Windows 7
Win7 Editions | Win7 Hardware | Customizing & Tweaking Win7
Win7 Security & Patches | My Personal Experience | Learning More
About Windows 7
An Improvement Over Vista
Windows 7 is Windows Vista's successor. Windows 7 is an incremental upgrade from Vista (it is actually Windows 6.1), fixing many annoyances and adding or changing features.
Less demanding of hardware than Vista, Windows 7 is much easier to use with fewer security alerts interrupting your work.
It adds some new features, of which Libraries and Jump lists are the most useful in improving productivity. It also ends Microsoft's practice of inclusing a built-in email client.
You might also wish to consider that Windows 8 is aimed at tablet users and may not provide the best upgrade path when your Windows XP expires in April 2014.
History
Released October 22, 2009, Windows 7 has done much better than Vista, although Windows XP continues to be widely used (Windows 7 appears to be rapidly catching up as users upgrade to new computers).
Windows 7 end-of-support date is undetermined according to Microsoft at the time of the last update to this page although an earlier visit to the site showed January 13, 2015 as the mainstream end of support.
Microsoft's Windows 7 Support
- Windows 7 Home for official information and downloads.
- Windows 7 Help & How-to.
Windows 7 Editions
There are four primary editions of Windows 7:
- Starter (aimed at NetBooks — small notebook PCs)
- Home Premium (recommended for most home users)
- Professional (aimed at the needs of small businesses and advanced home users including the ability to log into a domain and run productivity programs in Windows XP mode)
- Ultimate (combines the features in Professional with bit-locker encryption and 35 languages)
“Anytime” Upgrade
Microsoft offers an anytime upgrade but you'd be better to purchase the version you need to begin with because the anytime upgrade price is quite steep.
“Starter” Has Limitations
Most hardware with Starter edition installed are incapable of upgrade so you'll want to be sure that you'll have no need to upgrade in the future and your requirements are very limited.
Windows 7 Starter edition can only run 3 processes at a time and forces you to search for many of the customizations that are quickly available in other editions.
Windows 7 Hardware
Installing Windows 7
Microsoft has instruction on how to Install, reinstall, or uninstall Windows.
Can You Run Windows 7?
I don't usually recommend an upgrade of your current hardware to Windows 7 unless you are running a compatible Vista machine or a relatively powerful XP computer. I recently upgraded two XP machines (including my Lenovo T61 laptop), but not before ensuring the necessary Windows 7 drivers and software upgrades were available.
System Requirements
You'd best look at new hardware if you want to optimize your experience with Windows 7. See the general notes about Windows hardware requirements.
- Windows 7 system requirements.
- Microsoft's Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor will tell you if your computer is capable of running Windows 7 or what upgrades may be needed.
You can visit these sites for more information about Windows 7:
32- or 64-bit?
Windows 7 comes with both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Learn more about the advantages and disadvantages on the Windows Resources page.
Other Installation Issues
There are also some documented issues with installation, particularly with upgrade versions (it appears they were not intended to be used for a clean install — something that will haunt you in future years. Go here for help:
- Windows 7 Upgrade Considerations
- Top Solutions for Windows 7 Installation Problems
- Windows 7 Help & How-to.
No Built-in Email Client
Windows 7 has no built-in email client. Outlook Express died with Internet Explorer 6 (and is dangerous to use because it is both extremely outdated and had many security issues to begin with). Vista replaced it with Windows Mail, but that was discontinued in Windows 7.
I'd strongly recommend moving to Mozilla Thunderbird or one of my other recommended email options. Details here….
What's New in Windows 7?
New features in Windows 7 include Libraries (pulling similar information from multiple sources), Jump Lists (quick links to your content), HomeGroup (works only with Windows 7 computers) and Snap (quickly resize and compare windows on your desktop).
Libraries
Libraries provide for the way we operate computers today — allowing you to pull similar content together from multiple sources.
“Libraries are a Windows 7 feature that gives you a consolidated view of related files in one place. A Library doesn't contain files. Rather, a Library provides a single aggregated view of multiple folders and their contents.”
— Microsoft TechNet
You add files to a Library by linking to them. New Libraries can be added by right-clicking in the Libraries bar and selecting New then Library.
Learn more about Libraries by visiting these resources:
- Introducing Windows 7 Libraries — MSDN Magazine.
- Organizing with Windows 7 Libraries: TechNet Overview.
- Windows 7 Libraries: Walkthrough.
- Windows 7 Libraries: Frequently Asked Questions.
Jump Lists
Jump lists give you quick access to your favorite content — on your computer and elsewhere.
If you use a program like CCleaner to remove temporary files, you may need to change the settings if you wish to retain jump lists. Otherwise, your jumplists will be removed each time you run CCleaner.
ReadyBoost
Some of the limitations of ReadyBoost (introduced with Vista) were removed in Windows 7. The benefits of ReadyBoost are minimal for most Windows 7 users and you need to ensure you're using a device that works with ReadyBoost. Those seeking performance would be better served by a solid state disk (SSD) boot drive large enough to install Windows 7 on it.
Tweaking & Customizing Windows 7
Tweaking and customizing Windows involves changing the way Windows 7 does certain tasks or displays its content. Themes and other features are built into Windows 7, but there are other ways to make these changes.
General Settings & Annoyances
Removing Shortcuts
If you're like me, you find the "shortcut to" in the name of new shortcuts annoying because this adds extensively to the size of icon descriptions with little returned value. You can tell it's a shortcut by the little arrow placed on the icon.
- PC Tools provides a registry hack to remove shortcuts. Editing the Windows Registry is not recommended except for advanced users.
- You can simply rename the shortcut text (right-click the shortcut then select Rename) to remove the "shortcut to" text in the description.
Use Shortcuts to Resources
Although many programs download files to the desktop (because people can see it there) I discourage the use of the desktop as a storage place because it is cluttered enough as it is. Additionally, most folks don't know how to back files up from the desktop.
Instead, create appropriate folders in your My Documents folder (accessible via your "User's Files" folder) and create shortcuts on the desktop for those folders by dragging them to the desktop using the right mouse button and selecting "create shortcuts here" (the default action is to move the folder).
By creating a shortcut to the Downloads folder on the desktop, you can drag newly-downloaded files into the correct location for later retrieval.
Broadband and Networking Tweaks
Tweaking broadband and network settings is not recommended in Windows 7.
Windows Registry
- Windows Registry Guide. Be sure to backup your registry before making changes.
- Annoyances.org — Introduction to the Registry.
Changing the Look
Windows 7 is much easier to personalize than earlier versions of Windows. The Aero transparency introduced in Vista and multiple background, icon and other settings can make your desktop truly unique.
Install and Use Windows XP Mode in Windows 7
Using Windows XP Mode, you can run programs that were designed for Windows XP on computers running Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate editions.
Windows 7 Security
Windows 7 security is better than XP's and the bitlocker drive encryption, encrypting file system and shadow copy introduced in Vista remain (not provided in all editions, although third-party versions are available). The User Account Control remains, but is more configurable (you can even turn it off) and therefore less annoying in Windows 7.
Windows Backup & Restore
Windows 7 has included an effective built-in backup and restore system to protect your data and to allow you to recover from a disaster quickly — provided you've taken advantage of these tools before the incident.
Windows 7 Service Pack 1
Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) offers new improvements to features and services in Windows 7, such as improved reliability when connecting to HDMI audio devices, printing using the XPS Viewer, and restoring previous folders in Windows Explorer after restarting.
Some folks (including myself) had problems installing the service pack, so your mileage may vary.
My Personal Experience with Windows 7
Testing Windows 7 Release Candidate
I first tried Windows 7 Ultimate Release Candidate — the pre-release (or testing) version — on a 3 GHz Celeron-based processor with only 512 MB of RAM (which I later upgraded to 2GB for improved performance).
The Windows Experience rating of 1.0 (see below) indicates that with a new add-in video card, the computer would perform reasonably well. Even though the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor indicated that the SiS 900-based internal network card was incompatible, it worked just fine.
| Component: | What's Rated: | Experience Rating: |
|---|---|---|
| Processor: | Calculations per second | 3.9 |
| Memory (RAM): | Memory operations per second | 3.9 |
| Graphics: | Desktop performance for Windows Aero | 1.9 |
| Gaming graphics: | 3D business and gaming graphics performance | 1.0 |
| Primary hard disk: | Disk data transfer rate | 5.9 |
Purchased Windows 7 Professional
As a result of this experience, I purchased a new Intel® Core™2 Duo CPU E8400 (3.0 GHz) 64-bit computer with 4 GB RAM and running Windows 7 64-bit Professional edition.
Not being a gamer (those looking to wring the most out of their computer's performance), this machine was chosen to give a long service life for a reasonable investment. Photoshop CS4, which can use lots of RAM when working with larger images, is the most demanding program on my system.
The Windows Experience rating of 5.9 was limited by the hard drive (interesting, considering this was the strongest point in my RC1 test computer).
| Component: | What's Rated: | Experience Rating: |
|---|---|---|
| Processor: | Calculations per second | 6.5 |
| Memory (RAM): | Memory operations per second | 6.6 |
| Graphics: | Desktop performance for Windows Aero | 7.2 |
| Gaming graphics: | 3D business and gaming graphics performance | 7.2 |
| Primary hard disk: | Disk data transfer rate | 5.9 |
I have experienced a number of issues with Windows 7, even after a clean install:
- I experienced a number of BSODs. These are sometimes difficult to track down.
- There have been some challenges in transferring files between my XP-based laptop and my Windows 7 desktop. Home Group (the new "easier" networking for Windows 7) only works between Windows 7 machines. Only the public folders can be seen on the Windows 7 computer from the laptop.
- My ATI video card insisted on using HDMI when playing a video even though I didn't have HDMI playback capability (I eventually purchased an HDMI-capable monitor). My initial solution was to disable the HDMI hardware and use the free VideoLAN VLC media player because Roxio Creator 2010 could not produce sound when playing a movie.
Following the latest clean install to allow Service Pack 1 to install and the upgrade to HDMI monitor, these problems have mostly disappeared (except for the networking issues).
Windows XP to 7 Upgrade
As noted earlier, I upgraded two Windows XP computers to Windows 7 Home Premium. My Levovo T61 laptop had been running Winodws XP Pro and the desktop computer had been running Windows XP Home.
I found that both upgrades went relatively smoothly, having evaluated both using the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor and doing a clean install of Windows XP on both before proceeding.
Windows 7 will install over XP and saves many of the settings and files in a Windows.old directory (in the Documents and Settings, Program Files and Windows folders) but you'll need to reinstall your programs. Upgrades of Vista doesn't require the reinstallation of programs (your mileage may vary).
| Component: | What's Rated: | Experience Rating: |
|---|---|---|
| Processor: | Calculations per second | 5.1 |
| Memory (RAM): | Memory operations per second | 5.1 |
| Graphics: | Desktop performance for Windows Aero | 3.4 |
| Gaming graphics: | 3D business and gaming graphics performance | 3.1 |
| Primary hard disk: | Disk data transfer rate | 5.7 |
As you can see, the performance on the laptop was significantly less than on my desktop, but considering the computer is using older technology designed for an operating system two generations older, it is not bad. Note that this was a significantly more powerful laptop than most folks would buy (aimed at mid-level management, not consumers).
Learning More
Windows Basics
These pages give an overview of Windows, its versions history and expected life-cycle as well as concepts and terminology:
- Microsoft Windows — history, versions and life-cycle of support
- Windows Basics — general concepts & terminology
Other Current Windows Versions
The following related pages offer more information about other versions of Windows currently in use:
General Windows Information
The following related pages offer general information about Windows:
- Windows Recovery Hints — recovering your Windows installation
- Windows Backup — options & strategies
- Windows Security — vulnerabilities in Windows
www.russharvey.bc.ca/resources/windows7.html
Updated: May 18, 2012
