Your PC, simplified. You told Microsoft what you want in a PC. They listened. And made hundreds of little improvements and a few big ones that add up to a whole lot less. Less waiting, fewer clicks, and less complexity. With less of what you don’t need, Windows® 7 helps you do more. More work, more play, and more of everything in between. Making every task simpler and every day easier. See for yourself once you get your hands on Windows® 7.

What are people saying?

• The Business Insider
• The Register
• The Daily Telegraph

What's Changed:

Improved taskbar and full-screen previews

The taskbar at the bottom of your screen is what you use to switch between the applications you've got open. In Windows® 7 you can set the order in which the icons appear and they'll stay put. They're easier to see, too. Click once on the new large icons or bigger preview thumbnails and you're ready to go. You can even see a full screen preview before switching to the window

Jump Lists

With Windows® 7, Microsoft focused on keeping the things you use most right in front of you. The new Jump List feature is an example of this in Windows® 7. It's a handy way to quickly reach the files you've been working with. To see the files you've used recently, just right click on the icon on your taskbar. So right-clicking on the Word icon will show your most recent Word documents. Plus, if there are other files you want to keep handy, you can just pin them to the Jump List so they’ll always appear. That way, the documents you’re likely to want are just a couple clicks away.

Some programs, such as Windows Media® Player, can pre-populate their Jump Lists with common tasks in Windows® 7. For example, on the Jump List for Windows Media® Player, you’ll see options to Play All Music or resume your last playlist. On the Jump List for Internet Explorer®, you’ll see frequently and recently viewed websites. With some programs, you’ll even have quick access to tasks that, in the past, were only available from within the program, such as composing a new e-mail message.

Desktop enhancements

Windows® 7 simplifies how you work with the Windows® on your desktop. You'll have more intuitive ways to open, close, resize, and arrange them.

With Windows® 7, it’s easier to do things you do all of the time. For example, before, when you wanted to compare two open windows, you had to manually resize your open windows to show them side-by-side. With Snaps in Windows® 7, you can simply grab a window and pull it to either side edge of the screen to fill half the screen. Snap windows to both sides, and it’s easier than ever to compare those windows.

Another thing you may want to do is quickly see your gadgets or grab a file from your desktop. To see your desktop in Windows® 7 just move your mouse to the lower right corner of your desktop. That'll make all the open windows transparent—so your desktop is immediately visible. Want to get all but one window out of your way? In Windows® 7 grab the top of that window; shake it and all the other open windows will minimize to the taskbar. Shake the window again, and they’ll all come back.

Windows® Search

Looking for something on your Windows® 7 PC? What’s your first instinct? If you use the web a lot, you probably start by looking around for a search box. Now, you can find things on your computer the same way. Introduced with Windows Vista®, Windows® Search helps you find virtually anything on your PC quickly and easily. Windows® 7 also makes search results more relevant and easier to understand.

Looking for a file, e-mail, or application? While you can easily look through folders and menus, there’s an even faster way. Just click on the Start button in Windows® 7 and you’ll see a search box at the bottom of the Start menu. Just enter a word or few letters in the name or file you want, and you’ll get an organized list of results.

Windows® 7 uses libraries to show all content of a particular type in one spot. Say you’ve got photos in several locations on your PC. A lot will be in your Photos folder. But you might have some in documents folders too. Your photos library makes it easy for you to browse and use all your photos, no matter where they are on your PC.

By collecting things into a single view, libraries in Windows® 7 make it simpler to find what you’re looking for. They’re even more powerful with Windows® Search. You can search your Libraries using filters to customize your search. For example, when you’re looking for music you can search by album. Or search for photos by the date they were taken. You can go to your Documents Library, click on authors, and see all the documents on your computer sorted by author name.

Homegroup

Today, you may have a network in your home that you use to share an Internet connection. But it can be hard to share other things, like files and printers. Do you have one or more computers in your home but only one printer? If you’re like most people, when you need to print a file that’s on your laptop in your bedroom on the printer in your den, you probably e-mail the file from one PC to another or transfer it on a USB drive. And if you need to find a file but don’t know which computer it’s stored on, chances are you’re in for a long night as you traipse from PC to PC and search each one.

HomeGroup, a new feature in Windows® 7, makes connecting the computers in your home a painless process. HomeGroup is set up automatically when you add the first PC running Windows® 7 to your home network. Adding more PCs running Windows® 7 to the HomeGroup is an easy process. You can specify exactly what you want to share from each PC with all the PCs in the HomeGroup. Then, sharing files across the various PCs in your home—and many other devices—is as easy as if all your data were on a single hard drive. So you can store digital photos on a computer in your den and easily access them from a laptop anywhere in your home. Similarly, once in a HomeGroup, the printer in your den is shared automatically with all of the PCs in your home.

View Available Network (VAN)

Windows® 7 makes viewing and connecting to all of your networks simple and consistent. You'll always have one-click access to available networks, regardless of whether those networks are based on WiFi, mobile broadband, dial-up, or your corporate VPN.

Faster, more responsive performance

Nobody likes to wait, so we all want our PCs to perform well. We looked at a number of ways to improve performance on PCs running Windows® 7. We designed the operating system to be more responsive and simpler to use.

To improve performance, Windows® 7 is designed to make PCs start up, shut down, resume from standby, and respond faster. To help you zip through your day, we’ve added new features to simplify the number of steps required to do common things. Some of the features that’ll help you save time include:

Windows® Taskbar simplifies working with your applications and files

Jump Lists put the documents you want handy and the ones you’ve used recently a couple clicks away

We’ve also focused on making it more convenient to work with the operating system. For example, the Action Center gives you more control over how the operating system notifies you about system changes. You can recover more quickly from problems when they do occur because when you’re ready to address issues, Windows® 7 will help you fix them.

Power management improvements

We designed Windows® 7 to improve battery life by adding power-saving enhancements, such as adaptive display brightness, which dims the display if you haven't used your PC for a while. Other improvements include using less power to play DVDs (handy on a trip) and using processing power more efficiently.

Compatibility

We know how important it is for the hardware and software you use today to work with Windows® 7. So we’re doing several things to help.

We’re working with our partners to help ensure their products will work with Windows® 7. You can expect that most of the products that work with Windows Vista® to work with Windows® 7. Compatible with Windows® 7

If you’re buying a new device or application, look for the "Compatible with Windows® 7" logo. These products have passed tests that Microsoft® designed to install readily and run reliably with Windows® 7.

With Windows® 7 Professional or Ultimate, you’ll be able to run many productivity and business programs designed for Windows® XP. Some additional software will be necessary and it will be available free-of-charge as a download from Microsoft®.

Reduce interruptions

Rather than popping up with a message in the lower right of your screen, if Windows® 7 needs your attention, you'll see an Action Center icon and can find out more by clicking it. If you don't have time to look at the alert immediately, Action Center will keep the information waiting for you to address later.

Windows® 7 helps you solve more problems, and it helps you solve them on your own schedule. The Action Center is a new, integrated Control Panel experience that gives you a central place to go for tasks and notifications associated with keeping your computer running smoothly. It makes it easier for you to fix problems yourself by providing a new streamlined experience for addressing notifications and managing computer issues.

More Information:

• Free Windows 7 upgrades
• System Requirements
• Microsoft's Windows 7 website
• Take a look at some of the videos

Download Documents:

• Windows 7 Enterprise
• Windows 7 Professional