Windows 7 is one of those rare operating systems that seems to keep on surprising you — and often pleasantly — the longer you use it. The surprises come in the form of features and productivity enhancements that didn’t exist in previous version of Windows and that have largely escaped the attention of the majority of reviewers and users. Think you know most of the hidden features of Windows 7? Read on to find out.
Turn Features Off
In previous versions of Windows, you were pretty much stuck with the features that Windows gave you. Or you had to be a veritable hacker to figure out how to turn off or remove features that you didn’t want.
With Windows 7, the mystery is history, thanks to the “Turn Windows features on or off” dialog box. Can you do without the games that come with Windows 7? The media features? The gadget platform? The Windows search service? With the “turn features off” dialog box, you can remove or disable over two dozen components of Windows 7, slimming down your system and potentially speeding everything up in the process.
To access this little-known dialog box, open the Start menu, and type “features.” Then click the “Turn Windows features on or off” entry. To remove a feature, simply clear the check mark next to its name. When you’re done, click OK, and let Windows 7 do the rest.
Color Calibration
Tired of seeing your digital photographs print out differently than how they look on your screen? Want to make sure that the colors you’re seeing are just as the designers intended them to look? If the answer to either question is “yes,” you need to make sure you’re working on a color-corrected monitor.
Correcting a monitor’s color is referred to as calibration, and it involves using your monitor’s brightness, contrast,…