Windows 7 News
Windows 7 Makes Vista Valuable
Nov 28th
Late last month, Microsoft unveiled a first peek at what was once called “Blackcomb,” later renamed “Vienna,” and finally dubbed “Windows 7.” (Or, as some wags have named it, the “Wait, come back, we were just kidding about Vista!” build.) Now, I must admit that I’ve been pretty skeptical about Windows 7 because, while on one hand Microsoft has been very closed-mouthed about the details of Windows 7, on the other hand the company has been pretty open about its existence and imminence. These two factors seemed to add up to a marketing shell game – it almost seemed like Redmond’s plan was to get us all excited about the idea of a newer, better Windows (which has the effect of partially drowning out the anti-Vista buzz), but then to avoid any specifics about that supposedly newer, better Windows. Now, however, we’ve got some of those specifics, and I’ve been pleasantly surprised to see a number of neat things slated for the mid-2010 version of Windows.
Wins for Windows 7 The first eyebrow raiser came in the form of a couple of interesting promises. First, all drivers that work on Windows Vista will work on Windows 7. Second, if your hardware runs Vista well, then it will run Windows 7 well. Why’s that interesting? Well, think of the way that many organizations buy new computer hardware. Many folks have a fixed-length buying cycle or “hardware refresh period” of three to five years, meaning that if you work for Bigfirm and Bigfirm has a hardware-refresh period of three years, then you get a new laptop every three years. Clearly the choice of period has a direct effect on the amount of money that Bigfirm spends in a year, and in times like these you’ve got to like anything that’ll stretch out that period.
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Battery life improvements in Windows 7
Nov 28th
Looks like Microsoft might be doing a fine job after all with their next operating system; Windows 7.
If a notebook runs Windows Vista, it will run Windows 7 and it will get better battery life, promises Gabriel Aul of the Windows Performance team. But PC manufacturers and device suppliers are also going to have to do their part to make a big difference to power consumption on new notebooks.
What Microsoft can do is make it easier for components in the system to go into low power mode when the system is idle. Some of that is ‘managing’ components: Windows 7 ‘parks’ CPU cores that aren’t needed, finally implements the ‘slumber’ feature on SATA drives, powers down USB ports and controllers more aggressively and even puts your Wi-Fi card to sleep if it’s turned on but not connected to a network.
Windows 7 takes better advantage of hardware power saving options, particularly for playing a DVD video in Windows Media Player
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Windows 7 Firewall and Networking
Nov 26th
Windows Firewall just don’t get no respect. It didn’t evolve appreciably in the transition from XP to Vista. It does its simple job well, but its lack of ambition makes it a punching bag for reviews of other, better personal firewalls. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve written sentences along the lines of, “Sure, Product X stealths all your ports against hack attack, but heck, even Windows Firewall can do that.” Good news: It looks as if Windows 7 will pull the firewall out of its slump. Some new features are visible and functional even in the pre-beta I’ve got running on my test system, and there’s a tantalizing suggestion of more to come.
Read the full article at Source.