Windows7-features-2

Internet Explorer 8 (improved)

I will only discuss the major changes here.

         IE8 is supposed to be faster and more stable

         Rendering engine: IE8 will improve compliance with web standards; web sites can opt-in for IE7 mode for backward compatibility

         InPrivate: Makes sure that the browsing history can’t be tracked

         Accelerators: Allows you to invoke a web application by selecting an object on a web page (for example for blogging)

         Web Slices: Users can subscribe to snippets on a web page, which will be updated automatically by the browser

         SmartScreen Filter: This is the new name for the Phishing Filter. It has a new user interface, is supposed to perform faster, and has new heuristics, anti-malware support, and improved Group Policy support.

         Automatic Crash Recovery: The browser will reload the pages after a crash

Calculator (improved)

         New user interface

         Calculation history

         Unit conversion

         Calculation templates

         Date calculations

         Controls that are optimized for touch

XPS Viewer (XML Paper Specification) (improved)

         New user interface

         Relevancy-ranked XPS searched

         Thumbnails provide an interactive view of several pages at a time

         Preview XPS documents in Windows Explorer and Office

HomeGroup (new)

       Windows 7 computers can connect automatically with each other to share resources (files, printers, etc.)

       Users can decide what they want to share

       Support for Libraries

       Can be configured via Group Policy

MinWin (new)

       MinWin is fully bootable

       Requires 25-40MB of disk space

       It contains the executive systems, memory management, networking, and optional file system drivers

       Components only call down the stack, and not up

       It allows building of less bloated Windows editions that run on netbooks and other computers with limited hardware resources

Ready Boost (improved)

         Allows you to concurrently use multiple flash drives

         Works with USB memory keys, Secure Digital (SD) memory cards, and other internal flash devices

         Supports over 4 GB of storage

Battery life (improved)

         Reduced background activities when the computer is idle

         Adaptive display brightness: Display brightness is reduced after a period of inactivity

         Less processing power for DVD playback

         Wake on Wireless LAN

         Smart Network Power: Power of the network adapter is turned off when cable is unplugged

         Better battery life notification

         A new power config tool

Windows Media Player (improved)

         Supports more media formats

         Improved performance

         Taskbar thumbnail (displays titles, and offers controls)

         Jump list in the Windows Start Menu and the taskbar

         Stream media to other PCs at home

         Stream media to (DLNA) v1.5-compliant digital media renderers

Media Center (improved)

       New user interface

       Broader support for global TV standards

       Share TV shows at home via TV Libraries

Sound (improved)

       New standard Bluetooth audio driver

       Automatically streams music or voice calls to the active output device

       Control volume independently for each device

Process Reflection (new)

       Crashed processes are cloned in memory

       Windows 7 tries to recover the cloned process and diagnoses the failure conditions of the original process

       It should reduce the disruption caused by diagnosis of failed process

Fault tolerant heap (new)

The new fault tolerant heap is supposed to reduce the number of crashes significantly.

Windows Live Essentials and Windows Live Services

Microsoft removed Windows apps such as Windows Mail and or Windows Photo Gallery from Windows and offers them as free downloads as a part of the Live Essentials suite. The Windows Live Services are web-based apps like Windows Live Hotmail or Windows Live Spaces. As useful as these tools are, I didn’t include them here because I think that downloadable apps and web apps shouldn’t be considered as part of the operating system.