InformationWeek shares news, analysis and advice on operating systems, from Microsoft Windows 8 to Apple iOS 7. Disputed report claims 32TB of Windows 10 builds, including source code, have leaked online. By Wes Fenlon. News An archiving site disputes article claiming 32TB of. ActiveWin.com gives you the largest range of Windows and Microsoft news that you can get anywhere on the internet. Mac OS X Lion vs. Windows 7: Which OS is Best? Windows 8 vs Windows RT comparison. Windows RT is an operating system for tablets that does not allow users to install traditional desktop software written for. Windows 8.1 Microsoft. To Microsoft's credit, under the hood Windows 8 offered many improvements over its predecessor Windows 7. Unfortunately, the Modern UI (user. PCWorld helps you navigate the PC ecosystem to find the products you want and the advice you need to get the job done. Does Lion roar enough to compel you to ditch Windows the next time you’re ready to buy a new laptop? Actually, Apple was doing pretty darn well even before its latest operating system arrived, with the company recently snagging the number- three spot in U. S. PC sales on the strength of its hot- selling Mac. Book Airs. Lion just kicks things up a notch, adding such i. Pad- like amenities as a new Launchpad for your apps and helpful multitouch gestures. On the other hand, Windows 7 runs on a whopping 9. And why not? Since late 2. Microsoft’s sequel to the hated Vista OS has proved easier to use and is full of helpful features. On average, Windows notebooks also continue to be much more affordable than Macs. Still, whether it’s because of the i. Pad halo effect or the perception that Macs simply cause less headaches, more and more people are wondering whether it’s time to jump the Windows ship. To help you decide which OS is best, we pitted Mac OS X Lion and Windows 7 against each other—feature by feature—in an epic battle. Interface. Mac OS X Lion. The look and feel of an OS usually determines how intuitive it is for users to find and interact with apps. Lion makes that easier than ever with the addition of Launchpad, which displays your system’s app icons. To access Launchpad, perform a three- finger pinch with your thumb on the trackpad or press the dedicated Launchpad button on the latest Mac. Book Air. Launchpad basically duplicates the i. OS interface on i. Phones and i. Pads. You can easily swipe from one screen to the next, and you can drag app icons onto each other to create folders of similarly themed programs. Apple has seamlessly integrated the Mac App Store with Launchpad; when you make a purchase in the App Store, it automatically installs and appears on the Launchpad. Lion also preserves the Dock (known as the taskbar in Windows) from previous OS versions. You can drag an icon from the Launchpad into the Dock to make an app more accessible. Lion makes full- screen application viewing possible for its native programs and select third- party software. Switching between full- screen apps is achieved instantly with a two- finger swipe to the left or right on the touchpad. However, full- screen apps obscure the menu bar until you hover over it. Windows 7. The interface for Windows 7 isn’t dramatically different from previous Windows versions, but there are welcome tweaks. While the familiar Start button remains, Microsoft gave the taskbar a cosmetic and operational facelift. The buttons are sharper looking and can be reordered with a simple mouse drag. With Aero Glass functions activated, Aero Peek lets you see thumbnails of the windows open in each app by hovering over a taskbar button. Similarly, with Jump Lists, right- clicking a taskbar button shows that app’s previously opened or currently active windows—documents or web pages—for quick access. Another clever interface element is the Show Desktop icon on the right end of the taskbar. Hovering over this rectangle presents your desktop at any time. WINNER: Mac OS X Lion. Between the i. OS- like Launchpad, user- friendly Dock, and full- screen apps, Lion has a more modern and approachable look and feel. Multitasking & Windows Management. Mac OS X Lion. The refinements made in Snow Leopard are further polished in Lion with the introduction of Mission Control, which combines the Expos. The Spaces feature sets up multiple desktops (“spaces”), letting you assign specific applications to each one to avoid a cluttered desktop. Now it’s all accessible on one screen. Mission Control, activated by a trackpad gesture or keyboard shortcut, lets you view all desktops in mini windows on top of the currently active desktop. Mission Control also reveals open applications, making it easy to toggle from one window or application to another. The existing keyboard shortcut of Alt+Tab will toggle between apps too. Unfortunately, Mission Control can be confusing. While Lion will automatically organize and stack windows related to a given app in the center of the screen, full- screen windows get segregated and line the top of the display along with Spaces. You also can’t close applications from Mission Control. Windows 7. Windows 7’s multitasking solution is not as slick as Lion’s, but it is effective. In addition to pressing Alt- Tab to flip from one open app to another, pressing the Win key and Tab when you have Aero Glass activated shows active apps in a 3. D carousel of revolving windows. Most of Windows 7’s multitasking is achieved via the taskbar. Aero Peek, for one, shows a thumbnail of open files in an app by hovering over apps in the taskbar. Add frequently used apps or files to the Taskbar by right- clicking on them and selecting the drop- down menu choice. The taskbar’s limited real estate can get cramped easily, however. Another quick way to bounce from one app or doc to another is Snap. Grab the top of a window and push it to either side. The window locks to the side and resizes to half the screen. Repeat on the other side. Double- click the top of either window to return it to full size. WINNER: Windows 7. While Mission Control is more ambitious, multitasking is easier to manage in Microsoft’s OS. And only Windows 7 lets you compare windows side by side. Touchpad Navigation & Multitouch Gestures. Mac OS X Lion. Lion mines the previously unused capabilities of trackpads by refining finger gestures. Many gestures will seemfamiliar to i. Phone and i. Pad users, but Lion expands upon those with new three- and four- finger movements. For example, swiping up with three fingers opens Mission Control, and swiping left or right switches between full- screen apps. A three- finger pinch plus thumb starts Launchpad, while spreading the same fingers apart presents your desktop. When you’re in an app with multiple open windows, a two- finger swipe down reveals all windows for toggling among them. Not only can you pinch with two fingers to zoom in and out in any window, a new two- finger tap lets you zoom in on a specific part of an image or web page. Although these finger movements enable fluid navigation, you need to remember them. In addition, the default two- finger scrolling mode now defaults to mirror how i. OS devices work, the opposite of normal Mac process. You can change this setting in Preferences. Windows 7. Multitouch gestures on Windows 7 vary greatly based on the notebook and which company makes the touchpad. For our tests, we used a Synaptics Click. Pad. In general, two- finger scrolling worked well, but pinch- to- zoom wasn’t as smooth on most Windows machines as it is on Macs. Three- finger flicking through photos was also hit or miss. However, assigning a shortcut to a three- finger press let us launch a program. On newer Windows notebooks, such as the Samsung Series 9, you can perform four- finger gestures. Swiping down minimizes everything, and swiping up activates the Aero 3. D window manager. While gestures are customizable, making changes requires a multi- click drill down. In addition, some Windows notebook vendors disable helpful features by default. WINNER: Mac OS X Lion. Apple owning the hardware and software really makes a difference. Gestures just work better on Lion. Search: Mac Spotlight Vs. Windows Search. Mac OS X Lion. Spotlight, the already- resourceful search bar on Macs, becomes even more productive in Lion. Activated by clicking on the magnifier icon in the upper right corner or pressing Command + space bar, Spotlight will search the entire hard drive, the web, or even Wikipedia. As you type characters in the search bar, Spotlight intuitively finds possible choices grouped by category (documents, music, pictures, etc.) and often finds your quest before you finish typing. You can reduce the search universe to specific types of data by customizing Spotlight in System Preferences. In Lion, Spotlight now shows a preview of the item so you can double- check that it’s what you wanted to find. Dragging and dropping the item directly into e- mail, the desktop, or an application adds speed and convenience to what was once a Where’s Waldo? The search box is ready as soon as you press the Windows key or click the Windows button at the bottom left. Searching in a particular folder or library can further pinpoint results limited to the folder’s contents. Users can apply context- sensitive filters using the search box’s drop- down menu. A resulting preview pane makes it a snap to see if it’s the right search result. WINNER: Mac OS X Lion. Both Lion and Windows 7 do an excellent job of helping you find what you’re looking for fast, but Apple’s OS goes the extra mile by letting you preview files from within Spotlight. Lion also works faster and lets you extend your searches to the web. Native Web Browsers. Mac OS X Lion. Safari 5. Lion, including more efficient browsing navigation with multitouch gestures and full- screen viewing capabilities. Gestures include double- tapping to scale up text or an image and swiping left and right to navigate pages. A new Reading List feature lets you save articles for future reading. To do so, press Command + Shift + D, or drag the URL to the eyeglasses icon on the left of the toolbar. Or select Add To Reading List from the Bookmarks menu. Click the eyeglasses icon to open a sidebar with your list. Unfortunately, pages are not saved for offline reading. The Reader icon in the address bar reformats any currently viewed URL page for easier reading and printing; you get clean text and all images and ads are stripped out. Windows 7. Internet Explorer 9 is the LAPTOP Editors’ Choice winner among Windows- based browsers. Thanks to built- in hardware acceleration, pages load quickly, and text, images, and video are rendered rich and crisp. Smooth integration with Windows 7 lets IE9 exploit such OS features as Snap for viewing two web pages side by side. By right- clicking on the IE9 taskbar button, you can access Jump Lists to choose from recently viewed pages.
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May 2018
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