If you are a user who has ever had difficulty explaining a tech support issue to a technician, or if you are a technician who has ever had trouble understanding a user’s problem, then you need…the Windows 7 Problem Steps Recorder.

This is a nifty little feature of Windows 7 that lets you automatically record screenshots of a problem you are having.  After the screenshots are recorded, Windows zips them up so you can send them to a technician, who can unzip them and view them in a browser.

To use the Problem Steps Recorder:

1. Type PSR in the Start Menu search box.
2. Windows will display the Problem Steps Recorder:



3. Click the Start Record button.
4. Perform all the steps you want to record.
5. Click the Stop Record button.
6. Windows will offer to save all the steps and screen shots in a zip file.
7. The zip file will contain an MHT file which can be viewed in any browser.

If you want to snap a window to the left side of the screen quickly (technically Aero-Snap), hold down the Windows key and press the Left Arrow Key.

If you want to snap a window to the right side of the screen quickly (technically Aero-Snap), hold down the Windows key and press the Right Arrow Key.

If you right-click a file in Windows Explorer, and then select Send To, you’ll see the standard list of Send To options.

To reveal a list of additional options on the Send To menu (in Windows 7), including often-used folders, hold down the SHIFT key before you right-click the file.

One of the new “Mac-like” features of Windows 7 is your Taskbar customization options. The Mac shows your icons at the bottom of the screen. As you hover over an icon, it magnifies. As far as I can tell, there isn’t a difference between an open app and a closed one in terms of appearance.

Windows 7 provides a version of that. First, there is no Quick Launch toolbar. When you drag an icon to the Taskbar, it shows up where the open icons are. The difference is that the open icons have a box around them to let you know they are open. The Word icon in the example below shows that there are three files open. When you hover over the icon, you can see each file and select the one you want.

You can make the icons smaller, which I did initially. I went back to the larger size from a combination of aging eyes and better visuals on the icons.

You can customize the Taskbar and the Start Button as you did in XP and Vista: Right-click on the button and select Properties. You can keep this behavior (combine icons, hide text), turn it off when the taskbar is full, or never use it. Initially, I turned it off and went to small icons. But I find myself liking the new look.

And while we’re at it, the Desktop Preview box at the far end of the Taskbar is kind of cool—hover over it and it makes your windows transparent so you can see your desktop—but there is a slight hesitation before it happens that is annoying. Much faster to press Windows Logo Button + D to minimize everything and Windows-D to restore it. Both of these happen instantly.