Windows 7 -6.1.7000 (Release Date: 7 January 2009)

Windows 7 (formerly codenamed Blackcomb and Vienna) is the next release of Microsoft Windows, an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, Tablet PCs, and media center PCs.

Microsoft stated in 2007 that it is planning Windows 7 development for a three-year time frame starting after the release of its predecessor, Windows Vista, but that the final release date will be determined by product quality.

Unlike its predecessor, Windows 7 is intended to be an incremental upgrade with the goal of being fully compatible with existing device drivers, applications, and hardware. Presentations given by the company in 2008 have focused on multi-touch support, a redesigned Windows Shell with a new taskbar, a home networking system called HomeGroup, and performance improvements. Some applications that have been included with prior releases of Microsoft Windows, most notably Windows Mail, Windows Calendar,[citation needed] Windows Movie Maker, and Windows Photo Gallery, are no longer included with the operating system; they are instead offered separately (free of charge) as part of the Windows Live Essentials suite.


TOP 5 FEATURES OF WINDOWS 7

1. Multi-Touch: It seems that Windows 7, not OS X, will become the first consumer OS to bring multi-touch capability to the masses after all. We were afraid Microsoft will try to sell Windows 7 on the multi-touch pitch alone but are, in fact, pleasantly surprised with the implementation. There is an on-screen virtual keyboard and gestures for common mouse actions, like dragging and right-clicking, that work throughout Windows 7 and applications like Paint and Microsoft Earth. Click on a taskbar icon to reveal the Jump List or draw a "b" in Internet Explorer 8 to go backwards. Gestures are tied into mouse navigation calls, so any Windows application will be able to support multi-touch right away. Windows 7 is multi-touch on desktops done right and Microsoft should be credited for that.

2. Windows 7 taskbar: The Dock in OS X means business, but the new, taller taskbar in Windows 7 has nifty features, like live thumbnails that fan out in a row when you hover the mouse pointer over an application icon in the taskbar. Thumbnails are created not only for the windows an application has opened, but for tabs as well. Hover over the Internet Explorer 8 icon and the thumbnails show all opened tabs. When you hover over a thumbnail, you get a full-sized screenshot of a window or a tab without switching the application. Task thumbnails enable faster task switching and more efficient windows management than the Dock + Expose combo in OS X. Like it or not, we believe the new taskbar in Windows 7 is a whole step ahead of the Dock in OS X.

3. Libraries: Both Windows and OS X have special folders for storing documents, images, music, videos, etc. But don't you just hate it when you fill up your hard drive with music, having to move all MP3s to a larger drive and then re-route the Music folder to this new location? Not anymore. In Windows 7, you simply add a new location to your Music folder. The Library feature allows your MP3s to reside on any number of internal, external and network locations, while they appear to reside inside the Music folder. Better yet, the new Federated Search enables you to search Libraries, too, so you can easily locate media files across multiple locations. A fantastic new feature.

4. Play To and Windows Media Center: Windows has become better multimedia center than OS X, period. The Jump To feature enables you to send video and audio output from one PC to a network-enabled media player, home stereo and even other PCs on the network – a trivial and tremendously useful feature OS X still lacks. More importantly, Apple's FrontRow is really no match for Windows Media Center, which now looks much more attractive thanks to more eligible fonts and has become much more useful due to the addition of Internet TV and the ability to customize its start menu. Apple limits Front Row to iTunes and refuses to add DVR capabilities.

5. Device Stage: Windows 7 brings a new feature that shows all the features and documents relating you hardware in a single window. Connect your mobile phone and it appears in Windows Explorer. Click on it and a window comes up with vendor-branded background (if a vendor supports this feature) that might show basic information about the cellphone, its capabilities, links to its manual and the latest driver, in addition to advanced features like syncing capabilities, copying videos and images from a device, setting ringtones, etc. Just like it is the case with Vista, you have to search down through various system features and applications to access different capabilities of a device. Before Windows 7, we never thought there was a better way of doing this. Device Stage not only feels right, it is a better approach to assemble your key hardware in one place