Windows 7 has been talked and rumored about, especially for people who hates Windows Vista, because of the not so user-friendly features that it offers. Credits to Wikipedia, Microsoft Windows 7 site, and especially to Howtogeek.com for the detailed information and screenshots.
Windows 7 (formerly codenamed Blackcomb and Vienna) is the latest version of Microsoft Windows, a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs and media center PCs. Windows 7 was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, with general retail availability set for October 22, 2009, less than three years after the release of its predecessor, Windows Vista. Windows 7's server counterpart, Windows Server 2008 R2, is slated for release at about the same time.
Unlike its predecessor, which introduced a large number of new features, Windows 7 is intended to be a more focused, incremental upgrade to the Windows line, with the goal of being fully compatible with applications and hardware with which Windows Vista is already compatible. Presentations given by the company in 2008 focused on multi-touch support, a redesigned Windows Shell with a new taskbar, a home networking system called HomeGroup, and performance improvements. Some applications that have been included with prior releases of Microsoft Windows, including Windows Calendar, Windows Mail, Windows Movie Maker, and Windows Photo Gallery, will not be included in Windows 7; some will instead be offered separately as part of the free Windows Live Essentials suite.
Bill Gates, in an interview with Newsweek, suggested that the next version of Windows would "be more user-centric". Gates later said that Windows 7 will also focus on performance improvements. Steven Sinofsky later expanded on this point, explaining in the Engineering Windows 7 blog that the company was using a variety of new tracing tools to measure the performance of many areas of the operating system on an ongoing basis, to help locate inefficient code paths and to help prevent performance regressions.
Senior Vice President Bill Veghte stated that Windows Vista users migrating to Windows 7 would not find the kind of device compatibility issues they encountered migrating from Windows XP. Speaking about Windows 7 on October 16, 2008, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer confirmed compatibility between Vista and Windows 7, indicating that Windows 7 will be a refined version of Windows Vista.
Unlike its predecessor, which introduced a large number of new features, Windows 7 is intended to be a more focused, incremental upgrade to the Windows line, with the goal of being fully compatible with applications and hardware with which Windows Vista is already compatible. Presentations given by the company in 2008 focused on multi-touch support, a redesigned Windows Shell with a new taskbar, a home networking system called HomeGroup, and performance improvements. Some applications that have been included with prior releases of Microsoft Windows, including Windows Calendar, Windows Mail, Windows Movie Maker, and Windows Photo Gallery, will not be included in Windows 7; some will instead be offered separately as part of the free Windows Live Essentials suite.
Bill Gates, in an interview with Newsweek, suggested that the next version of Windows would "be more user-centric". Gates later said that Windows 7 will also focus on performance improvements. Steven Sinofsky later expanded on this point, explaining in the Engineering Windows 7 blog that the company was using a variety of new tracing tools to measure the performance of many areas of the operating system on an ongoing basis, to help locate inefficient code paths and to help prevent performance regressions.
Senior Vice President Bill Veghte stated that Windows Vista users migrating to Windows 7 would not find the kind of device compatibility issues they encountered migrating from Windows XP. Speaking about Windows 7 on October 16, 2008, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer confirmed compatibility between Vista and Windows 7, indicating that Windows 7 will be a refined version of Windows Vista.
Features and Changes
- The default desktop for Windows 7 is clean and simple, and like almost everything in this release, is really quite impressive.
- The first thing that you can’t miss is the new taskbar, which uses large icons instead of taskbar buttons and integrates Quick Launch functionality at the same time. You’ll notice in this screenshot that the Windows Media Player icon isn’t “active”, because I don’t have an instance open… but it’s been Pinned to the taskbar.
- The popup preview thumbnails have been enhanced to show multiple windows side by side, which is much more useful than the Vista way, especially since Windows 7 combines windows by default: even if you have only two windows open, they will be combined into a single taskbar button.
- When hovering over one of the previews, Windows 7 will automatically flip to that window so you can see in a larger view which window it is. Very useful for Word documents, I think.
- The new taskbar buttons also have a new right-click menu, which gives you access to special folders or recent documents. There’s a new API that allows applications to add items to this list, so expect in the future for this to become a big deal.
- If you don’t like the taskbar functionality, you can revert back to the Windows Vista method by opening up Taskbar and Start Menu Properties (right click \ Properties). The “Taskbar buttons” setting will let you turn off the single icon mode, and you can choose “Use small icons” to turn off the big icons.
- The next thing you might notice is that there is no longer a “Sidebar” for the Gadgets… you’ll have to right-click on the desktop and choose Gadgets to add more, which can be dragged to the desktop anywhere you’d like. You’ll also notice you can get quick access to your resolution from here.
- If you want to dock the gadgets to the side like you used to, you still can: If you drag the desktops to the side of the screen, they will dock there:
- The Start Menu is roughly the same as before, although you’ll notice the Shut Down button is much simpler, and can be configured to a different action right in the Taskbar and Start menu properties screen.
- You’ll notice the arrow next to Getting Started… whenever you see an arrow on a pinned item, you can hover over it to see a list of tasks on the right-hand side, with a rather fun “slide out” effect that I can’t really show in a screenshot.
In fact, it’s tough to show off the real “slickness” of the UI in these screenshots… you have to try it for yourself to understand: things are just smooth.
- When you search, the taskbar “morphs” into a full-size search screen – a huge improvement from Vista, and the search results are pretty good, although still not perfect.
- Another really slick new feature lets you maximize or tile windows by dragging them to one of the sides of the screen… for instance, you drag the current window to the left side of the screen and you’ll see a glass window effect…
- And once you let go of the mouse, the window will take up exactly half of the screen. Very useful for tiling windows.
- This also works for maximizing by dragging to the top of the screen… letting go of the mouse at this point would maximize the current window:
- This also works if you drag a window corner to one of the edges of the screen, Windows 7 will let you make the window fill the whole space from top to bottom.
- You might have noticed a little unused area on the taskbar right next to the clock… this is the new “Show Desktop” icon, with an added twist: if you hover your mouse over it, it will turn all of the open windows to glass, letting you see what is beneath. This would maybe be useful if you have desktop gadgets on the screen, or just want to see your wallpaper.
- The system tray is also changed, with all extra icons being hidden behind a little arrow. You’ll also note that the current date is shown on the screen now, since the taskbar is taller.
- One of the default items is important: the Action Center icon now consolidates all of the Windows Security error or notification messages into a single icon…
- And even better, you get to choose which errors you want to hear about, and which ones you don’t. HUGE improvement over Vista.
- By clicking on the wrench icon you can choose which notifications appear on the taskbar:
- You can also change which security messages show up:
- The Action Center is your new “hub” to review all of the messages and notifications… more on that in a future article, but one of the biggest changes in Windows 7 is hidden behind it… click on the User Account Control settings:
- And you’ll see a new “Slider”, which lets you change the amount of UAC notifications, and by default UAC is nearly disabled for users with administrative rights. The only time you will see UAC messages is during a new application install.
- Continuing through the Control Panel, there is a completely new panel for customizing your desktop using themes, with easy access to all the relevant settings from a single window.
- Many of the windows that used to be separate dialogs are now integrated directly into the regular Control Panel, like this one for changing your display appearance:
- A smaller thing to note… the Windows Experience score maximum has been increased to 7.9 instead of 5.9 in Vista.
- One important thing to note is that when you go to your user folder, you will see a bunch of “Libraries”, which are essentially search folders banded together so you can find all your pictures, documents, or music in a single place. This feature is quite useful, but is going to take some time to get used to.
- You’ll notice in the screenshot above there’s a new “Homegroup” item in the list, and yes, they’ve completely revamped network sharing in Windows 7 with a much simpler interface that we’ll cover in future articles.
Other Features
There’s a whole bunch of other features in Windows 7 that we don’t really have time to cover today…
- New Calculator.
- Internet Explorer 8 is integrated by default.
- XPS Viewer integrated.
- New versions of Paint and Wordpad with the “Ribbon” interface.
- Revamped Windows Backup.
- New “Home Groups” for sharing files and folders.
- New, easier Wireless connections tray icon.
- Media Center is Updated with new features.
- Faster bootup and installation times.
- Other stuff.
The other thing to note is that Windows Mail, Calendar, Photo Gallery, Movie Maker and Contacts have been removed from Windows 7 and are now part of the downloadable Windows Live Essentials.
Installing Windows 7
- Startup installation screen is pretty familiar looking…
Should I Install Windows 7?
- If you don’t mind the fact that it will stop working on August 1st, Windows 7 beta 1 is very stable and usable.
Do I Need a License?
- Windows 7 works just like Windows Vista did… you can install it and run it in “Trial mode” for 30 days. Yes, this does mean that you can borrow the disc from a friend, or download it “illegally” and use it, at least for a trial period. (I’m not advocating piracy here).
It’s Only a Download?
- That’s right, you will need to download the ISO image file and then burn it to a DVD in order to do an installation… I recommend ImgBurn.
What About Drivers?
- Windows 7 uses the exact same drivers as Windows Vista, and by this point the majority of devices have drivers. You most likely won’t even need to install drivers, since Windows 7 has a lot more drivers included by default.
Important Installation Notes
- When you get to the screen which recommends upgrading vs custom installation, I would recommend installing a new installation into a completely blank partition. If you want to test it on the same machine as Vista, you should dual-boot. I would recommend against using the upgrade feature unless you are very brave (also note that it only supports upgrading from Vista SP1)
- If you don’t have a second hard drive or partition already, you can use the Shrink Volume feature in Vista to resize your current partition. If that doesn’t work, you can work around Vista’s shrink volume problems as well. If none of that works, you can use GParted to resize the partition.
- Once it installs (which doesn’t take that long), you’ll be prompted for a computer name and user name:
- You’ll be prompted for what your default homegroup settings are (personally I’d probably turn most of them off, but I’m security-conscious). Make sure to write down this homegroup password and save it somewhere!
- From this point you will be able to get to your desktop, and start actually using Windows 7.
Windows 7 Bug
There is a known bug in Windows 7 that will potentially damage some mp3 files if you load them into Windows Media Player. You’ll want to make sure to install this patch, or turn on automatic updates once you have Windows 7 installed… it should update automatically. Arstechnica features the fix of the said bug.
and not to forget the minimum requirements needed for this Operating System.
Microsoft has published their minimum specifications for a system running Windows 7. Requirements for the 32-bit version are much the same as recommendations for premium editions of Vista, but the 64-bit version's are considerably higher. Microsoft has released a beta version of an upgrade advisor that scans a computer to see if it is compatible with Windows 7.
| Architecture | 32-bit | 64-bit |
|---|---|---|
| Processor speed | 1 GHz processor | |
| Memory (RAM) | 1 GB of RAM | 2 GB of RAM |
| Graphics card | Support for DirectX 9 graphics device with 128MB of graphics memory (for Windows Aero) | |
| HDD free space | 16 GB of available disk space | 20 GB of available disk space |
| Optical drive | DVD drive (only to install from DVD/CD Media) | |
Additional requirements to use certain features:
- BitLocker requires Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 1.2 and requires a USB flash drive to use BitLocker To Go.
- Windows XP Mode requires an additional 1 GB of RAM, an additional 15 GB of available hard disk space, and a processor capable of hardware virtualization with Intel VT or AMD-V enabled.
To download and check more of Windows 7, you can always go to Microsoft Website.
No comments:
Post a Comment