Windows 7 FAQ and Questions

KSoD

Call me Mak or K, Mod Emeritus
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Alright to stave off more and more threads being started about the next Operating System by Microsoft I have created this in effort to give you the best information possible.

Now this information is the most current info given by Microsoft. Not by any 3rd party sources or any news articles. This is the info that has been given out and can be found on the web. So here you go:

Basic information:

Windows 7, also known as "Codename Vienna" before that known as "Codename Blackcomb" is the next major version of Microsoft Windowsâ„¢ tentatively due for release in 2010.

New Features in Windows 7:

DirectX 11 - Page for info on that located here. Will update when i find a better source.
MinWin Kernel - Great bit of information here.

More on Homegroups:

The HomeGroup design goal, like other Windows 7 features, is informed by customer data and input. Whether from the Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP), the Windows Feedback Panel, focus groups or usability sessions, the data we collect enables us to focus on key areas where people feel the most pain. To begin figuring out how to solve file and printer sharing problems in the home, we started by looking at how people interact within a home environment. We wanted to learn not only how people used computers in the home, but also what social and behavioral norms were acceptable to see if there were parallels that we could bring into our design.

More at source

New Apps and stuff:

Accessories - Calculator, Paint, and more finally updated.
Superbar
Slideshow for desktop wallpaper display

User Inferface Changes:

More colors to choose from, easier to create and modify themes. Check here for a list of already done themes and other such items ready made for Win7.

Release Date:

October 22, 2009

Windows 7 FAQ

Question: How do I know what each version includes or which one is right for me?
Answer: While we can't tell you which version is right for you we can give you a list of each version and what it includes. Listed Below:

Edition
Description
Windows® 7 Enterprise
Enterprise is the business-focused SKU for managed environments, advanced data protection, networking and security needs. Enterprise will ship in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.
Windows® 7 Ultimate
Ultimate is the no-compromise SKU for those who want all Windows features, including business.
Windows 7 Ultimate has the same features as the Enterprise Edition, but is licensed differently.
Ultimate will ship in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.
Windows ® 7 Professional
Professional is the business-focused SKU for small and lower mid-market companies and users who have networking, backup, and security needs and multiple PCs or servers.
Professional will ship in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.
Windows® 7 Home Premium
Home Premium is the standard consumer SKU, providing full functionality on the latest hardware and easy ways to connect. Home Premium features advanced graphics effects, support for touch-screen interfaces, and Media Center, among other features.
Home Premium will ship in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.
Windows® 7 Home Basic
Home Basic is a simple version of Windows 7. It offers a basic Windows interface and feature list. Home Basic is meant for accessing the internet and running basic productivity applications.
This version of Windows is offered through OEM and retail channels in emerging markets only.
Home Basic will ship in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.
Windows® 7 Starter
This edition of Windows 7 is aimed at beginning computer users. It has the fewest features of the Windows 7 editions. Windows XP and Vista also had Starter Editions with significant limitations. Windows 7 Starter Edition will be available to OEMs worldwide.
This version of Windows is offered worldwide through OEMs only.
Starter will ship in a 32-bit version only.

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Question: What are the System Requirements? How do i know if i can run Windows 7?
Answer: The system Requirements are as follows:

1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver
DVD Optical Device

Along with this you can also run the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor. This will tell you what issues you will have with your current setup when you move to Windows 7.

*NOTE*

The Upgrade Advisor is not a end all report. It doesn't distinguish if you are going to format before you install or anything like that. It is programmed to regards you movement to Windows 7 as a in-place upgrade to Windows 7. It is just to tell you what software you are running compatibility with Windows 7. If you are doing a format and then clean install of Windows 7 then what it tells you in inconsequential. It will just be a reference point for you to know what software you will have to find compatible versions of to install in Windows 7 after you get to that point.

Also with the Upgrade Advisor there is also a site setup by Microsoft called the Compatibility Center. Can check there for both Software and Hardware compatibility.

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Question: What media formats are supported by default in Win7?
Answer:File Formats Newly Supported in Windows Media Player 12

File Type - File Name Extension(s) - Description

3GPP/3GPP2 Audio/Video -.3gp, .3gpp, .3g2, .3gp2 - Allows delivery and playback of multimedia over 3G wireless networks.

ADTS Audio - .aac - Used for streaming audio content from media players or websites in Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) or MPEG-4 Audio formats.

AVCHD Video - .m2t, .m2ts, .mts - High-definition video container format used by many portable video recorders. It typically uses the H.264 video compression codec (also known as MPEG-4 AVC).

MP4 Video - .m4v, .mp4, .mp4v - This widely used high-definition video container format typically uses H.264 video compression.

MPEG-2 TS Video - .ts, .tts - A streaming format used to deliver synchronized digital audio and video; commonly used in European digital TV systems.

MPEG-4 Audio - .m4a - Also known as Advanced Audio Coding (AAC), this is the default format used by Apple's iTunes software and online music store; files in this format that use Apple's FairPlay copy protection are not supported, nor are those that use Apple Lossless Format.

QuickTime Movie - .mov - A container format used by many portable video cameras.

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Question: How do i install a driver?
Answer: There are many ways to install a driver. Now you can go this the normal way by just trying to use the installer. If this does not work then you have a few options.

a.) Right click and Run as Admin
b.) Right click and use the Troubleshoot Compatibility
c.) Right click on the installer. select properties. There click on the Compatibility Tab. There check the box for Compatibility Mode and select the OS that the driver was originally made for. (Vista/ XP) Click okay and try it.
d.) In the Device Manager double click on the device in question, click the driver tab.
d.)a.)From there if you are dual booting you can lead it to your other OS drive and use the C:\Windows\Drivers folder to see if you can get the driver to install.
d.)b.)Can also try leading it to your CD or other installer to see if you can force install that way.
e.) This is the manual install method.
1. Extract the driver install using WinRar or another archive program to a folder on your desktop. (Or other location where you know it is)
2. From there within the Driver Tab select Update Driver.
3. Here choose to Browse your PC for driver software.
4. When you see the explorer window pop up, direct it to the location you just created with the driver installer extract. You will select the .inf file (As it most likely be the only file you see) and then click Okay. The Wizard will proceed to install the driver. (If the right .inf file is selected, if not select a different one)

*Note*

Not all drivers/devices will work in Windows 7. It is a Beta and not everything is supported. There is a list started by Microsoft that has devices that are already supported located here.

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*Note for items listed below: they will work on any and all versions of Windows 7!*

Compatibility Mode

Question: How do I run a program in Compatibility Mode?
Answer: There are 2 methods that can be used.
1. Right click the executable file, select properties. From there select the Compatibility Tab and check the box for using a different OS Mode. There use the drop down menu to select the OS of choice. Then check the box for Run as Admin (simply as a precaution, might not be needed for all apps). Click okay and then run the application as normal.
2. Right click the executable select the Troubleshoot Compatibility Option. This will guide you to how the program should be run and give you the option to run it in the preferred OS Mode.

XP Mode

Now along with this there is also an item known as XP Mode as well. At first this was just used by the higher up versions of Windows 7 and you must have been able to do it via the hardware virtualization option built into your CPU. This has all changed! You can now run XP Mode on any version of Windows 7 and you do not need hardware virtualization. Visit the download site here and use the drop down menus to select the version of Windows 7 you are running and get all 3 files. Install them in the order that they are listed!!!

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Question: Why doesn't my XP install show up in Computer?
Answer: Check the Disk Management, (Start>Run>compmgmt.msc>Left Pane under Storage select Disk Management) check to make sure the XP install is assigned a Drive Letter. If not right click and assign one to it.

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Question: What version of DirectX is included in Widnows 7?
Answer: DirectX 11 is installed by default. If you are trying to game you will have to most likely install DX9 Runtimes from Sept 2009 (Fully Win7 compatible) to get them working. No this will not overwrite your DX11 that is currently installed.

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Question: Will i need a new video card since Windows 7 will have DirectX11?
Answer: No. DirectX 11 won't just ignore your fancy DirectX 10 or 10.1 cards – nope, it offers support for both of those standards, as well as for new DirectX 11 hardware.

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Question: Is Windows 7 x86 (32 Bit) or x64 (64 bit)?
Answer: Both. There is a 32 Bit version and a 64 Bit version.

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Question: Does Daemon Tools or Alcohol 120% work?
Answer: Yes they are fully compatible now.

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Question: What Anti-Virus work on Windows 7?
Answer: There is a list of fully compatibile solution from Microsoft listed here. Others that have been mentioned to work are AVG, Avast, NOD32, Microsoft Security Essentials.

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Question: If there Multi-Monitor Support?
Answer: Yes and no. Yes it will support Multi-Monitors. But it will not extent the Taskbar onto that window. Microsoft has a Blog Entry about the reasons to this located here.

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Question: What Email Program do you use with Windows 7?
Answer: There is no included email program. You will have to get Windows Live Mail part of the Live Essentials Package or use a alternative like Outlook or Thunderbird.

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Question: Is UAC in Windows 7?
Answer: Yes. It has been tweaked from that of Windows Vista but it still does exist. For information pertaining to this please see this thread.

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Question: Why does my WEI (Windows Experience Index) Score show differently than it did in Windows Vista.
Answer: This has been adjusted by Microsoft to be different and to be tested differently. Windows Vista has a high score of 5.9 while in Widnows 7 the high score now is 7.9. SSD have been added to the performance index as well. For a full explanation please see this post.

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Question: When i try to add a new icon to my taskbar with the Right Click add to Taskbar the icon doesn't show. What's up with that?
Answer: If you already have 4 icons on your taskbar this method will not work. You will have to drag and drop your shortcuts if you have 4 or more icons present on your taskbar.

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Question: When i click on the Explorer Icon how do i get it to show Computer instead of Libraries?
Answer: This page here. This will give you some of the insider secrets to the finer points of the new Interface.

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Question: How do i get OpenGL working?
Answer: Use OpenAL. This will unlock the OpenGL properties in Win7 without much hassle.
This is the list of the common questions presented at this time. As more come along i will edit this and add them.

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Question: Can i install from a Virtual Drive without any issues?
Answer: Yes. Win7 install is not like previous versions of Windows. It copies the files from the source to the HDD right from the start. Before it even makes it to the first reboot during the install all files needed for the install are already on the PC. So if you are using a DVD or going from a ISO image, it wont matter. At the time the system hits the reboot it wont need the media or image anymore. All files are located on the drive at this time.

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Question: Will i be able to upgrade from the RC Build to the RTM Build?
Answer: No. There is no upgrade from RC to RTM.

Users of Windows 7 pre-RTM development milestones will not be able to perform in place upgrades to the gold release of the operating system, according to Microsoft. The Redmond company has made available for download the Windows 7 Upgrade Paths, a resource designed to provide information on the “supported and unsupported upgrade paths for editions of the Windows 7 operating system.”
So you should find out now from the provided documentation what upgrade paths are available for you.
 
Re: Windows 7 Fact Thread

No surprise here!

XP was a little rushed after the ME flop which saw quite a few fixes with SP1 and later SP2. It took 98SE to last since the first edition lacked quite a bit.

So a good 3yrs. gap between versions is nothing new in order to realize a working OS. Any videos seen on youtube regarding Windows 7 are strictly fabrications as well as well as any magazine articles.
 
Re: Windows 7 Fact Thread

Well for anyone who really knows the cycle of Microsoft and their release timeline for OS you would know that 3 years is about normal. Even for working OS's.

Windows 95
Windows 98 (3 years)
Windows ME (2 years)
Windows 2000 (Same year as ME)
Windows XP (1 year after ME, 3 years after 98)
Windows Vista (6 years)
Windows 7 (3 years)

So before anyone jumps and says that they have abandoned Vista is wrong. Microsoft has a history of releasing a new OS every 3 years or so. It wasnt until XP that they broke the cycle.
 
Re: Windows 7 Fact Thread

Mak, will this be updated as info comes out? If so.. wonderful. if not, good work :D
 
Re: Windows 7 Fact Thread

Yes NoClue i will update this as i get more information. As for now this is all the info that has been shared.

Eye yes you are right. But as you see i am spot on with my timeline between OS's. I never included anything from before 95 because few if any people here used Windows 3.1 or 3.11 for workgroups.
 
Re: Windows 7 Fact Thread

Yes NoClue i will update this as i get more information. As for now this is all the info that has been shared.

Eye yes you are right. But as you see i am spot on with my timeline between OS's. I never included anything from before 95 because few if any people here used Windows 3.1 or 3.11 for workgroups.

ok cool :D
 
Re: Windows 7 Fact Thread

Yes. The use of the MiniWin Kernel. I will add that now. Sorry forgot about that. Added now. USed the reference from Wikipedia cause they have the best explination of the miniWin Kernel i have seen. It was better than jsut saying it was a condensed for of the Windows Kernel.
 
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