Microsoft Windows 7

Microsoft Windows 7 is the recently launched version of Windows. Windows is referred to a series of OS produced by Microsoft for use in pc, home and business desktops, netbooks, ipones, tablet PCs, laptops and media center PCs. The manufacturing of Windows 7 was released on July 22, 2009. Three months after that i.e. on 22nd Oct 2009, the general retail availability of Windows 7 was released. Windows 7 was released in less than 3 years after the release date of its predecessor, Windows Vista. Windows Server 2008 R2 which is a Windows 7’s server counterpart was released around the same time as Windows 7

On 27th December 2008 the beta version of Microsoft Windows 7 was leaked in the Internet via BitTorrent followed by which the official release of Windows 7 beta was on 9th January 2009. Windows 7 beta beat both Windows XP and Vista in terms of performance in major key areas. It performed better in areas including boot time, shutdown time, working with files and loading documents. Microsoft initially planned to release Windows 7 beta to initial 2.5 million users. The beta version of Microsoft Windows 7 expired on August 1, 2009.

After the failure of Windows Vista which introduced a large number of new features, Microsoft mainly concentrated on a more focused and incremental update on Windows line. Windows 7 was aimed of being fully compatible with Windows Vista’s applications and hardware. However, people using Windows XP need to do a clean installation. According to a presentation given by Microsoft in 2008, they mainly focused on improving various features which includes multi-touch support, new taskbar aka superbar, redesigned Windows shell, a home networking system called as HomeGroup and performance improvements. Some of the features like Windows calendar, Windows Mail and Windows Movie Maker are not included in Microsoft Windows 7.