Features of Windows 7

Thursday, June 23, 2011 Posted by Aman Jain





Windows 7 is the latest release of Microsoft Windows; a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, net books, tablet PCs, and media center PCs. Windows 7 was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009 and reached general retail availability on October 22, 2009.





Windows 7 was intended to be a more focused, incremental upgrade to the Windows line, with the goal of being compatible with applications and hardware with which Windows Vista was already compatible. Presentations given by Microsoft in 2008 focused on multi-touch support, a redesigned Windows shell with a new taskbar, referred to as the Super bar, a home networking system called Home Group, and performance improvements. Some standard applications that have been included with prior releases of Microsoft Windows, including Windows Calendar, Windows Mail, Windows Movie Maker, and Windows Photo Gallery, are not included in Windows 7 most are instead offered separately at no charge as part of the Windows Live Essentials suite.










User experience
• Biggest end user changes are in the UI...
– Personalization with Aero Themes and slideshows.
– Major changes to the Taskbar – Pinning, Jump Lists, Live Previews, and more.
– Notification area clean-up.
– Libraries and Windows Explorer.
– Windows Aero desktop effects: Aero Peek, Aero Snaps, Aero Shake.
– Bundled apps
– Calculator
– Paint
– WordPad
– Sticky Notes, etc.
– Missing apps
– Windows Live Essentials fills the gaps
– You can also remove more apps than in Vista.


Security
• Vista already got this mostly right.
• UAC has been overhauled, user gets fine-grained control.
• Windows 7 still doesn’t ship with an AV solution.
• The good news: Microsoft’s Security Essentials is free and appears to be decent.



Certain capabilities and programs that were a part of Windows Vista are no longer present or have been changed, resulting in the removal of certain functionalities. These include the classic Start Menu user interface, some taskbar features, Windows Explorer features, Windows Media Player features, Windows Ultimate Extras and Ink Ball. Four applications bundled with Windows Vista — Windows Photo Gallery, Windows Movie Maker, Windows Calendar and Windows Mail — are not included with Windows 7, but applications with close functionality are instead available for free in a separate package called Windows Live Essentials which can be downloaded on the Microsoft website.

Although Windows Ultimate Extras was removed, many of the extras can be installed separately. Most popular extras were Microsoft Texas Hold 'em, Microsoft Tinker, and Windows Dream Scene. Ink Ball may also be installed into Windows 7.
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