Windows 7's release is coming up quick and for some of you, it's right around the corner. TechNet and MSDN subscribers get Windows 7 August 6th and volume license customers get it September 1st. There's certainly been a lot of coverage of the Windows 7 development because Microsoft has been pushing hard to make this the best version of Windows yet. Many new features have been included in Windows 7, some big and some small. We have listed some of the more major and noticeable changes to help you make the switch to Windows 7. We believe that Windows 7 is the best version of Windows yet and our reviews of both the beta and release candidate can be used as reference for this overview of the new Windows 7 features.

System Requirements

• 1GHz or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
• 1 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

Desktop

Themes & Aero
Windows 7 retains the Windows Aero user interface and visual styles that were introduced in Windows Vista, but unlike Vista, Aero is now the only interface available. Windows has supported themes for a while now, but the extend of customization has been extended dramatically. In addition to the color settings, users can now customize the current sound set and desktop slideshow settings. The default theme for Windows 7 is called “Windows 7”, but there are six other Aero themes: Architecture, Characters, Landscapes, Nature, Scenes, and United States (or other country-specific theme).  All of the Windows Vista backgrounds have been removed from Windows 7. Additional theme packs from Microsoft are available for download from Microsoft’s Web site.

Themes in Windows 7 have been updated and widened in scale to support more than just the simple colors and background images

Desktop Slideshow
The desktop slideshow now lets users choose to specify the backgrounds they would like to automatically rotate in a user-designated amount of time. There is also support for a photo RSS feed to automatically display photos from a RSS feed.

Gadgets
Beginning with Windows Vista, Microsoft introduced Gadgets, which lived in the Windows Sidebar that was on the right side of the user’s desktop by default. In Windows 7, Microsoft has removed the sidebar and the gadgets can freely be placed anywhere on the desktop. A Windows Media Center gadget has been added to the default collection, which lets users view live TV from the gadget without having to open Windows Media Center and take up a large amount of the screen space. The Contacts and Notes gadgets have been removed from the default gadget set.

Start Menu

The start menu still retains the two-column layout, but with a few tweaks.

• “Jump Lists” are shown in the Start Menu when a pinned application’s Jump List arrow is clicked or hovered over. The Jump List temporarily replaces the right column of the Start Menu.
• “Devices and Printers” has been added as an option, which displays the new control panel applet
• “Documents”, “Music”, and “Pictures” buttons now link to the Libraries of the same name
• The shut down icon in Windows Vista has been replaced with the text “Shut Down”. Like in Vista, the default text button shown can be modified through the Start Menu properties window.
• Start Menu search is mostly the same, but search has been extended to the Control Panel applets.

Jump Lists in the Start Menu appear on the right-column when one is triggered and they display common tasks or frequent actions for that program.

Taskbar

The taskbar in Windows 7 is 10 pixels higher to accommodate touch screen input because the size of a fingertip is roughly 10 pixels high. Because of the taller side, now only large program icons are shown without text, although the old style taskbar can be activated if desired. Applications that are open show their icon in the taskbar with a border around them to show they are running. A color effect that is shown behind the icon when it is hovered over and the color shown is based upon the main color in the icon itself.  Some icons will display their status behind their icon as well. For example, if a file is downloading in Internet Explorer, a blue progress bar appears behind the icon.

Pinned Applications
Applications can be pinned to the taskbar as a way to replace the old Quick Launch menu in previous Windows versions. Programs can be pinned by simply dragging the icon to the taskbar, by right-clicking the application’s .exe and choosing to pin it, or by right-clicking it in the Start Menu and choosing to pin it.

Live Thumbnail Previews
Because open programs display within one icon in the taskbar if multiple windows of the same application are open, live thumbnail previews when the icon is hovered over or clicked are shown to choose which window to open.  If one of the thumbnails is hovered over, all other open windows become transparent to show to selected window. To switch to that window, users just have to click on the thumbnail. An X button also appears in the upper right corner of the thumbnail when hovered over to close that specific window.  Some applications even show basic controls in their thumbnails. For example, Windows Media Player lets users play, stop, and move forward/backward one track by means of small buttons without having to open the whole window.

Jump Lists
When you right-click an icon in the taskbar, a new jump list appears. Each program has its own unique options that will appear in its jump list. Some of the more common options is the ability to open recent files (ie: Microsoft Word shows recent docs, Internet Explorer shows recently browsed sites) or common tasks (ex: Live Messenger shows the ability to sign off and change status).

Jump Lists also appear when the user right-clicks on an icon in the taskbar. This particular Jump List is for Internet Explorer 8, which shows frequently visited sites and common tasks for IE.

The notification area is a way to hide program icons that you do not want to be shown all the time. To the right of the click is the Aero Peek button, which is explained in the next section.

Aero Peek is a quick way to hide all open windows and make them transparent to see your desktop and gadgets.

Windows Explorer

Libraries
Libraries are new to Windows 7 and they are basically an aggregation of content from various locations, including the local system and networked computers.  The default libraries in Windows 7 are Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos. For example, the Documents library displays all of the document files in one place from multiple sources. This can make things easier if users have multiple computers in their home and need to locate a specific file and they’ve forgotten which computer it is stored on. Each library has its own default save location that can be changed, so dragging a file to a library doesn’t put it into that library, but rather a physical folder location. Libraries should be thought of as being a virtual search of sorts, which searches multiple locations for a specific file type. Users can create new libraries and specify what locations to look for and what file type and other criteria of files to search for and aggregate in the library.

Device Interfacing

Devices and Printers
The new Devices and Printers control panel applet displays plugged-in devices as opposed to the Device Manager, which shows all hardware, including internal. Double-clicking on a device shown here, for example a printer, will display settings specific to that device. With the example of a printer, it will show default printing settings that can all be modified. This applet will replace the “Printers” window that appeared in previous versions of Windows.

File System

Bitlocker-to-Go
BitLocker-to-Go provides encryption support for removable disks, including USB thumbdrives. BitLocker protected devices can be protected with a passphrase, a recovery key, or automatically unlocked on a specific computer. If a protected disk is plugged into another computer and the password isn’t known, the disk will be inaccessible.

Windows 7 makes two partitions during installation, one for the operating system and your files and the other for a recovery partition in case of emergencies.

Security

Window Action Center
The Windows Security Center from XP and Vista has been renamed to Windows Action Center, which handles both security and maintenance issues. Here you can manage various aspects of the computer’s security, such as adjusting Windows Firewall settings. Backup is also another functionality of the Action Center, which monitors your usage of Windows Backup.

Multimedia

Windows Media Center
Windows Vista came with Windows Media Center, an entertainment portal that provided a “ten-foot” interface designed for a home entertainment setting. In Windows 7, much of Media Center is the same, except for a few user interface tweaks and redesigning of a few menus. Microsoft has added support for H.264 video on the local computer and via a Media Center Extended, including the Xbox 360.

Media Center in Windows 7 also includes the “TV Pack” released back in 2008, which includes support for CableCARD and North American (ATSC) Clear QAM tuners.

Microsoft recently announced that Windows Media Center in Windows 7 will support Netflix Instant Watch streaming content for Netflix subscribers in the very near future.

Format support has been increased as well, with new support for many new media formats: MP4, 3GP, MOV, M4A, AVCHD, and ADTS. There are also more included codecs: H.264, MPEG4-SP, ASP/DivX/Xvid, DV, AAC-LC/HE, and MJPEG.

Other Misc. New Features

• A new calculator is included with a new interface and many new calculation abilities.
• Paint and WordPad have the ribbon user interface instituted with Microsoft Office 2007 & 2010.
• Right-clicking an .ISO file and choosing “Burn Image” will bring up a dialog for burning the image to CD/DVD right from within Windows 7.
• InstantOn: a new feature to reduce the startup time of Windows 7 dramatically (and it works too; shutdown times are also amazingly fast)
• Windows Media Player 12 & Internet Explorer 8