No Windows operating system is immune to flaws. Flaws in an operating system's design can make it really annoying to use, and Microsoft's last offering – Windows Vista – had more than its fair share in the opinion of many PC users. Windows 7, however, is out to correct the problems that Windows Vista had by making itself a lot less intrusive and in your face. It goes about this in a few different ways, but one of the biggest is its overhaul of the System Tray.

In operating systems past, the System Tray often ended up a cluttered little battlefield full of icons you don't

want and don't use and annoying pop up messages that got in your way on an alarmingly frequent basis. Whenever you installed a program, a little icon would deposit itself on your System Tray and waste your time and your valuable screen real estate. Then, if you found yourself with too many of them and not enough space in the Tray, the extra icons would end up in an overflow area that would expand whenever your mouse pointer made the mistake of going too close to it. Many of these little things boasted features that would cause messages to pop up on your screen, too, which proved to be very annoying indeed for a lot of people.

 

This problem is solved in Windows 7, though, which is something that will almost certainly come as really good news to those people that were annoyed by this sort of thing in the previous incarnations of Windows. Programs and applets can no longer bother you without your express permission in Windows 7. Why is that? Because Windows 7 will not allow software installers to automatically put an icon in your System Tray.  Instead, they will automatically be sent to an area that will only be accessed when you decide to click on it yourself. You can manually drag these icons both in and out of your System Tray, if and when you decide you want to have them there, but the software installers are no longer able to put them there automatically. Windows 7 gives you complete control over that.

 

Windows 7 also gives you complete control over those little unwanted pop up messages and text bubbles you always had to deal with before, too. Windows 7 does not allow those little guys to display any messages to you unless you expressly allow them to do so. If you do not want to see them, then you do not have to. It is your choice entirely.

 

And speaking of those annoying messages, Windows 7 has mostly rid itself of the various troubleshooting and other alerts that previous Windows operating systems had a habit of shoving at you on a regular basis. It will no longer alert you to security issues unbidden, and you will never again end up being distracted from whatever it is you are doing because Windows figured it was a good time to randomly let you know that you had some unused icons hanging out on your Desktop.

 

We think all users can agree that the less intrusive an operating system is, the better it is, too. These new functions and features that Windows 7 is offering to its users seem to be a great way to get away from that. After all – it is your computer. Shouldn't you get to decide how to interact with it, what information you want to see, and when you want to see that information? The more control you are able to have over your operating system, the easier the operating system is going to be to use, and it sounds like Microsoft has taken many of the complaints about Vista and other older operating systems seriously, since they are working to resolve them and make using Windows easier and more efficient.