The Homegroups are password protected for better security and you can select which ones of your libraries to share: Pictures, Music, Videos, or Documents; you can share USB printers as well. Simply make your selections, finish the Wizard and that’s that.

Joining already created Homegroup is also pretty straightforward – you just have to type in the Homegroup password and select the files that you wish to share.

After you have joined the Homegroup, you can add any file to the shared libraries and share them with other users; you can also make some or all of your files read-only, so other users can view them, but can’t make any changes. The Homegroup will also appear in your Windows Explorer left pane, so you can access all the shared items with a few mouse clicks.

However, the Homegroup feature works only if all the networked computers run Windows 7; if any of your machines is running Windows XP or Vista, you can still network them and share your files and documents, but the process isn’t as easy and requires more effort to set up.

1. Windows 7 taskbar – the new Windows taskbar is all about convenience. Many of us are so used to working with multiple windows that right up to now we had to close a dozen of them in order to find the one that we want to use. Well, not any more. The new Windows 7 taskbar lets you navigate through all your open windows just by hovering your mouse over their taskbar icons; and that is not all: if you have multiple tabs open in a program such as Internet Explorer, you can get a quick preview of all the open tubs – hover your mouse over the IE icon and you will see thumbnails of each one of them.

Aero peek: hover over the thumbnail and the full-size window will come to the foreground, click on the thumbnail if you want to start working with that window.

Jump lists: right clicking on one of the active taskbar icons will present you with more options, specific to the particular application; right clicking on the Word icon will give you a quick access to your most recently edited documents, right clicking on the IE icon will give you quick access to your frequently visited sites, etc.

2. Windows 7 libraries – the libraries let you organize similar files and the new part is that you don’t have to move your files to the same folder, the files in a library can reside in different folders on your hard drive, but they are conveniently grouped in a library for an easy access. You can create new libraries or delete old ones, add and remove folders, and share your libraries with other users in your Windows 7 Home Group.

3. Start button search functionality – this feature has been designed to save you a lot of time, no matter what you search for, try typing it in the start button search and you are likely to find it. This is an excellent way to access some not-so-easy-to-find Control Panel features; type “set time” in the search button field and you will get quick access to all the tasks that you might want to perform.

4. Aero snap – another great feature that allows you to work with open windows easily. This is extremely useful when you want to compare or work with two documents side by side. Drag the one window to the left side of your screen, drag the second window to the right side of your screen and they will get automatically aligned next to each other, giving you perfect view of both windows.

5. Windows 7 homegroup – extremely useful feature, providing that you have computers that run Windows 7; then you can easily create or join a homegroup and instantly share your documents, pictures, files and printers. Homegroups are password protected for better security and just like with the previous operating systems from Microsoft, you can make some or all of your shared files read-only so they don’t get accidentally deleted or edited by other member of your homegroup.

Windows Live is available for download for free: simply click on the start button of your Windows desktop and type “essentials,” then click on the “Go online to get Windows Live essentials” link. Once the web page opens in your browser, click the Download button and save the setup file in a folder of your choice. Launch the installation file and choose which of the available free programs you wish to install on your computer; you can install Windows Live Mail, Messenger, Movie Maker, and a few other utilities and tools. The installation is pretty straightforward and once you have Windows Live Mail on your PC, you can import your Outlook Express account settings, and configure the program to access your Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo accounts as well.

Instead of using Windows Live Mail, you can download and install any of the full-featured and free email programs that work with Windows 7 such as Mozilla Thunderbird, Eudora, IncediMail, or Opera Mial. All these programs come with features and security settings that will help you stay in touch with your friends and colleagues, get less spam in your inbox, read, delete, archive, and sort your messages and perform any other operation that you can expect from similar e-mail programs.

On the System restore Window click the Next button and you should see the restore points that have been automatically created by Windows 7 (they are created every time significant changes such as updates and installing or uninstalling of applications have been made).

Confirm your choice and finish the process

In order to manually create a restore point in Windows 7 right click on the Computer icon on your desktop and select Properties.

Click the Advanced System settings link

open the System protection tab and click the Create button

type a description for your restore point and finish the process.

Creating the disk is pretty easy and straightforward:

Click the Start button, type recdisc.exe in the search box and press Enter. Select the drive, where you have inserted the blank CD or DVD from the drop-down menu and click Create disk.

Once created, you can use the Windows 7 repair disk in case your system malfunctions and you cannot boot-up; simply select your CD or DVD drive as the first boot device in your BIOS, insert the recovery disk, and restart your computer. You will be presented with the following recovery options: Startup Repair, System Restore, System Image recovery, Windows memory diagnostic and Command prompt.

How to create a new user account in Windows 7

Click the Start button and then Control Panel; under User Accounts and Family Safety click Add or remove user accounts.

On the next window click Create a new account

Choose a name for your user account, select the account type and click the Create Account button. There are three types of user accounts on Windows 7: Administrator, Standard and Guest. It is generally a good practice to have only one administrator on a single computer; the administrator has full access to all settings and programs, he can make any changes that he desires, including deleting and creating user accounts. The standard user account cannot delete system files, install new software, but can use most of the programs on the computer and access all files and folders. The guest account has very limited access permissions, which is why it is usually created when you want to give someone a temporary access to the computer.

Once the account has been created and you are logged in as the administrator, you can set a password in order to protect it, change the account type, set up Parental controls, change the account picture or delete the account altogether.

If you have just purchased a new computer with no Operating System installed or you have formatted your hard drive, then you will have to purchase one of the Windows 7 editions’ Full versions (which is more expensive than the upgrade) and do a clean installation.

If you have a genuine copy of Windows XP running on your computer, you can do custom installation: you can make the transition easier with the help of Microsoft’s Windows Easy Transfer utility, which you can download for free. Before going any further though, make sure that your computer meets the minimum requirements; it is also highly advisable to download and run the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor (freeware), which will inspect your computer configuration and inform you of any potential issues. Once you are certain that your PC is Windows 7 compatible, you are ready to make the migration.

What you need to remember when doing a Custom installation:

1. You need to back up all your data – for most users the Custom installation is easy to perform, but you should back up all your important files and documents in case something go wrong. You can also make an image of your entire hard drive, using software such as Acronis True Image, Norton Ghost, Paragon Drive Backup, or other similar tools.

2. Download the Windows Easy Transfer (freeware) from Microsoft’s web site and run it: you will need a second hard drive, an external hard drive, or another partition on your hard drive with enough free space. The Wizard will let you choose which settings you want to keep such as: programs and user account settings, files, folder and documents.

3. Perform Custom Install of Windows 7 from the Windows 7 DVD

4. Use the Windows Easy Transfer to import all your files and settings that you saved in step 2.

5. Re-install all your programs.

After Windows 7 is installed and running and your programs re-installed, you can download the Windows 7 Product Guide from Microsoft’s web site and familiarize yourself with Windows 7 new features.

The Windows 7 Home Premium Family Pack allows you to install Windows 7 on three computers in your household, providing that they are running genuine copies of Windows XP or Windows Vista; the pack costs approximately $149.00.

2. Type taskkill /im explorer.exe under Type the location of the item and click the Next button

3. Choose a name for the shortcut and click the Finish button.

If you want to change the icon of your newly created shortcut:

4. Locate the shortcut on your desktop and right-click no it, then select Properties and click the Change Icon button.

5.Select one of the icons and click OK and the OK once more

6.Double-click on the shortcut and you will see the Shutdown dialog box

Now you can drag and drop your shortcut to your taskbar or your quick launch bar if you want to.