Side panel

New computers with a preinstalled Windows XP or 7 usually do not have any specially designed additional sidebars. Someone can say that the widgets that appeared in the seven, with the tightness can be considered a sidebar, in fact - it's not. They can be placed anywhere, so they are still not the sidebar, in the classical sense. In addition, you can not add something to your own, your possibilities are limited by the content that Microsoft and third-party programmers have prepared.

And sometimes you want to have a bit more control over the OS, so that a convenient audio control, a set of utilities, timers, alarms and other useful content could be arranged as you want, that's why applications like the side panel were developed for this purpose. For XP there are several options to solve this problem. The product that you first talk about is called the Windows Sidebar.

It seems that with the release of Vista, Redmond Corporation realized that it's time to change the situation with additional toolbars, and released the WS application. This sidebar from Microsoft, which later moved almost unchanged to Windows 7, allows you to add many different gadgets that make life easier for users and help in daily work. But it does not have the flexibility that we talked about.

Nevertheless, she likes quite a lot of users of Windows 7, since with her the desktop comes to life and becomes not so strict.

Install this sidebar quite simply, in Vista and Seven, it is installed right away with the OS, and for XP it should be downloaded from the Microsoft website. After installation, WS will ask you to restart the computer, confirm the permission to this procedure and after restart you will have a Windows 7 sidebar in your Windows XP.

Well, for advanced users who do not have enough of the features provided by Windows Sidebar, Stardock, which became famous after the release of applications such as: Object Desktop and Windows Blinds, prepared a fresh program "Tiles".

The full version of this software costs about a hundred green presidents, but there is also a free demo version. So what can this product do, since it is sold for such money?

In fact - this is a typical sidebar, but with a non-standard design. As a basis, the new interface "Metro" (the name should soon change) was adopted, which Microsoft Corporation introduces into the upcoming Vindous 8. The programs in "Tiles" look exactly like the applications in Metro - colored tiles with names. And all windows of running applications are displayed there in the form of rectangles, located from top to bottom.

Moving between the programs displayed on the panel is convenient with the help of the mouse wheel, as it is easy to move, add or remove program bars, all these actions are performed with the right mouse button.

If you want to change the "Tiles" settings, then in the configuration window completely executed in the "Metro" style, you will have a wide variety of options, the size of the windows, their interposition, and many other parameters will be available to fit the needs of the inquisitive user.

"Pogonyav" a little this interesting product from Stardock, many experts very well speak about its capabilities. This is clearly a promising and very timely move with a great future. The main advantages of this utility is that it closes a gap in the list of software for Vindous, after its release no one will say that the normal side panel did not appear in this OS. And secondly, important, in my opinion, is the fact that "Tiles" supports 32- and 64-bit architecture and works with all versions of Microsoft OS, starting with Windows XP. Thus, the distribution of this program is not limited only to new computers.