Windows 7 will be general available on the 22nd Oct 2009. However, you don’t have to wait till then, to see or hear it. Its all over the place. Its crazy. I’ve seen Windows Client Releases over the past decade. I’ve not seen one that has so much anticipation and excitement. There are tons of media coverage and enthusiasts who gave lots of positive feedbacks.
Today i want to share with you another amazing IT Pro, Alex Crawford.
Alex is a member of Singapore IT Pro User Group. He works for a large public sector organization as a Solutions Architect focusing on End User Computing. He has extensive experience working on multiple client operating system from DOS and Windows 3.1 days till now, Windows 7.
Alex’s Initial Experience with Windows 7
“I feel like Microsoft listened”. Bad hardware support, slow menus, application incompatibilities and a resource hog, are his experience about Windows Vista, the soon to be replaced Windows Operating System. Yes, replaced by Windows 7. These issues has been address in Windows 7. The menu system is now far more sleek and intuitive. Great driver support out of the box and most importantly, runs faster on the same set of hardware compared to Vista. Its been a long time since Alex has been so excited about a new operating system released from Microsoft.
Alex shares with me what he likes about Windows 7.
Aero Peek
This feature allows one to get a sneak peek behind open windows. It has become a way of working on the computer for him. He’s become more
productive at the computer and find its quite frustrating not to have Aero Peek on current versions.
To read more about Aero Peek, Paul Thurott' wrote an article about Aero Peek. Read it here.
Applocker
As the name suggests, Application Locker. It can be used to control authorized and unauthorized applications. Say for example, you want a strict operating environment in your corporate desktops. You can use Applocker to prevent users from running unauthorized software.
Before Applocker, we have to use Software Restrictions in Group Policies. Applocker is more powerful then Software Restrictions and reduces lots of overheads compared to previous capabilities.
Edge @ TechNet recently has a video demo posted about Applocker.
Windows 7 UAC
UAC prevents unauthorized execution of software process that requires administrative privilege. To read abo ut UAC, click here. While UAC was already introduced in Vista, Alex never thought it would find the balance between useful security mechanisms and being an annoying pop-ups. In Windows Vista, UAC was popping up all over the place and there wasn’t granular control on how UAC will raise an alarm. Now in Windows 7, one can bring a balance by reducing the number of prompts and giving you the ability to configure UAC experience in the control panel.
Booting from a Virtual Hard Drive
Windows 7, allows someone to build a virtual hard drive, attach it to Windows 7, and literally boot into the virtual hard drive. For techies like Alex, he runs Windows 7 as the default installation. Net he builds a Windows 208 R2 on a virtual hard drive (.vhd) and boot into it. There is no worries about managing another operating system partition. You can dual boot into another operating system in Windows 7, and that other operating system exists as a VHD file.
From an enterprise standpoint, this allows an organization wit mixed desktop environment and virtual images to move to a single format, thereby simplifying image management and deployment.
For a demo of the new booting feature, check out http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/dd758779.aspx
Application Compatibility
App Compat seems to be on the minds of every IT Pro i talk to about Windows Vista and Windows 7. Alex was surprised that for most part of his applications, they worked flawlessly. However, there are some small exceptions. For example, Norton 360 would not install in Beta build, however, it works in RC. Through the various releases, application compatibility is also incrementally taken care of.
XP Mode
“Microsoft has listened again.” Windows 7 introduced a feature called “XP Mode”. In essence, the feature is a Virtual PC version of Windows XP running on Windows 7, allowing you to continue your favourite XP applications that do not work in Windows 7. This provides the ability for anyone to easily move to Windows 7, but yet still retain the ability to run Windows XP.
If you are running Windows 7, and would like to download Virtual PC and/or XPMode in Windows 7, please visit http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx
Alex looks forward to deploying Windows 7 to his customers. He has a pilot setup running somewhere in office. You too, can be ready to deploy Windows 7 when it is generally available. By joining the IT Pro Momentum, you can look forward to learning about how to enable yourself to meet new challenges. To learn more about IT Pro Momentum, please email me (i-dchung@microsoft.com)
/Dennis
