Windows 7 is going to be the Vista successor with lot of fixes and enhancements which Vista users are battling. Lets take a look at some of the exciting news features being introduced in Windows 7.
- 64-bit Support - Windows 7 us designed with 64-bit computing in mind. It’s now easier to port x86 applications into x64.
- Support for 256 CPU Cores - Microsoft managed to remove the so-called dispatcher lock in Windows 7, allowing the kernel to scale up to 256 processors. The move further increases the importance of adopting parallel-programming techniques.
- Sensors Platform - Windows 7 featyres native support for sensors, such as GPS-based location hardware. Developers can now use the Microsoft Sensors API to created applications that adapt to location and environment.
- New Media Formats - The updated “Windows Media Foundation” enables Windows 7 to play back more popular media formats, including H.264 video, MP4 and 3GP. The Media APIs have been enhanced to allow for less power and resource consumption.
- DirectX Extends to the Desktop - The latest iteration of DirectX allows Win32 developers to use the GPU to draw high-quality graphics and text in their Windows applications.
These are some of the main enhancements in the upcoming Windows 7 release which is tentative to be release in second half of 2009 or early 2010.
Windows 7 pre-beta version is much more stable and faster than Vista and in some cases even XP. Windows 7 boosts 20% performance increase and runs more smoothly and consumes less memory.
Windows 7 is a work in progress at this stage. There are more features and improvements which has not been revealed yet and may it will be held until the official release.