Windows 7 is the most recent version of Microsoft Windows, a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft Coporation for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, netbooks, tablet PCs, and media center PCs Windows 7 was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and reached general retail availability worldwide on October 22, 2009, less than three years after the release of its predecessor, Windows Vista. Windows 7's server edition, Windows Server 2008 R2, was also released at the same time.
Different from Windows Vista, which introduced a large number of new features, Windows 7 was extended to be a more focused, incremental upgrade to the Windows series, with the goal of being compatible along software and hardware with which Windows Vista was already compatible. According to Microsoft in 2008, Microsoft would intend on multi-touch support, a redesigned Windows shell with a new taskbar, a.k.a. the Superbar, a home networking system called HomeGroup, and several 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.
New and changed features
Windows 7 includes a number of new features, such as touch improvements and handwriting recognition, support for virtual hard disks, improved performance on multi-core processors, improved boot performance,
DirectAccess, and kernel improvements. Windows 7 adds support for systems using multiple heterogeneous graphics cards from different vendors (Heterogeneous Multi-adapter), a new version of Windows Media Center, a Gadget for Windows Media Center, improved media features, the XPS Essentials Pack and Windows PowerShell being included, and a redesigned Calculator with multiline capabilities including Programmer and Statistics modes along with unit conversion for length, weight, temperature, and several others. Many new items have been added to the Control Panel,
including ClearType Text Tuner, Display Color Calibration Wizard, Gadgets, Recovery, Troubleshooting, Workspaces Center, Location and Other Sensors, Credential Manager, Biometric Devices, System Icons, and Display.
Windows Security Center has been renamed to Windows Action Center (Windows Health Center and Windows Solution Center in earlier builds), which encompasses both security and maintenance of the computer.
ReadyBoost on 32-bit editions now supports up to 256 gigabytes of extra allocation. The default setting for User Account Control in Windows 7 has been criticized for allowing untrusted software to be launched with elevated privileges without a prompt by exploiting a trusted application. Microsoft's Windows kernel engineer Mark Russinovich acknowledged the problem, but noted that malware can also compromise a system when users agree to a prompt,
Windows 7 also supports images in RAW image format through the addition of Windows Imaging Component-enabled image decoders, which enables raw image thumbnails, previewing and metadata display in Windows Explorer, plus full-size viewing and slideshows in Windows Photo Viewer and Windows Media Center.
The taskbar is recognized as the biggest visual changes, where the Quick Launch toolbar has been replaced with the ability to pin applications to the taskbar. Buttons for pinned applications are integrated with the task buttons.
These buttons also enable the Jump Lists feature to allow easy access to common tasks. The revamped taskbar also allows the reordering of taskbar buttons. To the far right of the system clock is a small rectangular button that serves as the Show desktop icon.
This button is part of the new feature in Windows 7 called Aero Peek. Hovering over this button makes all visible windows transparent for a quick look at the desktop.
In touch-enabled displays such as touch screens, tablet PCs, etc., this button is slightly wider to accommodate being pressed with a finger. Clicking this button minimizes all windows, and clicking it a second time restores them. Additionally, there is a feature named Aero Snap, that automatically maximizes a window when it is dragged to the top of the screen.
Dragging windows to the left/right edges of the screen allows users to snap documents or files on either side of the screen for comparison between windows, such that the windows vertically take up half the screen.
When a user moves windows that were maximized using Aero Snap, the system restores their previous state automatically. This functionality is also accomplished with keyboard shortcuts. Unlike in Windows Vista, window borders and the taskbar do not turn opaque when a window is maximized with Windows Aero applied. Instead, they remain translucent.
For developers,
Windows 7 includes a new networking API with support for building SOAP-based web services in native code (as opposed to .NET-based WCF web services), new features to shorten application install times, reduced UAC prompts, simplified development of installation packages, and improved globalization support through a new Extended Linguistic Services API. At WinHEC 2008 Microsoft announced that color depths of 30-bit and 48-bit would be supported in Windows 7 along with the wide color gamut scRGB (which for HDMI 1.3 can be converted and output as xvYCC).
The video modes supported in Windows 7 are 16-bit sRGB, 24-bit sRGB, 30-bit sRGB, 30-bit with extended color gamut sRGB, and 48-bit scRGB.
Microsoft has also implemented better support for solid-state drives, including the new TRIM command, and Windows 7 is able to identify a solid-state drive uniquely. Microsoft is planning to support USB 3.0 in a subsequent patch, support not being included in the initial release due to delays in the finalization of the standard.[33]
Internet Spades, Internet Backgammon and Internet Checkers, which were removed from Windows Vista, were restored in Windows 7. Windows 7 includes Internet Explorer 8 and Windows Media Player 12. Users are also able to disable many more Windows components than was possible in Windows Vista. New additions to this list of components include Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, Windows Media Center, Windows Search, and the Windows Gadget Platform. Windows 7 includes 13 additional sound schemes, titled Afternoon, Calligraphy, Characters, Cityscape, Delta, Festival, Garden, Heritage, Landscape, Quirky, Raga, Savanna, and Sonata. A new version of Microsoft Virtual PC, newly renamed as Windows Virtual PC was made available for Windows 7 Professional,
Enterprise, and Ultimate editions. It allows multiple Windows environments, including Windows XP Mode, to run on the same machine. Windows XP Mode runs Windows XP in a virtual machine and redirects displayed applications running in Windows XP to the Windows 7 desktop. Furthermore, Windows 7 supports the mounting of a virtual hard disk (VHD) as a normal data storage, and the bootloader delivered with Windows 7 can boot the Windows system from a VHD; however, this ability is only available in the Enterprise and Ultimate editions.
The Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) of Windows 7 is also enhanced to support real-time multimedia application including video playback and 3D games, thus allowing use of DirectX 10 in remote desktop environments.
The three application limit, previously present in the Windows Vista Starter Edition, has been removed from Windows 7. Recommendations for Windows 7 is to be on Windows Vista (Longhorn) before upgrading to any version of Windows 7, and to have 16GB on the hard drive.
Removed features
Main article: List of features removed in Windows 7
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 InkBall. 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 DreamScene. InkBall may also be installed into Windows 7.
Development
Main article: Development of Windows 7
Originally, a version of Windows codenamed Blackcomb
was planned as the successor to Windows XP (codename Whistler) and
Windows Server 2003.
Major features were planned for Blackcomb, including an emphasis on
searching and querying data and an advanced storage system named WinFS
to enable such scenarios. However, an interim, minor release, codenamed
"Longhorn," was announced for 2003, delaying the development of
Blackcomb. By the middle of 2003, however, Longhorn had acquired some of
the features originally intended for Blackcomb. After three major
viruses
exploited flaws in Windows operating systems within a short time period
in 2003, Microsoft changed its development priorities, putting some of
Longhorn's major development work on hold while developing new service
packs for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. Development of Longhorn
(Windows Vista) was also restarted, and thus delayed, in August 2004. A
number of features were cut from Longhorn.Blackcomb was renamed Vienna in early 2006 and again renamed Windows 7 in 2007. In 2008, it was announced that Windows 7 would also be the official name of the operating system. There has been some confusion over naming the product Windows 7, while versioning it as 6.1 to indicate its similar build to Vista and increase compatibility with applications that only check major version numbers, similar to Windows 2000 and Windows XP both having 5.x version numbers.
The first external release to select Microsoft partners came in January 2008 with Milestone 1, build 6519. At PDC 2008, Microsoft demonstrated Windows 7 with its reworked taskbar. Copies of Windows 7 build 6801 were distributed at the end of the conference; however, the demonstrated taskbar was disabled in this build.
On December 27, 2008, the Windows 7 Beta was leaked onto the Internet via BitTorrent. According to a performance test by ZDNet, Windows 7 Beta beat both Windows XP and Vista in several key areas; including boot and shutdown time and working with files, such as loading documents. Other areas did not beat XP; including PC Pro benchmarks for typical office activities and video editing, which remain identical to Vista and slower than XP. On January 7, 2009, the 64-bit version of the Windows 7 Beta (build 7000) was leaked onto the web, with some torrents being infected with a trojan. At CES 2009, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced the Windows 7 Beta, build 7000, had been made available for download to MSDN and TechNet subscribers in the format of an ISO image. The Beta was to be publicly released January 9, 2009, and Microsoft initially planned for the download to be made available to 2.5 million people on this date. However, access to the downloads was delayed because of high traffic. The download limit was also extended, initially until January 24, then again to February 10. People who did not complete downloading the beta had two extra days to complete the download. After February 12, unfinished downloads became unable to complete. Users could still obtain product keys from Microsoft to activate their copies of Windows 7 Beta, which expired on August 1, 2009.
The release candidate, build 7100, became available for MSDN and TechNet subscribers and Connect Program participants on April 30, 2009. On May 5, 2009 it became available to the general public, although it had also been leaked onto the Internet via BitTorrent. The release candidate was available in five languages and expired on June 1, 2010, with shutdowns every two hours starting March 1, 2010. Microsoft stated that Windows 7 would be released to the general public on October 22, 2009. Microsoft released Windows 7 to MSDN and Technet subscribers on August 6, 2009, at 10:00 am PDT. Microsoft announced that Windows 7, along with Windows Server 2008 R2, was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009. Windows 7 RTM is build 7600.16385.090713-1255, which was compiled on July 13, 2009, and was declared the final RTM build after passing all Microsoft's tests internally.
An estimated 1000 developers worked on Windows 7. These were broadly divided into "core operating system" and "Windows client experience", in turn organized into 25 teams of around 40 developers on average.
Goals
Bill Gates, in an interview with Newsweek, suggested that this version of Windows would be more "user-centric". Gates later said that Windows 7 would 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 Windows Vista and Windows 7, indicating that Windows 7 would be a refined version of Windows Vista.
Windows 7 system requirements
If you want to run Windows 7 on your PC, here's what it takes:
-
1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
-
1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
-
16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
-
DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver
Additional requirements to use certain features:
-
Internet access (fees may apply)
-
Depending on resolution, video playback may require additional memory and advanced graphics hardware
-
Some games and programs might require a graphics card compatible with DirectX 10 or higher for optimal performance
-
For some Windows Media Center functionality a TV tuner and additional hardware may be required
-
Windows Touch and Tablet PCs require specific hardware
-
HomeGroup requires a network and PCs running Windows 7
-
DVD/CD authoring requires a compatible optical drive
-
BitLocker requires Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 1.2
-
BitLocker To Go requires a USB flash drive
-
Windows XP Mode requires an additional 1 GB of RAM and an additional 15 GB of available hard disk space.
-
Music and sound require audio output
Product functionality and graphics may vary
based on your system configuration. Some features may require advanced
or additional hardware.
Windows 7 Ultimate SP1-U ISO
English x86: X17-59183.iso
English x64: X17-59186.iso
German x86: X17-59886.iso
German x64: X17-59885.iso
French x86: X17-59195.iso
French x64: X17-59197.iso
Spanish x86: X17-58866.iso
Spanish x64: X17-58868.iso
Windows 7 Professional SP1-U ISO
English x86: X17-59183.iso
English x64: X17-59186.iso
German x86: X17-59886.iso
German x64: X17-59885.iso
French x86: X17-59195.iso
French x64: X17-59197.iso
Spanish x86: X17-58866.iso
Spanish x64: X17-58868.iso
Windows 7 Home Premium SP1-U ISO
English x86: X17-58996.iso
English x64: X17-58997.iso
Spanish x86: X17-58857.iso
Spanish x64: X17-58859.iso
French x86: X17-59007.iso
French x64: X17-59009.iso
Activation Keys
Windows 7 Ultimate SP1-U ISO
English x86: X17-59183.iso
English x64: X17-59186.iso
German x86: X17-59886.iso
German x64: X17-59885.iso
French x86: X17-59195.iso
French x64: X17-59197.iso
Spanish x86: X17-58866.iso
Spanish x64: X17-58868.iso
Windows 7 Professional SP1-U ISO
English x86: X17-59183.iso
English x64: X17-59186.iso
German x86: X17-59886.iso
German x64: X17-59885.iso
French x86: X17-59195.iso
French x64: X17-59197.iso
Spanish x86: X17-58866.iso
Spanish x64: X17-58868.iso
Windows 7 Home Premium SP1-U ISO
English x86: X17-58996.iso
English x64: X17-58997.iso
Spanish x86: X17-58857.iso
Spanish x64: X17-58859.iso
French x86: X17-59007.iso
French x64: X17-59009.iso
Activation Keys
No comments:
Post a Comment