India Broadband Forum

India Broadband Forum

The time has come for a change. Most Vista users are complaining of the poor performance and sluggish behavior of the OS. Well, Microsoft has come up with an answer called “Windows 7”. The RTM (Release to Manufacturing) version is stated to release on Aug 6th and hype is not that much as it used to be before. Many companies are not complaining of Win XP performance, and they still stick to good old 2000 model of OS. They are skeptical of the new OS and wondering whether the upgrade will be smooth or not.

Windows 7 unlike its predecessors is mostly going to be a upgrade to its previous Vista OS and is planning to be compatible with software and hardware, with which Vista is already compatible. Windows 7 mainly focuses on multi-touch support, a redesigned windows shell, a new task bar, a home networking system called Home group, and performance improvements.

So let us look at the different features of Windows 7. Windows 7 retains the Windows Aero interface and visual style as that of Vista.

1. Themes: One could see the plethora of XP themes like Bricopack, WindowsBlinds etc. with the advent of XP. Well, this changed with Windows 7 and is very easy to build a theme by yourself. The theme package is a cabinet file with the extension .themepack and contains desktop wallpapers, sounds, mouse cursor files. So you can include your own pictures as wallpapers and different sounds and can customize it easily.
2. Desktop slideshow: The default themes with Windows 7 RC , have a desktop slideshow feature i.e after a few seconds the desktop wallpaper changes to a new picture.
3. Gadgets: Unlike Vista, where there was a sidebar, Windows 7 does not have a sidebar, but still gadgets can be installed. All the gadgets seem to run in a separate process called sidebar.exe only, unlike Vista, where each gadget had its own process become a resource hog. No gadgets, no process, less memory. Isn’t it that you want?
4. Libraries: This is new to Windows 7, where you can some default folders you frequently use to a library and can access them very easily. Instead of drilling through the long list of folders, all you need to do is add your frequently used folders to a library and whoops, you can directly select them.
5. Federated Search: You can query custom database or webservice on external data source using this feature. All you need to have is a search connector which is a .osdx file.
6. Taskbar: The taskbar has become big, compared to the relatively small one in XP. You can see a thumbnail preview of the applications you are using if you move your mouse over the icons. Also you can pin your favorite application icons to the taskbar, just like a quick launch bar.
7. The Direct X version has been updated to 11.
8. The Windows Media player is version 12.
9. Support for color depths of 30-bit and 48-bit included.
10. It has a drive security lock mechanism called Bit-locker. You can lock your drive with this tool and unlock it when you want it. But locking a drive, is a large time consuming task.