Windows 7

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Windows 7 is an operating system developed by Microsoft as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009. It is the successor to Windows Vista, released nearly three years earlier.

Development

Windows 7 was intended to be a more focused, incremental upgrade to the Windows line, with the goal of being compatible with applications and hardware with which Windows Vista was already compatible. Windows 7 was primarily intended to address Windows Vista's poor critical reception while maintaining hardware and software compatibility.

Features

Windows 7 introduced a number of new features, including advancements in touch, speech, and handwriting recognition, support for virtual hard disks, improved performance on multi-core processors, improved boot performance, and kernel improvements. The new taskbar was redesigned to allow for pinning applications, and the new "Aero Peek" feature allowed users to preview open windows by hovering over the taskbar.

User Interface

The Windows Aero graphical user interface was enhanced with new features such as Aero Snap, Aero Shake, and Aero Peek. The taskbar was redesigned to allow for pinning applications, and the Start menu was updated with a refined search box.

Performance

Windows 7 was designed to work with multi-core processors and included improvements in boot performance. It also introduced a new version of the Windows Media Center and a new version of the Windows Media Player.

Security

Windows 7 included several new security features, such as BitLocker and BitLocker To Go, which provided encryption for internal and external drives. The Windows Action Center was introduced to provide a central location for security and maintenance information.

Editions

Windows 7 was available in six different editions: Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate. Each edition was aimed at different markets and included different features.

System Requirements

The minimum hardware requirements for Windows 7 were:

• 1 GHz processor (32-bit or 64-bit)
• 1 GB of RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB of RAM (64-bit)
• 16 GB of available disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
• DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

End of Support

Microsoft ended mainstream support for Windows 7 on January 13, 2015, and extended support ended on January 14, 2020. However, businesses and users could purchase extended security updates through January 2023.

Reception

Windows 7 was critically acclaimed for its performance improvements over Windows Vista, its more intuitive interface, and its overall stability. It quickly became one of the most popular versions of Windows.

See Also

• Windows Vista
• Windows 8
• Microsoft
• Operating system
• Windows NT