Expose For Windows? The best feature that Vista has gotten now is something similar to Apple’s Expose, however, you will need to use two keys in addition to the fact that you can’t see the window contents completely (like you can in Mac). What does happen is that hitting the Win + Spacebar gives you a tilted stack of windows; thereby, letting you see the contents from one side. We wish they had copied Expose completely instead of resorting to such clever imitations because glossy as this option looks; it’s far less functional

Sidebar is in, so are Gadgets: Before the launch of Vista Beta 1, all Longhorn transformation packs featured a sidebar, although Beta 1 did not have it. However, that has been nicely fixed and it seems Beta 2 will indeed have it, and it will also support a concept called Gadgets, which is basically a Windows version of Apple’s Dashboard and Widgets. The Sidebar displays images (much like Google Desktop), news, RSS feeds and much more, in return making it a very powerful built-in program. We can already see companies dashing to courts to slam another antitrust complaint against Microsoft. The biggest losers here, if the sidebar gadget works out, would be all those who came out with similar software you had to install separately (namely Google and Yahoo).

Games: If you think Solitaire and Microsoft Hearts are as good as bundled games will get… think again! Vista will have a slew of new games from 3D Chess to Shanghai, one of the most addictive games we’ve ever played, plus the standard games which have gone through a massive face lift, even gray and boring Minesweeper has suddenly become chic and colorful. The gray has disappeared and has been replaced by an attractive electric blue.

Next