Windows 7: Official screenshots

Check out this photo gallery for the first official screenshots of Microsoft's successor to Vista, Windows 7. The software giant debuted Windows 7 to the world at its Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in the United States this week.

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Systray Improvements

Previously the systray was the haunt of all manner of annoying and noisy applications — not any more. In Windows 7, only applications that the user wants will appear in the systray. By default applications wanting to make use of the systray are stored in an overflow area shown above; only if the user so chooses, are applications then shown in the systray.

(Credit: Chris Duckett/Builder AU)

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Windows catches up Anonymous -- 29/10/08

I already have this: It's called KDE 4

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LMFAO Nathan -- 29/10/08 (in reply to #320115098)

:D :D :D
Too true

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kde. lol Anonymous -- 29/10/08 (in reply to #320115098)

Enjoy your clunky, slow, crap desktop environment.

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Windows 7 - no more Vista.001 Anonymous -- 29/10/08

If this is what is new in Windows 7 then it's nothing more than a very minor maintenance pack to Vista. I won't be rushing out to buy what I have seen above.

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crying out loud Anonymous -- 29/10/08 (in reply to #320115110)

Of course this isn't all that's going to be available in W7. They are revamping everything from the kernel upwards.

Sure does smell like trying to fit in here. Windows bashing without facts stopped being funny online in 1996

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Hear Hear. Mel Sommersberg -- 29/10/08 (in reply to #320115115)

"Sure does smell like trying to fit in here. Windows bashing without facts stopped being funny online in 1996"

Agreed. I don't know what is worse - Windows bashing or American spelling. Maybe both are on par...

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And... Mel Sommersberg -- 29/10/08 (in reply to #320115131)

I do have a suggestion for the Tray - ditch the arrow button in favour of a popup accessible by the right click on the taskbar.

I've always hated the Tray being invaded by application developers more interested in showing off their logos than offering their customers more configuration options and since Vista and future versions have a nice big analogue clock it isn't necessary to have the digital clock in the Tray either. I'd like to turn it all off.

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Complete tray control in Win7 Anonymous -- 30/10/08 (in reply to #320115134)

Mel - yes there is now complete and full control of what programs appear in the system tray. Its had a complete redo and is now far far more usable.

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Vista bitches Darth Guybrush -- 29/10/08 (in reply to #320115110)

All you Vista bitches - actually use it for a bit - I have been using 64-bit Vista Business for ages and it is rock solid (whack on SQL Server 2005 and Adobe ColdFusion 8 to the mix). 64-bit is here and Vista is a bloody good start!

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That's fine... Anonymous -- 29/10/08 (in reply to #320115143)

For maybe a mum and pop setup.

Switch Vista to 64-bit XP. SQL Server for Oracle. And ASP.NET for the front end and then maybe you'd be getting somewhere. In a true enterprise environment anyway.

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64-bit Vista is better than 64-bit XP BChau -- 29/10/08

Modern software like Adobe CS4 supports and runs great on 64-bit Vista. If you intend to run crappy old or outdated software, maybe XP is a better choice.

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You mean... Anonymous -- 30/10/08 (in reply to #320115162)

If you intend to run a more stable, bug free platform, XP is a better choice

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Honestly... Anonymous -- 30/10/08 (in reply to #320115174)

If you truly believe that, I'm truly shocked. Vista has easily proven to be far more reliable and stable than XP could ever be.

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Maybe... Anonymous -- 04/11/08 (in reply to #320115217)

I wish my laptop heard about that. In fact, I wish all my Vista running machines heard about that. Every time I want to do something on Vista, it either Indexes the Hard Disk Drive or crashes Explorer. This is with legitimate updated copies of Vista Business and Home Premium.

Maybe it is a hit and miss, but my Windows XP PC can "easily prove" that XP is substantially more stable than my Laptop.

Not that I condone XP is bug free either! It is far from a stable platform itself, but much quicker. That's for sure!

(For the record, my Laptop has a T7500 Processor, 4GB of RAM, 256MB ATI FireGL V5250... My PC has an E2160, 2GB RAM, 256MB 7300GS.)

Everyone to themselves. If it works, use it! Slogging one OS over another isn't exactly practical for anyone. If XP works well with Legacy applications then use it, if Vista works and increases your work productivity, then use it. If Mac works for you, use it. That's why we have choices!

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Windows 7 Anonymous -- 30/10/08

I sure hope it doesn't cost an arm and a leg, and half of Tasmania. I am coming up to a point where I am not bound to Windows anymore. If Microsoft want too much for this, and impose too many restrictions on its use, then there are flavours of Linux which will suit my purposes just as well.

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About the same Anonymous -- 30/10/08 (in reply to #320115184)

Win7 will cost "about the same" as current Vista costs, which is actually about the same as XP when it was released.

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Win7 is different to Vista Anonymous -- 30/10/08

To those that are moaning (and stuck in the dark infected ages of an 8 year old OS called XP)...

1. Win7 currently does NOT have the final GUI running on it. The GUI has always been the last bit that Microsoft puts on top of all the technology changes under the hood.

2. Win7 is designed to run on current generation hardware. Note: CURRENT does not mean an eight year old 1.3Ghz Pentium M with 256Mb of RAM and a non-dedicated graphics card. Current hardware means at least a 2Ghz Dual Core, 1Gb RAM and at least a 128Mb dedicated graphics card that supports DirectX 9c. These types of PCs have been for sale for the last few years.

3. Win7's functional changes (just like Vista's) i.e. explorer, taskbar, windowing, network sharing, printing, start menu, etc changes are ALL the result of user feedback. If you don't like the Win7 (or Vista explorer) then you can blame the thousands upon thousands of people that gave feedback on Vista's and WinXP's explorer. ALL changes are not made for their pretty-ness factor... they are there to make you more productive and better workflow.

4. Win7 WILL run on various Netbooks.

5. In the right situations, PCs and environments, the touch aspects of Win7 will be brilliant!

6. What you'll be able to do with the apps sitting on top of the Azure subsystems will be mind blowing. This stuff is brilliant!! even the current test app's available right now and really helpful!

7. The new taskbar will make you more productive... its not a dock. It's not stolen from Apple or any of the Linux flavours. In fact one of the first PCs that had a dock system was back in 1983.

I'm not a Microsoft employee, I'm not a Microsoft shrill... I'm just a guy that runs an Australian wide network that uses a "horses for courses" motto. We have Windows PCs, OSX PCs and various Linux PCs... along with a mixture of server OS' as well.

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what the Anonymous -- 31/10/08 (in reply to #320115221)

this is just optimistic speculation. Dont belive what you read, especially when it comes to Microsoft.

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Mac Lovers Anonymous -- 04/11/08

Lov my Mac..cant be bother with Windows EVER....

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MAC MATE moge ponk -- 04/11/08 (in reply to #320115532)

yea i was windows, for like 5 years and i always had problems, i got an imac 4 months ago and its so BETTER than windows, no more gay crashes and frozen screens. i mean windows is to **** buggy

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... Anonymous -- 14/11/08

jezz... i actualy was forced to use windows vista/xp for some time until i discovered ubuntu...

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Well... Anonymous -- 17/11/08

I'm sure it will run just fine on current technology. The people that find that disheartening are the people who have older boxes and either aren't in a situation where they CAN go out and spend money on a machine, or don't feel the need to. I'll let the rest of you have the Win v Mac v Linux arguements, but I have a Compaq Armada M700 (pIII) running for my kids (child abuse I know) that is still a viable machine. A lot of people are having to stretch the things they have, since they don't have the funds to allocate elsewhere. I will say that the screenshot did strike me as KDE4ish, but then again, kde has been XP'ish in the past.

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Shiney, but,... Anonymous -- 14/01/09

Ahh, the ribbon.
The main reason I use Open Office instead.

Okay, so I'm not a regular user, I have habits.
Like shutting off Aero etc and using the 95-98 'Classic' interface, so more of my GPU's power is available to the OpenGL windows of my 3D apps.

Will Windows 7 still allow me to do this?

As for reliability, I'll take XP Pro x64 over Vista any day. I early adopted x64, downloaded the right drivers to suit my gear, and have never had any probs with it.
I've got one PC that hasn't had a reinstall in 3 years, but 32bit XP, and Vista,.. wipe 'em every 6 months if you want to keep the PC running optimally.

All the shiney stuff might be nice to sell systems, but things like the library just serve to make users rely on system resource hogging search and indexing tools, rather than having decent file management skills in the first place.

You don't need to index and search if you save files and folders with simple, logical names.

And that frees up more processor cycles and bandwidth to render with.

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All Windows Users Are Gay Anonymous -- 08/02/09

Nothing like bunch of brain washed drones chomping at the bit to get bend over and had by the evil empire.

Windows is last year. Get a Mac or Linux and stop wasting your time talking about the new crash test system from winblows.

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