Some Windows 7 features have received a great deal of coverage in the last few years.  Aero snap and Aero shake being some of the highest profile.  But have you even ever heard of “SideShow”?  This is a real Windows 7 feature, it’s built into every edition of the operating system and it pops it’s head up and says Hi if you have compatible hardware.

SideShow was first introduced with Windows Vista.  In Microsoft’s complicated way of putting things “The Windows SideShow platform enables compatible devices to communicate with computers that are running Windows,” though is simpler terms it allowed you use your laptop computer via an external screen and controls when it was asleep.

The idea behind SideShow was that laptops would come with a small external LCD panel and new control buttons.  You could use this screen and buttons to read your email, play music, view photos and more with the laptop closed and asleep.  On the face of it this was a fantastic idea as you could conserve power and still check your email, do things more quickly and easily because you no longer had to wait for Windows to start up and on the move just by looking at your laptop’s case.

Alas hardware manufacturers didn’t share Microsoft’s vision, and very few SideShow-compatible laptops were ever produced.  The reasons for this would have varied from manufacturer to manufacturer but they probably included concerns over power usage, build cost, the actual usefulness of the feature and the strength of the screen and controls.

Windows is set to automatically detect SideShow panels on computers, which can also include desktop machines with in-built displays on the case, and make the controls available for SideShow in the Windows Control Panel.  Other hardware could include SideShow as well and it still has some niche usage with Logitech’s G19 gaming keyboard sporting a SideShow-equipped LCD screen.

The SideShow architecture was expandable to allow third-party software vendors and hardware manufacturers to plug their own software into the feature.  By default SideShow just shipped with Windows Mail, Windows Media Player and Windows Photo Viewer.  Again, no software vendor was prepared to pick up the development costs for software that would be used by so few people.

In the end SideShow became forgotten, and still languishes somewhere deep in the bowels of your Windows computer, forever imprisoned in the dark, murky depths (you get the idea) which is a tremendous shame as, while power management and battery life on laptops might not have been good enough when Windows Vista was released, the advent of Netbooks could potentially have given SideShow a whole new lease on life.

In fact SideShow was so badly supported by Microsoft’s hardware and software partners that I’m willing to bet you’re having one of three reactions reading this article.  1) Really, I’ve never heard of this before?  2) Is that actually in Windows 7?  or 3) I’d forgotten all about that!

The question remains to be asked then if support for SideShow will be dropped completely by Microsoft for Windows 8, and on this I’ll try and get an answer from them.  The alternative is that Microsoft try again to plug it as a great feature, which could of course backfire on them this time as it’s not new at all, it’s been around since 2006.  At least with Vista SideShow disappeared quietly into the mist and by the time Windows 7 was released it was only spoken about in hushed whispers.

So would you like to see sideshow screens on your Windows 7 and Windows 8 laptops and netbooks, are you indeed bothered about such functionality, or is the big screen of a tablet the best way forward for you?  Personally my view is that SideShow was a fantastic idea when Microsoft first announced it and it’s still a fantastic idea today.  I’d personally love to have a small external screen on laptops on which I could quickly check email or play music on the move.  Alas it looks like this bright future is something that will never happen.