Credit: CoolTechZone.com 

Power Settings: The Power Settings console has completely changed from Windows XP. You now get two windows where you can configure and alter settings according to maximum efficiency. It appears to be slightly better than the previous one, but is a bit cumbersome to navigate on notebooks with touchpad. In terms of functionality, we’ll report back after a thorough analysis.

Computers & Devices: Finally, Microsoft has merged My Network Places and Network Neighborhood in Windows Vista. Apparently you can even connect other network-based devices like media players as part of the home network feature. It’s an interesting option, but personally, this feature should belong in Windows MCE. To be fair to Microsoft, however, it’s nice that they are bundling this with an OS that’s not Media Center dedicated, though it could end up taking revenue out of its MCE PCs.

Network Center: Finally, Microsoft has realized just how often users access their Network Properties area and has decided that it’s important enough to get a permanent place in the precious system tray real estate. A single click will launch a brand new window, which would try and take care of all your networking needs. Right clicking will give you a sleek menu, which would integrate all common tasks such as connecting to various networks, listing all available networks, making ad-hoc connections and whatnot. Sadly, all this seems to be a mere concept, as most of the options were grayed out. We’ll discuss this more extensively if we can somehow get it to work. If any of you reading this article have any idea on what might be wrong, please let us know.

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