Microsoft GFC-02050 - Manual

Designing Windows 7 More than a billion people use Microsoft ® Windows ever y day. You use it in signifi cant ways, like earning a living. You use it in personally meaningful ways, such as using a webcam to visit with a faraway loved one. And you experience it in small ways, like playing your favori...

8 9 Designing Windows 7 Market Trends that Inspired Windows 7 As we planned Windows 7, we took a hard look at how the world of technology is changing and what that means for you. In doing so, we identified some key themes that influenced our engineering design efforts and helped us to focus on where...

Windows 7 Editions Different people expect different things from their PCs, which is why we offer multiple editions of Windows 7. And because your needs can change over time, we have designed Windows 7 so that you can move up to editions with more features, without giving up the features you already...

10 11 Windows 7 Editions Windows 7 Starter Windows 7 Starter makes small notebook PCs and other PCs with limited hardware easier to use because it puts less between you and what you want to do—less waiting, less clicking, and less hassle connecting to networks. Windows 7 Starter is designed to meet ...

Windows 7 Home Premium The best edition for consumers, Windows 7 Home Premium provides the best entertainment experience on your PC. You’ll find easy ways to connect to other PCs and devices, all in a visually rich environment that makes everyday use simpler and more engaging. With Home Premium you ...

12 13 Windows 7 Enterprise / Windows 7 Ultimate Windows 7 Enterprise and Windows 7 Ultimate are the most versatile and powerful editions and are designed to address the needs of both enterprise customers and consumers who want every feature of Windows 7. While the features in these editions are the ...

14 15 Key Features Starter Home Premium Professional Enterprise/Ultimate Windows Taskbar and Jump Lists ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Internet Explorer 8 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Join a homegroup ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Home media streaming, including Play To ^ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Aero Glass and improved desktop navigation ✓ ✓ ✓ Windows Media Center^ and Internet T...

Getting Started with Windows 7 Whether you’re buying a new PC or upgrading your current PC to Windows 7, you probably want to get through the setup process as quickly as possible. Windows 7 is designed to get you up and running fast. Windows 7 includes a new Getting Started experience that points yo...

What’s New in Windows 7 Top Features for You We’ve designed Windows 7 to be the easiest, fastest, and most engaging version of Windows yet. We focused on helping your PC perform the way you want it to—quickly, easily, and with less effort. Although many of the new improvements are under the covers, ...

Top Features for IT Professionals From networking to security and search to user management, Windows 7 offers IT professionals a wide range of new and improved features. These include the following: Key Feature What You Can Do AppLocker Control which applications are allowed to run on user PCs. Bran...

22 23 Application and Device Compatibility We recognize that your PC experience involves programs and devices from many different providers, so we’ve made a significant effort to ensure that the applications and devices you use and love are compat-ible with Windows 7 and work the way you’d expect th...

25 25 Windows 7 for You Windows 7 is more than just engineering and innovation—it’s the product that you asked for. You’ve told us you want everything you do on your PC to be faster and easier. You’ve said that you’d like it if the technology and devices in your home worked better together. And beca...

Windows 7 for You: Simplifi es Everyday Tasks In Windows 7, we set out to streamline and simplify the things you do ever y day—and you’ll fi nd you can get more done with a lot less effort. The user interface is nimbler and more responsive, with navigation that gets you where you want to go—fast. Co...

28 29 Windows 7 for You: Simplifi es Everyday Tasks Simple to Navigate Windows Taskbar The taskbar is one of the most familiar aspects of Windows. When you open fi les and programs, their icons show up on the taskbar so you can switch between them. Previous versions of Windows, however, automaticall...

30 31 Windows 7 for You: Simplifi es Everyday Tasks Simple to Navigate Jump Lists provide quick access to common tasks. Jump Lists Do you keep a lot of documents on the Windows desktop or in your Documents folder? If so, you know how hard it can be to fi nd that one fi le you need. Jump Lists can he...

Desktop Enhancements One of the many benefi ts of Windows is the ability to work with large numbers of documents and programs at the same time. But have you ever had to wade through a dozen open windows to get to the right document? Or had to minimize a number of windows to view a gadget on your des...

Windows Explorer As you use your PC more and more, you may fi nd the number of fi les you have to manage getting larger. Windows Explorer in Windows 7 give you a central place to view and organize all the fi les on your PC. The new layout of Windows Explorer reduces clutter and makes better use of s...

34 35 Libraries If you store a large number of fi les in different fi le folders or on several PCs or devices, you might fi nd it hard to fi nd the exact fi le you’re looking for or manage all your fi les effi ciently. Libraries can help. At their most fundamental level, Libraries are a way to view ...

You can even arrange and view the fi les in your Libraries by some of its metadata. For example the “Month” and “Day” views in the Pictures Library group together the photos taken on the same date. And the Videos Library features a way to arrange the fi les by length so you can separate the shorter ...

Easy to Browse the Web As people spend more time online, their demands on the browser have increased. Since Microsoft delivered Internet Explorer 7, millions of people around the world have taken advantage of its tabbed browsing, the built-in search box, and other features to improve their Web brows...

38 39 Web Slices E-mail, weather, sports scores, stock quotes, or auction item status—there are Web sites we visit multiple times during the day to get updates. Web Slices in Internet Explorer 8 make it simple to access this information without having to navigate to the Web site again and again. Web...

40 41 Easy to Connect PCs and Manage Devices More than half of all U.S. households have more than one PC. If you live in one of those households, you may have experienced trouble setting up a network or found that the PCs in your home don’t work together as well as they could. Even when your PCs are...

Devices and Printers provides a consolidated view of all your devices. The Add a Device wizard helps you easily add networked and wireless devices. The Devices and Printers Folder The Devices and Printers folder is a single location where you can access and interact with all your devices. When Windo...

46 47 Windows Live Mail Easy to Communicate and Share With Windows 7 and Windows Live Essentials, your PC will help you stay connected to the people and things you care about and do it safely. Windows Live Essentials is a free suite of programs for e-mail, photos, instant messaging, and more. It can...

48 49 Windows Live Photo Gallery After you import photos to your PC running Windows 7, use Windows Live Photo Gallery to edit, organize, and publish them to the Web. You can even tag photos in Photo Gallery so that you can easily fi nd them later. Windows Live Photo Gallery not only incorporates a r...

Windows 7 for You: Works the Way You Want More than anything else, you’ve told us that you care about the basics. No one has the time to deal with PCs that aren’t snappy and responsive or fall short of expected performance—like taking too long to wake up from sleep. And we’d all like to feel more se...

54 55 More Secure Whether your hard disk drive contains irreplaceable family photos or the fi nancial data critical to your business, the information on your PC is valuable. Viruses, spyware and other unwanted software, root kits, and phishing scams pose a constant risk today. In Windows Vista, we c...

Parental Controls If you’re a parent, Windows 7 Parental Controls can give you greater peace of mind and confi dence in your ability to manage what your kids can do on the PC. You can specify which PC games your children can play and which programs they can use. You can even specify the times when y...

56 57 Internet Explorer Security The Web can be a dangerous place, with sites that attempt to download malicious code, trick you into divulging personal information, or track your actions without your knowledge or consent. Internet Explorer 8 improves your defense against security and privacy threat...

60 61 Backup and restore Backup and Restore Even the most reliable PC can be subject to a hardware failure, and even the most careful person can delete a fi le by mistake. When these things happen, it’s important to have a recent backup of impor-tant data—yet many people forget to back up their PCs ...

Compatible With You A cluttered Windows desktop is like a cluttered desk—it can make it harder to focus on the task at hand. When you start using Windows 7, you’ll immediately notice its clean and uncluttered appearance. For example, the Notifi cation Area in the lower-right corner displays only fou...

62 63 Desktop samples Place gadgets where you want them. Ever wanted to turn your desktop background into a photo slideshow? Then you’ll love Aero Background, the new feature in Windows 7 that lets you choose photos from your PC and display them as your desk-top background. Windows 7 for You: Works ...

Windows XP Mode Do you want all the benefi ts of the latest PCs but still need to run older business and productivity programs? Windows 7 will run many Windows XP programs with no problem. But for those programs that require a PC running Windows XP, small and medium-sized business customers can use ...

Better Troubleshooting and Problem Solving We created Windows 7 to help give you a trouble-free computing experience. But if problems do arise, Windows 7 notifi es you in more intelligent ways and makes resolution easier and faster. When something in Windows 7 needs your attention, you’ll have one p...

66 67 Windows Troubleshooting Windows Troubleshooting Wouldn’t it be nice if your PC could recognize and solve many common problems, so that you could stay productive rather than calling for help? Windows Troubleshooting—new in Windows 7—diagnoses and resolves common operating system and hardware is...

68 69 Startup Repair Startup problems can be diffi cult to troubleshoot, because if you can’t start the operating system you can’t use the built-in troubleshooting tools. In the past, you or your support professionals may have found it easier to reinstall your operating system than troubleshoot, eve...

Windows 7 for You: Makes New Things Possible As new technologies emerge, we’re busy translating them into exciting new experiences that are sophisticated, yet fun and easy to use. We’re providing new ways for you to view TV, listen to and share music, and bring your PC to life with multi-touch techn...

70 71 Windows 7 for You: Makes New Things Possible Media the Way You Want It Windows Media Center With a streamlined user interface and support for new content types and digital TV, Windows Media Center in Windows 7 makes viewing TV, movies, and other media content on your PC easier than ever. The n...

72 73 Windows Media Player Windows Media Player in Windows 7 plays more media and delivers a richer media experience than earlier versions. Whether you want to listen to your favorite songs while you’re working or watch a DVD in full-screen mode, playback starts quickly and remains consistent. Windo...

74 75 Media Streaming As you acquire more PCs and devices, you’ll have more physical places to store your music, photos, and video. But what if all your music is on a laptop, yet you want to play it on your main PC with the great speakers? Now, with Media Streaming, you can. When you join a homegrou...

80 81 Work Anywhere We live in a mobile world, taking our laptops and devices with us as we move between home, work, and other places. With Windows 7, you can easily get online and stay online as you move from place to place. Whether you’re switching from one network to another, attempting to access...

82 83 XPS Documents XML Paper Specifi cation (XPS) documents are fi xed-format documents that you can share and archive in a high-quality, effi cient format. XPS documents can be opened without having the original program in which the document was created, so you can easily share your work. You can ...

New Ways to Engage As new technologies emerge, Microsoft is working to translate them into exciting new experiences. Windows 7 builds on the work we’ve done in next-generation user interfaces, moving beyond the mouse and keyboard so that you can interact with your PC with multitouch gestures, handwr...

Tablet PC Enhancements Windows 7 improves the Tablet PC with greater accuracy and speed for handwriting recognition, support for handwritten math expressions, personalized custom dictionaries for handwriting recognition, and more. Improved Handwriting Recognition The Tablet PC writing surface has be...

86 87 Accessibility Windows 7 enhances the accessibility options that are so important to people with special needs. From more personalized speech recognition to a new on-screen layout, Windows 7 is more accessible to everyone. Speech In Windows 7, we’ve improved the accuracy of Windows Speech Recog...

89 89 Windows 7 for IT Pros As people become increasingly computer-savvy, they expect more from the technology they use at work. They expect to be able to work from home, from branch offi ces, and on the road, all without a decrease in productivity. As their needs have grown, so have the demands pla...

With Windows 7, you can respond to the need to make your workers productive on a range of applications, locations, and devices. They can access information more easily whether they’re on the road or in branch offi ces, and they can search in more places, including remote data sources and locations w...

92 93 Search and Federated Search In Windows 7, search is better integrated with enterprise infrastructures to help people more easily fi nd the information they need. They can search in more places more easily—including remote data sources and within encrypted fi les—and IT professionals can publis...

Enterprise Search Scopes Making it easy to discover and search intranet sites can help organizations maximize their return on these investments. With Windows 7, you can deploy up to fi ve pre-defi ned links or search scopes through Group Policy on worker PCs to direct them to the right data sources ...

94 95 Access Information from Anywhere Whether traveling for business, taking work home at night, or simply bringing a portable computer to a meeting in the conference room down the hall, mobility is essential to a worker ’s computing experience. As a result, more organizations are helping their peo...

BranchCache For branch offi ces, network bandwidth limitations and latency in application response times can nega-tively affect productivity. We introduced Background Intelligent Transfer Service in Windows XP and the Distributed File System Replication service in Windows Server 2008 to help resolve...

98 99 BranchCache supports the same network protocols that are commonly used in enterprises—HTTP(S) and SMB—so that any applications based on these network protocols will automatically benefit from the technology. Examples of these applications include Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007, Internet Expl...

As we become more connected and our IT infrastructures become more complex, the risks to systems and data continue to increase. Windows 7 builds on the security we developed in Windows Vista, retaining the multiple layers of defense that made Windows Vista the most secure version of the Windows clie...

Protect Workers and Infrastructure People who run unauthorized software often experience a higher incidence of malware infections and generate more help desk calls. We understand how diffi cult it can be for IT departments to make sure that user PCs are running only approved, licensed software. With...

102 103 Builds on Windows Vista Security Foundation Windows 7 builds on the proven security lineage of Windows Vista, retaining the multiple layers of defense that have made it the most secure version of the Windows client to date. Windows 7 is supported by Windows Update, Automatic Updates, Microso...

The PC life cycle has a direct impact on costs, ser vice levels, user productivity, and the ability to deliver business value. Organizations are constantly struggling to streamline all stages of the PC life cycle, including operating system and application deployment, ongoing management, and trouble...

106 107 Deployment Image Servicing and Management The Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) tool in Windows 7 provides a central place for you to build and service Windows images offline. DISM is a scriptable command-line tool that combines the functionality of several offline image manag...

108 109 Flexible Deployment of Internet Explorer 8 With Internet Explorer 8, organizations will get the flexibility they need to deploy Internet Explorer 8 in ways that make sense for their particular needs. For instance, you can deploy it on its own by using the publicly available download or creat...

Keep PCs Running Smoothly One of the best ways to minimize desktop support costs is to maintain a stable, secure desktop confi guration, but this can be a challenge. Windows 7 builds on enhancements in Windows Vista to help IT organizations more effectively manage desktop and mobile PCs. Features su...

110 111 • PowerShell Remoting. Windows PowerShell uses the standard management protocol WS Management (WS-MAN) to invoke cmdlets on client PCs. It supports two types of remoting: fan-out remoting, which provides one-to-many remoting capabilities so you can run manage-ment scripts across multiple PCs...

112 113 Troubleshooting and Support Windows 7 provides richer built-in troubleshooting capabilities so consumers can resolve more technical issues on their own. If a call to the help desk is unavoidable, Windows 7 gives you the tools you need to resolve the issue quickly. Problem Steps Recorder The ...

114 115 Better Support for Client Virtualization With VDI, you can run user desktops running in virtual machines on centralized servers. VDI provides an alternative to traditional desktop environments for nonmobile workers, with benefits that include flexibility (including user access from multiple ...

In addition to providing new enterprise benefi ts in each release of Windows, Microsoft regularly delivers new enterprise technologies through the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) for Software Assurance. With this optional subscription, IT professionals can take advantage of MDOP technolog...

116 117 Microsoft Application Virtualization Application virtualization turns programs based on Windows into centrally managed virtual services that can be delivered to any physical or virtual desktop or portable computer worldwide. With application virtualization, you can deploy new applications in...

Microsoft Asset Inventory Service To remain compliant and optimize IT budgets, organizations must effectively manage their software-asset inventory, and the fi rst step toward upgrading to a new version of Windows is to get an accurate inventory of all their applications. The Microsoft Asset Invento...

118 119 Microsoft Advanced Group Policy Management With Microsoft Advanced Group Policy Management (AGPM), IT professionals can take control of user PCs through effective change management, versioning, and rollbacks—all based on Group Policy Objects (GPOs) and a robust, role-based administration and...

120 121 Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V), enables deployment and management of Microsoft virtual PC Windows desktops to address key enterprise scenarios. Primarily, MED-V helps enterprises upgrade to the latest version of Windows even wh...

Recommended System Requirements Microsoft recommends the following minimum system requirements to make sure you get all the benefi ts of Windows 7. Windows 7 System Requirements • 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor • 1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) / 2 GB RAM (64-bit) • ...

How to Find More Information Although this guide provides a summary of the new and improved features in Windows 7, we realize that some of you might want to delve deeper into certain areas. A number of great resources are available to you to further your knowledge of these subjects. Resources for Ev...

Key Features Starter Home Premium Professional Enterprise/Ultimate Windows Taskbar and Jump Lists ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Windows Search ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Join a homegroup ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Windows Media Player ^ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Backup and Restore ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Enhanced media playback ^ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Action Center ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Device Stage™ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Home media...

130 131 Appendix The following table compares features of Windows 7 with those in Windows Vista with SP1 and Windows XP with SP3. Appendix B Feature Comparison Chart Benefi t Feature Windows XP SP3 Windows Vista SP1 Windows 7 Windows 7 for You: Simplifi es Everyday Tasks Get Started Quickly Windows ...

Appendix C New Keyboard Shortcuts Windows Taskbar + T Brings focus to the fi rst item in the taskbar. Press again to cycle through each item. + 1–9 If a program in the 1–9 slot is running, the keystroke will launch it. If it is running with one window, the same keystroke will switch to that window. ...

134 135 Appendix Upgrade Custom Upgrade Upgrade Custom Custom Upgrade Custom Custom Windows XP/Windows Vista ® Starter/32-bit to 64-bit Custom Custom Installation A custom installation enables dual boot or gives the option to replace your exist- ing operating system with Windows 7. Your programs, se...

Index 64-Bit 9, 16, 54, 80, 122, 123, 124 64-bit Gaming 80 Accelerators 9, 39, 112 Access Information from Anywhere 95, 132 Accessibility 87, 126, 133, 134 Action Center 66, 67, 128, 132 Adaptive Display Brightness 52, 131 Additional Resources 126 Aero Background 62, 63, 129, 132 Aero Themes 20, 62,...