Inside Windows 7 :what i didnt know

Windows 7 has incorporated significant improvements over microsoft windows Vista.Apart from the eye-catching UI ,multi touch support,SUPERBAR, other application makeovers and other details and improvements,there are other very cool features which draws my attention….

Some of them which interested me are listed below.

Reasonable Hardware Requirements

From what i have experienced ,Windows 7 is not a Resource Hogger like Windows Vista.that means users can directly upgrade from windows XP to windows 7 without the need of any hardware upgrades.Windows  7 either runs better than windows xp or same as Windows XP without any performance drops attributing to low hardware configuration of the systems running Windows 7.

Driver compatibility:Good news for Laptop Users Running Windows Vista

Windows 7 exhibits highly improved driver compatibility as compared to Windows Vista.we all know the pain in searching the right kind of drivers for functioning of various hardware components in Windows Vista for a machine which was previously running Windows XP especially laptops.

From what i have been assured by the team behind the Vista which was present at Tech Ed 2009 ,hyderabad this month,all machines which are running Vista can be upgraded to Windows 7 without the hassle of  incompatible drivers.that rules out the need for searching compatible drivers for Windows 7.

Multi-touch feature

i really loved this feature .this feature was demonstrated at the Tech Ed 2009 ,hyderabad event.i beileve no other Operating Sytem or device supports this kinda feature.only catch is ,you need to have the right hardware to make use of this feature.

right now only 2 laptops support this kind of hardware.one is from dell latitude series and the other is from lenovo,these kind of machines are slowly entering into the market this year.there are news that toshiba is also launching a similar kind of hardware.

At the tech ed event ,i enjoyed playing piano which uses Multitouch feature(so you can actually use all your fingers simulatanoeusly which is like playing an actual piano),ofcourse the application should be coded to make use of multi-touch feature.

Core Parking Algorithms integrated into Windows 7 kernel

windows 7 kernel has integrated various Core Parking Algorithms which contribute to significant energy savings.

what is the concept of Core Parking ?

Say you are running several processes on a multiprocessor machine.the load imposed from your processes are equally shared.Say there are four processors and each of them are using  only 10% of their resources.then with the help of core parking algorithms we can put all the load from the processors on to a single processor driving the rest of the processors to deep-sleep.this way we are saving significant amount of energy by using the deep sleep technology supported by diffrent CPU manufacturers..

Dismantling of the Dispatcher spin lock

Another important improvement was Dismantling of Dispatcher spin lock and redesign and implementation of its functionality.The direct result of the reworking of the dispatcher spin lock is that Windows 7 can scale to whopping 256 processors. Further, this made possible to tune the Windows Memory Manager to be even more efficient than it already is.

thats 256 processors…………………………..very very cool.

Ability to Boot from virtual hard disks (.vhd files)

Windows 7 has this amazing capability to boot from virtual hard disks directly.that means users can directly boot from vhd files by configuring the bios .this rules out all the hassles in running a virtualisation software on some other operating system.the vhd files has to be stored on a ntfs partition.this basically required a a driver to dive into  ntfs partition and see a vhd file as another source to boot the system

The ability to physically boot an OS image stored in the VHD format enables enterprises to use the same master image for both remote clients using VDI infrastructure and traditional desktop computers. This reduces the need for enterprises to use multiple image management tools and helps ease the transition to virtual environments. Although this technology opens new options for deployment scenarios, booting from a VHD based-image will not provide all of the functionality of a traditionally installed operating system.

Introduction of BranchCache :

Windows 7 introduces BranchCache, a technology that caches frequently accessed content from remote file and Web servers in the branch location, so users can access this information more quickly. The cache can be hosted centrally on a server in the branch location, or can be distributed across user PCs.

but one catch is ,make use of BranchCache one has to deplay windows server 2008 r2 on related servers.

Introduction of DirectAccess: Bye bye VPN

With the advent of DirectAcess technology VPN is no longer required.DirectAcess is better than VPN.With DirectAccess, IT administrators can manage mobile computers by updating Group Policy settings and distributing software updates any time the mobile computer has Internet connectivity, even if the user is not logged on which was not possible on VPN’s which required the user to log on to the network everytime .

As well as authenticating the computer, DirectAccess can also authenticate the user and supports multifactor authentication, such as a smart card.

Introduction of Applocker: for keeping the system safe

AppLocker provides simple, powerful, rule-based structures for specifying which applications can run that are centrally managed using Group Policy. It introduces “publisher rules” that are based on an application’s digital signature, making it possible to build strong rules that account for application updates. For example, an organization can create a rule to “allow all versions greater than 1.0 of Microsoft Dynamics CRM to run if signed by Microsoft.” With correctly structured rules, IT professionals can safely deploy updates to allowed applications without having to build a new rule for each version update.

concluding this……..alll i have to say is

Windows 7 rocks!!!!