Further Windows 7 features revealed

In an previous article, we dug up information on Windows 7 from the Springboard Series round-table meetings, fronted by Microsoft's Mark Russinovich. Now, some more answers to questions from users have been published, here.

Some of the questions probe at the heart of how users will employ the OS, and what problems we can expect when trying to get it to work with other systems, for example:

"Q:  What happens when I take a BitLocker-encrypted USB stick to a non-Windows system like OSX or Linux?

• A:  The USB stick will not be accessible on OSX or Linux. You will be able to unlock the USB stick in read-only mode on Windows XP or Windows Vista, however."

BitLocker only comes with the Ultimate edition of Windows 7, so this won't be an issue for many users. However, the fact that the data can only be edited by other users of Ultimate seems to limit its usefulness, except as a pure privacy tool - and there have to be better examples than this on the market.

Q:  Is the Problem Steps Recorder feature available on Windows Vista and Windows XP so I can show steps that work on an older operating system vs. Windows 7?

• A:  No. Problem Steps Recorder is only available on Windows 7.

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  Problem Steps helps in trouble-shooting, but only for Windows 7 users

This feature had passed us by until we read about it here, think of it as a useful little video recorder of your on-screen actions. It creates a HTML file that displays a number of screenshots of your desktop. These show what you did while recording, highlighting the panes of windows you used and icons, or commands clicked so that technical support can offer advice with full knowledge of what the user actually did. This could go a long way to resolving certain types of issues, although only if the problem is repeatable and linked to your commands.