost) All Windows: Win + Home

This combo lets you send all open windows packing–except the one that’s currently active. Sure beats clicking Minimize on a bunch of individual windows. When you tap the shortcut a second time, it restores all previously open windows.

Make Windows Transparent: Win + Space

This is the keyboard equivalent of mousing over the transparency tool in the right corner of the System Tray–great for those times when you need to something on the desktop (like a gadget) but don’t want to minimize all your windows. After tapping Win-Space, your windows will stay see-through until you let go of the Windows key.

Quick-Launch Taskbar Apps: Win + (1-9)

As you know, Windows 7 makes it a snap to “pin” frequently used programs to the taskbar. But did you also know that these programs are automatically assigned a number and corresponding Windows-key shortcut? Just press Windows-1 to launch the first pinned program (the one closest to the Start button), Windows-2 to launch the next one, and so on. Fastest app-launching known to man! Except, of course, for this…

Quick-Launch Any App: Hotkey

Like Vista before it, Windows 7 lets you assign a quick-launch hotkey to any installed program. Just right-click the program’s icon, choose Properties, and then click the Shortcut tab. Click once in the Shortcut key field, then press the hotkey combo you want to assign (Ctrl-Shift-H, for instance). Click OK and you’re done! Assuming you have a good memory, app launching doesn’t get any faster than this.

Dock Active Windows: Win + Left or Right Arrow

A great shortcut for users with widescreen monitors, this combo docks the active window to the left or right half of the screen (depending on which arrow you tap), at the same time maximizing it top-to-bottom.

Magnify Your View: Win + (+)

Windows 7’s built-in magnifier lets you zoom in wherever you place your cursor. Just tap Win-plus (that’s the Windows key and the plus key) to enable the magnifier and set a 200% zoom level. When you mouse to any edge of the screen, your view scrolls accordingly. The more you tap the keys, the higher the zoom. Of course, you can just as easily zoom out again with Win-minus.

Open Presentation Settings: Win + P

Good news for business users constantly struggling to get Windows to cooperate with projectors: A quick tap of Win-P activates a monitor-settings panel. Click Duplicate or Projector only to send your display to the big screen, or Extend if you’ve connected a second monitor and want extra screen real estate.

Create a New Folder: Ctrl + Shift + N

Forget the old way of creating new folders. In Windows 7, all it takes is a tap of Ctrl-Shift-N. This works in any open Explorer window, but also on the desktop. After the new folder appears, just type in a name as usual and hit Enter.

Bring Gadgets to the Fore: Win + G

Now that Windows’ gadgets are no longer relegated to the Sidebar, they’re free to sit anywhere on your desktop. Of course, that means they can get obscured by other windows. As you now know, a tap of Win-Space makes those windows temporarily see-through, but what if you want to put the gadgets on top of your windows? No problem: Just tap Win-G.

• Windows 7 Home
• Windows 7 Professional
• Windows 7 Ultimate

I have been running Windows 7 Ultimate through Microsoft TechNet to try out the operating system, of which I was previously using Microsoft Vista.

As soon as I installed Windows 7 onto my computer and installed the programs I needed including AVG Anti-Virus, I was ready to go.

I have found that Windows 7 runs allot better and faster than Vista used to on my computer and I near enough have all the same programs on the computer running which is great as is I had started to find the start up of Windows Vista just taking to long.

There is a number of great features I am finding that are now in Windows 7 of which other versions of Windows lacked.

One of the best features I have now found is an easy way to compare two windows at the same time by dragging one window to the left of your screen and the second window to the right of your screen, by doing this it will auto-size the two windows to make them easily comparable!

Another big feature of Windows 7 is the re-designed taskbar on your desktop, when you have more than one window of the same application open i.e. Firefox instead of two box’s for firefox being on your taskbar you will only have the one bar, and by clicking on the firefox logo, this will show your other open windows and allow you to select which window you wish to open,  I find this to be a great way to move between windows and less ‘clutter’ on your start menu.

To be honest I have not yet found any problems on Windows 7 at all and so far loving it.

One of the downsides I found with Windows 7 Ultimate is that it did not have Movie Maker installed, but this is easily down-loadable from Windows Live from where you can get the latest version, of which I will make a post about another day.