DevBlog

Today at Microsoft's Professional Developer's Conference (PDC) in Los Angeles, Windows 7 was shown for the first time. It appears the main emphasis is to fix some perceived issues with Vista and add more fit and finish. What Microsoft showed is in the product and will be included in the release. In other words, no pie in the sky features. The demo was run on a new laptop with 1Gig RAM, but Win7 only requires 512. Here are some things you'll see in Win7:

• New task bar similar to OSX Dock
• Jump lists
• New Start menu
• Windows Explorer Libraries
• Home Group Networking provides separate profiles for home and work. You'll be able to plug your work laptop into your home network and not compromise your work files
• Vista Sidebar is dead. Gadgets just go on the desktop
• New light weight media player
• System tray is locked down by default. You can decide what goes there.
• New Action Center. It's a superset of Vista Security Center. It will also queue up "toast" notifications.
• Touch UI is built in and usable with no code changes. One reporter said, "It's like a big friking IPhone".
• WordPad now supports ODF and has a new Ribbon interface, similar to Office 2007.
• Paint is finally updated and also Ribbon interface.
• UAC is more controllable and less intrusive. There is a UAC settings in Control Panel. You can set the level of UAC protection via a slider.
• Reduced memory footprint and disk IO
• Better power management. Microsoft spent time on end-to-end testing with playing a DVD on battery power.
• Faster boot
• Native Virtual Hard Drive monitoring. You can directly mount and boot from VHDs.
• Bit Locker works on USB devices
• Remote Desktop supports dual monitor
• Windows key + P goes into new Presenter Mode
• Shutdown button is customizable

Microsoft promised a beta early next year. It will be feature complete but will not be ready for performance testing. The beta will be public and available on microsoft.com. It will be followed by on Release Candidate, then RTM. While Microsoft did not give a date for release, the press is reporting it will be available late 2009.

More Win7 details are expected at the WinHEC conference in about 10 days.

Here are some links to screen shots and more info on Win7 and Office 14.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1675
http://www.techflash.com/microsoft/Microsoft_taking_Office_to_the_browser.html
http://content.zdnet.com/2346-12354_22-244222.html
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=575
http://www.flickr.com/photos/longzheng
http://www.neowin.net/news/live/08/10/28/introducing-the-windows-7-ui
http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/
http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1676
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-10074795-75.html?tag=newsLeadStoriesArea.0
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10076864-56.html?tag=newsLeadStoriesArea.0
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-10076883-75.html?tag=newsLeadStoriesArea.0
http://www.winsupersite.com/office/office14_web_preview.asp

Labels: Windows 7