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If you thought that the latest incarnation of Microsoft’s operating system was just a pretty face or more “Microsoft marketing fluff” or even “Vista with a bit more”, then you would be mistaken.

At first glance the look and feel of Windows 7 may seem to be nothing more than a slight rehash of the Vista theme, but don’t be fooled, as this is a serious operating system that is brimming with reliability and functionality. Microsoft, through their extensive testing of the Beta and Release Candidates, have created a great looking operating system with brains to boot. So have Microsoft created the intelligent supermodel???

Let’s take a look at some of the new Windows 7 features to see how it stacks up….

THE LOOKS

Taskbar

The first thing that will stand out to you when you first log in is the new taskbar. This is one of the best improvements Microsoft has made to the Windows interface. The taskbar now incorporates the translucent style of Aero and seems to be more intuitive and functional than the Mac OS X dock. It features pinned programs using large, easy-to-see icons; mouse over one and all windows associated with that program appear in preview; mouse over one of those preview panes to reveal an X to close the window; and hover over the preview to show a full-size preview of the program, or click on the window to bring it to the front. When multiple windows from a pinned program are open, a thin line will appear next to the icon, giving users a simple yet effective way to let them know they've got more than one window open. Jump lists are another new taskbar improvement that makes recently opened documents easier to access and can improve efficiency. Right-click or left-click and drag on any program icon pinned to the taskbar to see a list of files that you've recently used in that program. For example, in Internet Explorer, this will show websites you have recently visited.

If you've noticed that the Show Desktop icon is not there that's because it has now been set into the taskbar. Move your mouse over to the right corner; hovering over the Show Desktop box will reveal the desktop, and then hides it when you move the mouse away. With a simple Click on the box it will minimise all your programs. Resizing programs has been simplified and improved by dragging a window's title bar. Drag a program window to the top of your monitor to expand it to full screen. If you want to work in two windows simultaneously, drag one to the left edge and one to the right edge of your screen, and they'll automatically resize to half the width of your monitor. Dragging a program away from the top or sides will return it to its original size. This is an entirely new feature in Windows 7, but should prove easy to adopt because it mimics and expands on the maximise/restore button that users have been resizing windows with previous versions of Windows.

Theme packages also make it much faster to change the look of Windows 7. From the Control Panel, you can change the theme under Appearance and Personalisation. Microsoft has created several theme packages to give users a sample for what the feature is capable of doing. Click on one to download it, and it instantly changes the colour scheme and background — no need to reboot. Users also have the ability to create custom themes, as well.

One area of the Windows 7 visuals that I really love is the wallpaper. Oddly enough, Windows 7’s new wallpaper provides a great example of how Windows 7 pulls off a difficult mix of being both strange and fun. Windows 7 softens Vista’s flat and uninspiring persona, by adding a healthy dose of creativity. Its backgrounds come stuffed with crazy psychedelic landscapes, dreamy tele-tubby like creatures, and candy-coloured art. These wallpapers are brilliant and represent a major character departure from Vista’s approach, which now look soooo “beige” in comparison to the colour and life in Windows 7. Microsoft, it seems, wants people to get personal with their PCs and have fun in an “Apple” kind of way!

Windows Media Player

Windows Media Player has also received a minor makeover. Previously, Media Player had a "Lightweight Playback Mode" which took up far less real estate than the full-blown Media Player. That mode has been renamed "Now Playing Mode" and is even smaller in its footprint. Also Media Player now supports .mov files recorded by digital cameras.

There's also a Remote Media Streaming feature that lets you stream media to other PCs and supported devices.

Adjustable User Account Control

“I shot the Sherriff…”, that’s how I am feeling after playing with the new adjustable UAC. Windows 7 thankfully lets you tone down Vista’s overly aggressive User Account Control policing. But if you still find yourself getting anxious about doing any privileged task, a sliding control lets you adjust Windows 7’s UAC to a level that suits you.

Shortcut keys

Once you learn a few shortcut keys, they become highly addictive, and Windows 7 brings several cool ones. For example, placing two windows side-by-side on a busy desktop took a lot of mouse action in Windows XP. In Windows 7, you click the first window, and press Win+Right Arrow to push the window against the right edge. Follow up with a Win+Left Arrow on the second window, and you’ve lined them up side-by-side, ready for quick information exchange. Overall I really like the new interface, taskbar and the dreamy character wallpaper. It feels fresh and snappy and if you are coming from an XP interface, after a short period of familiarity it will all seem to flow very nicely indeed ☺. In fact your old XP interface will most likely start to look and feel a little (or a lot) “old school”.

THE BRAINS

Performance

Microsoft claims that Windows 7 includes faster start-up and shutdown, faster resumption from standby, faster searching and indexing, and quicker recognition of USB devices. Although my testing was not super scientific, more a ‘seat of your pants feel”, I could confirm that on my laptop Windows 7 did resume from standby noticeably faster. Start-up and shutdown times seemed quicker as well, which was all good news.

Greener than ever

In addition to getting more performance, there has been an attempt to make Windows 7 more frugal with its power consumption. The big buzz in the industry at the moment is on being “green” and Windows 7 claims to reduce power consumption in the vicinity of about 30% over XP. To configure the power plans you click the battery icon in the notification area, you'll see the two power plans: "Balanced" and "Power-saver".

The high-performance plan, which consumes more energy than the other two plans, doesn't show up. However, you can make the high-performance plan appear by clicking the battery icon, selecting "More power options" and then selecting "High performance".

Compatibility for XP Applications

So what are you to do when you need to move to Windows 7 and have applications that only work on XP? Microsoft has pulled out all the stops to encourage XP loyalists to move to Windows 7 with a feature called “XP mode”. XP mode provides backwards compatibility for applications via a cut-down version of the company’s Virtual PC program plus the core XP code (no XP install disc required). This feature will be woven into high-end editions of Windows 7 so that users can run specific XP applications on a virtual session of the Windows XP OS.

XP Mode will guarantee full compatibility for applications written for Windows XP by recreating the OS environment inside a virtual machine.

Devices such as USB drives can be attached to the virtualised OS as a shared device which is simultaneously accessible to XP and the Windows 7 host, and applications installed into XP Mode can be launched directly from the Windows 7 start menu.

One of the more exciting features introduced in Windows 7 with regards to applications is AppLocker. Many of you know about Software Restriction Policies, they allow you to block the execution of a program by file name or hash calculation.

You probably also know how it was a challenge to block applications from inappropriate use with these methods. Users could change the name of the file, or applications updates so frequently that you would constantly need to generate new hash files, which made the Software Restriction Policies feature more trouble than it was worth in some instances.

AppLocker works slightly differently in that it lets you configure only the applications you want, and blocks the rest (Doesn’t that make so much more sense!). AppLocker and its features can be accessed via the Group Policy Editior. You can define policies based on executables, Windows installers, and scripts. Creating a new policy is a simple matter of Right-clicking on any of the above 3 categories and clicking Create New Rule. A wizard will guide you through the steps of creating a policy to allow or deny an executable. You can also select which groups the rule will apply to. You can choose to create a rule based on a publisher (the program needs to be signed), a program path, or a file hash. The wizard will also allow you to adjust what level of information you’ll allow for an application.

If creating many rules does not quite tickle your fancy then the Automatically Generate Rules feature will be for you. This function lets you automatically generate rules (my kind of feature!). If you right click on any of the 3 categories and click Automatically Generate Rules you can quickly generate a list of rules based on applications that are already install on the computer.

Networking Improvements

Windows 7 adds a few networking improvements that Vista and XP lacked. One of the most significant of these is HomeGroups, which give structure to the process of sharing devices and media files over a home network. Microsoft have realized that setting up the security for a home network need not be as complicated as it has been in the past. As a result of this epiphany, a great feature has evolved in Windows 7 called HomeGroups. Homegroups lets everybody type a single password into their networked PCs which then allows those PCs to then join hands to become a common Homegroup. Once in the same HomeGroup every PC on the network can share all the music, pictures, and videos stored by everyone else. Of course, anybody can opt out of sharing their media, but chances are, most people  will embrace this easier way to share their vacation photos and music.

DirectAccess, in case you have not been paying attention, is one of the most discussed features of Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7. With DirectAccess users will be able to access an organization’s intranet shares, internal websites, as well as applications without the issues often associated with virtual private networks (VPN) in remote worker scenarios.

Because it is a feature designed for business users, DirectAccess is not available in all the editions of Windows 7. In fact, only the Windows 7 Enterprise, Windows 7 Ultimate and Windows Server 2008 R2 have the DirectAccess feature. The only catch with DirectAccess is it will require IPv6 in order for it to be implemented successfully. This is not such a bad thing as IPv6 implementation is growing and you can have so much more fun in IP networking in 128 bits as opposed to 32!!

Microsoft has made a good effort in providing a new operating system that not only has the show but also the go to live up to its claims. So has Microsoft created the intelligent supermodel in Windows 7? Why don’t you get yourself on a course to find out!

About the Author

John Filippis is certified by Microsoft as an MCT, MCSE, MCTS and MCITP (Enterprise Administrator Server 2008 and Enterprise Support Technician) . He has trained thousands of students over 12 years in Australia, New Zealand and the UK. John has delivered standard and customised courses on Windows Server, Exchange, SBS, IIS, SMS, SCCM and MOM. He has a degree in Mechanical Engineering is a member of the Australian Computer Society, Mensa Australia and a Graduate Member of the Institution of Engineers Australia. In the past John was a director of two IT companies for four years in the UK and before that was a mechanical engineer in the automotive industry. He is now the Asia Pacific Training Manager for EXCOM Education.