Introduction
Microsoft Corp. has always worked to bring the full power of computing to the widest possible audience, helping people to benefit from great choices in the technology they use at an affordable price. In recent years, people have dramatically changed the way they use technology. They want consistent and connected experiences across a variety of devices they use every day, available when and where they need them. They want their PCs, mobile phones and other devices to work more intuitively and reliably, while their information remains private and highly secure. They want to choose from a wide variety of devices, software and services to match their habits, tastes and preferences. At the same time, the shift from a world of client applications to connected applications and Internet services has driven higher expectations about the pace of innovation in the software industry.
With Windows 7, Microsoft is delivering a foundation for exceptional customer experiences across applications, services and devices. Windows 7 builds on the substantial investments Microsoft made in the fundamentals of Windows Vista to help improve security, reliability and performance. At the same time, Windows 7 enhances PC manageability and introduces compelling new experiences, delivering an operating system that is nimble, highly reliable, more secure, optimized for today’s powerful hardware and able to easily connect with the devices people use today.
Windows 7 reflects an evolved approach to engineering that weaves customer and partner feedback more closely into the development process. It delivers innovative new features while focusing on preserving application and device compatibility. With Windows 7, Microsoft seeks to establish a more consistent and predictable release schedule so partners across the PC ecosystem can easily and quickly build on the new capabilities Windows has to offer.
This document provides a quick introduction to some of the features and benefits of the Windows 7 operating system. It describes key benefits for users and IT professionals, and introduces just a few of the new experiences available in Windows 7.
What Windows 7 Means to Users
As a Windows user, you depend on your PC more than ever. You want everything you do on your computer to be faster and easier. You want the devices you depend on to work well with your PC, and you’d like it if Windows could make the technology components in your home work well together. You spend a lot of time on the Web, so you’d like that experience to be faster and safer as well — and you’d like it to be consistent with your offline experience, so that you don’t have to learn two ways to do the same thing.
Meet Windows 7. We think you’re going to like what you see.
In Windows 7, Microsoft focused on delivering improved experiences for users in three key areas:
It Works the Way You Want.Windows 7 delivers the fundamental performance, reliability and security features you expect — and it is designed to be compatible with the same hardware, applications and device drivers as Windows Vista. New features help protect your privacy and data, make it easier to keep your PC running smoothly, and enable you to recover from problems more quickly.
Everyday Tasks Are Faster and Easier.Windows 7 streamlines and simplifies the tasks you do most often. Improved navigation and a streamlined user interface put commonly used resources within easy reach. Sharing data across all your PCs and devices is easier too, whether you’re at home, in the office or on the go. Windows 7 and Windows Live help you stay connected to the people and things you care about, and Internet Explorer 8 provides a faster, safer and more productive Web experience.
New Things Are Possible.Windows 7 gives you more choice in how you interact with your PC, with options that include multitouch gestures, handwriting and voice. Windows 7 makes it easy to use your home audio-video system and other networked media devices to play music, watch videos and display photos that reside on your PC. An enhanced Windows Media Center offers one-stop access to your favorite TV shows. And Windows 7 offers more options than ever for you to customize and personalize your PC with styles that match your personality1.
Here are a few of the key features that make using Windows 7 a great experience:
Enhanced Windows Taskbar / The new Taskbar in Windows 7 puts you in control and helps you get to the programs and files you need more quickly. Each open window appears as a graphic thumbnail that expands to a full-screen preview when you hover over it with your mouse. Icons are bigger, too, making it easier to select them with a mouse or with the new touch features in Windows 7. You can place each program exactly where you want it on the Taskbar and pin frequently used applications for quick access.(Note: This feature is not available in the Professional Developers Conference build.)
Jump Lists / Jump Lists — one for each program on your Start menu and Windows Taskbar — make it easier to find what you want. They’re automatically populated based on how often and how recently you do things, so you’ll spend less time looking for your favorite song or that file you worked on yesterday.
(Note: This feature is not available in the Professional Developers Conference build.)
Windows Aero Desktop Enhancements / With Windows 7, working with multiple windows has never been easier. Just hover your mouse over the far-right side of the Windows Taskbar, and all of your open windows become transparent so you can easily see your desktop. Maximize a window by dragging its border to top of the screen, and return the window to its original size by dragging it away from the top. To compare the contents of two windows, just drag them to opposite sides of the screen, and each window will automatically resize to fill its half of the screen.
Windows Touch / Touch is a core user experience in Windows 7. Windows Touch introduces support for multitouch technology, enabling you to zoom in on an image by moving two fingers closer together on the screen or zoom out by moving your fingers apart. The Windows Start menu, Windows Taskbar and Windows Explorer are touch-friendly, with larger icons that are easier to select with your finger. Browsing the Web with Internet Explorer 8 is easier too — just use your finger to scroll down a Web page or browse your favorite links.
HomeGroup / HomeGroup in Windows 7makes sharing files across the PCs and devices in your home as easy as if all your data were on a single hard drive. Through HomeGroup, PCs running Windows 7 can automatically identify and connect with each other. Once a HomeGroup is established, sharing devices and media throughout your home is easy. For example, the printer in your den can be shared automatically with all the PCs in the house, and digital photos stored on a computer in your den can be easily accessed from a laptop anywhere in the house.
Device Stage / For mobile phones, portable media players, cameras, printers and other devices connected to a Windows 7-based PC, Device Stage lets users run common tasks from a single, elegant window that’s customized for each device. With data from the manufacturers, the window can be customized for each device, making it easy to find and use all the features the device has to offer, including synchronizing contacts, capturing photos and creating cell phone ring tones.
Keep Your Life inSync With Windows Live / Communication and sharing services are fundamental to your Windows experience. In Windows 7, certain functionality that was included in previous versions of Windows is not included in the operating system. But through Windows Live Essentials, a set of free applications available for your PC and supported by Windows 7, you can download Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Photo Gallery, Windows Live Writer, Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Movie Maker and more. These applications will be updated regularly to provide innovative functionality and best-of-breed integration with Windows Live and other popular Web-based services. As a result, you’ll benefit from more rapid delivery of new features and services.
Windows Live Essentials applications enrich your Internet experience by letting you access your data offline and helping you create and edit your photos, videos, blogs and other content you want to share — using software that takes full advantage of Windows. And with Windows Live Essentials, it’s easy to publish your content to Windows Live or other online services.
In February, Dell Inc. will pre-install Windows Live Essentials on its consumer and small-business PCs, providing customers worldwide with instant access to the applications they use most — e-mail, instant messaging, photo sharing and management — all for free.
The Web at Your Service With Internet Explorer 8 / Browsing the Web is the single most popular activity on the PC. Internet Explorer 8 addresses changing user needs through significant enhancements in four main areas:
Faster and Easier Browsing. Internet Explorer 8 starts up faster, creates new tabs in a snap, and loads and runs Web sites more quickly.
Reaching Beyond the Page.Accelerators make it easier to take action on information on Web pages, and Web Slices enable you to monitor changes on sites of interest.
Safety, Choice and Control. Internet Explorer 8 delivers improved protection against malicious Web sites and software. It helps protect your privacy by providing increased choice and control over how Web sites can track your actions.
Compatibility. None of these improvements matter if Web sites look bad or work poorly. Internet Explorer 8 supportsnew Web standards while providing a compatibility mode for sites designed for older versions of the browser.
What Windows 7 Means to IT Professionals
Users are becoming more and more computer-savvy, and they expect more from the technology they use at work. As users’ needs have changed, the demands on IT professionals have only increased. Today, IT professionals are being asked to provide more capabilities and support greater flexibility, while continuing to minimize cost and security risks.
Windows 7 gives IT professionals the flexibility to meet users’ diverse needs in a way that is more manageable. Benefits for IT professionals fall into three key areas:
- Making users productive virtually anywhere. Windows 7 enables users to be productive and access data on the go.
- Enhancing security and control. Windows 7 builds on the security foundation of Windows Vista and delivers increased flexibility for IT professionals working to secure PCs and data.
- Streamlining PC management. Whether IT professionals manage and deploy desktops, laptops or virtual environments, Windows 7 makes the job easier and enables them to utilize the same tools and skills they use with Windows Vista.
The Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack, which is updated at least once a year, completes the enterprise experience. By using Windows 7 and the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack together, enterprises can help optimize their desktop infrastructure and gain the flexibility to address their unique business needs.
The following are a few of the key features that make Windows 7 a compelling release for IT professionals and the users they support:
DirectAccess / Giving users flexible access to applications and data when out of the office is an essential component of any enterprise IT strategy. DirectAccess, a new feature in Windows 7, enables remote users to access the corporate network virtually anytime they have an Internet connection, without the extra step of initiating a virtual private networking (VPN) connection. For IT professionals, DirectAccess simplifies IT management by providing an “always managed” infrastructure, in which computers outside the office can remain healthy, managed and updated.(Note: To take advantage of DirectAccess, IT professionals need to deploy Windows Server 2008 R2 and implement IPv6 and IPSec.)
Search Federation / Search Federation in Windows 7 provides out-of-the-box support for searching beyond the user’s PC. IT professionals can easily enable search engines, document repositories (such as Microsoft SharePoint sites), Web applications and proprietary data stores to be searched from Windows 7. This enables users to search the corporate intranet or the Web as easily as they can search their local files — all from within the same familiar Windows interface.
BranchCache / Windows 7 introduces BranchCache, which caches content from remote file servers and Web servers in branch locations so that users can access the information more quickly. BranchCache supports the same network protocols that are commonly used in enterprises — namely, HTTPS and Server Message Block (SMB) — so that any applications based on those protocols can automatically benefit from the technology. BranchCache also supports network security protocols such as secure sockets layer (SSL) and Internet Protocol security (IPSec), helping ensure that only authorized clients can access requested data.
(Note: To take advantage of BranchCache, IT professionals need to deploy Windows Server 2008 R2.)
BitLocker and BitLocker To Go / BitLocker Drive Encryption functionality in Windows 7 delivers an improved experience for IT professionals and users, including the ability to right-click on a drive to enable BitLocker protection, automatic creation of the required hidden boot partition, and improved key management. Windows 7 also introduces BitLocker To Go, which provides data protection for removable storage devices such as Universal Serial Bus (USB) flash drives. BitLocker To Go gives IT professionals control over how removable storage devices can be used. For example, IT professionals can require data protection for writing to any removable storage device while allowing unprotected storage devices to be used in a read-only mode.
Deployment Image Servicing and Management / The Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) tool in Windows 7 enables IT professionals to build and service operating system images using a single, consolidated tool set. With DISM, IT professionals can update operating system images with software updates; add optional components; add, enumerate and remove third-party device drivers; add language packs and apply international settings; and maintain an inventory of offline images that includes drivers, packages, features and software updates. DISM also can be used to manage Windows Vista system images.
Windows 7: A Focus on Fundamentals
None of the innovations in Windows 7 matter if the operating system doesn’t deliver on the basics. You need your PC to be reliable, responsive and safer. You want your laptop’s battery to last longer, and you need the applications and devices you depend on to work well with your PC. In other words, you want everything to “just work” — and to work the way you want it to.
That’s why fundamentals are a key focus for Windows 7 — something you’ll notice as soon as you take a new Windows 7-based PC out of the box. Windows 7 builds on the substantial investments that Microsoft made in Windows Vista to deliver an operating system that boots quickly; is fast, highly reliable and more secure; works well with your existing applications and devices; and helps you get the most out of today’s powerful hardware.
Performance. Windows 7 starts, shuts down and resumes from Standby mode faster than earlier versions of Windows do. Search and indexing are faster, and you can take greater advantage of external USB flash memory drives to improve performance.
Reliability. Reliability improvements in Windows 7 include a Fault Tolerant Heap to resolve common memory management issues; Process Refection to reduce the disruption caused by diagnostics; and driver sandboxing to prevent poorly written device drivers from negatively affecting other device drivers. The result is that your Windows 7-based PC is more resilient, so you’ll experience fewer hangs and crashes.
Application Compatibility.A key engineering goal for Microsoft is that software that runs on Windows Vista runs as well or better on Windows 7. To meet this goal, Windows 7 is continually tested against a comprehensive list of the most widely used consumer and enterprise applications. Microsoft is investing in partner outreach efforts so that software developers have the resources required to ensure application compatibility. And, for untested or in-house developed applications, Windows 7 includes a number of in-box compatibility aids.
Device Compatibility. As with software, Microsoft set an engineering goal that devices that work with Windows Vista also work with Windows 7 — and it has greatly expanded the list of devices and peripherals that are being tested for compatibility. When updated device drivers are required, Microsoft is working to ensure that you can get them directly from Windows Update or through links to driver downloads on device manufacturers’ Web sites.