windows7

Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) is a free antivirus software product created by Microsoft that provides protection against different types of malware such as computer virus, spyware, rootkitsand trojan horses for Windows XP (x86^[4]), Windows Vista, and Windows 7 (both x86 and x64). Microsoft Security Essentials replaces Windows Live OneCare, a commercial subscription-based antivirus service and the free Windows Defender, which only protected users from adware and spyware. Unlike the Microsoft Forefront family of enterprise-oriented security products, Microsoft Security Essentials is geared for consumer use.

Microsoft Security Essentials received positive reviews upon its release. As of September 2010, it has 30 million users.

Microsoft announced plans for a free consumer security product, codenamed Morro on 18 November 2008. It marked a change in Microsoft's consumer antivirus marketing strategy: Instead of offering a subscription-based antivirus with a host of other tools, such as backup and a personal firewall, Morro would be free for all genuine installations of Windows not intended for business use (with an exception for small home based businesses) and offers protection against all types of malware. Microsoft Forefront would be offered alongside Microsoft Security Essentials, with central management tools not present in Microsoft Security Essentials.

On 23 June 2009, Microsoft opened a public beta to 75,000 people in the United States, Israel, People's Republic of China and Brazil. At the time, Microsoft stated that Microsoft Security Essentials would be finalized and released before the end of 2009, in 20 markets and 10 languages. The final build was released on 29 September 2009.

Hardware requirements for Microsoft Security Essentials differ, depending on the operating system. For Windows XP, Microsoft Security Essentials requires at least a 500 MHz processor and 256 MB of RAM. On Windows Vista and Windows 7, Microsoft Security Essentials requires a 1 GHz processor and 1 GB of RAM. Under any compatible operating system, a VGA screen of 800 × 600 or higher, 140 MB of free space, and an Internet connection are also required.

On 19 July 2010 Microsoft released a technical preview of Microsoft Security Essentials 2.0. On 16 December 2010, Microsoft Security Essentials version 2.0 passed the technical preview stage and was officially released to public. This version includes Network Inspection System, a network intrusion detection system that works on Windows Vista and Windows 7 as well as a new anti-malware engine that employs heuristics in malware detection. Version 2 can also integrate with Internet Explorer to protect users against web-based threats.

Microsoft Security Essentials is a security suite designed for consumers and lacks centralized management features which are found in Microsoft Forefront Client Security. It includes the same anti-malware engine (dubbed "Microsoft Malware Protection Engine", or MSMPENG for short), and virus definitions that all other Microsoft desktop anti-malware products share, including Forefront Client Security, Windows Live OneCare, and Windows Defender.Before installation, Microsoft Security Essentials checks for the validity of the installed copy of Microsoft Windows. Microsoft Security Essentials requires no registration or personal information. Microsoft Security Essentials disables Windows Defender, since Microsoft Security Essentials also provides protection against spyware and adware

Using default settings, archived files are decompressed, and then scanned. File downloads and e-mail attachments are also scanned. Its Dynamic Signature Service attempts to better identify malicious files by checking for updates if an application exhibits suspicious behavior Before taking action against a suspect file, Microsoft Security Essentials prompts for user input. If no response is received in ten minutes, then the suspected malware is handled according to its default action, letting Microsoft Security Essentials determine what to do with the malware. System Restore points are created before removing found malware.

Microsoft Security Essentials automatically checks for and downloads virus definition updates which are published three times a day to Microsoft Update.Alternatively, users may download the updates manually from Microsoft Security Portal

Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) was announced on March 18, 2010. A beta was released on July 12, 2010. The final version was released to the public on February 9, 2011. At the time of release, it was not made mandatory, but is optional through Windows Update.

Microsoft confirmed that the service pack is to be on a much smaller scale than those released for previous versions of Windows, particularly Windows Vista. Windows 7 Service Pack 1 adds support for Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX), a 256-bit instruction set extension for processors, and improves IKEv2 by adding additional identification fields such as E-mail ID to it. In addition, it adds support for Advanced Format 512e as well as additional Identity Federation Services.

Windows 7 Service Pack 1 also resolves a bug related to HDMI audio and another related to printing XPS documents.

Windows 7 is available in six different editions, but only the Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate editions are available for retail sale to consumers in most countries. The other editions are aimed at other markets, such as the developing world or enterprise use. Each edition of Windows 7 includes all of the capabilities and features of the edition below it. All editions support the 32-bit (IA-32) processor architecture and all editions except Starter support the 64-bit (x86-64) processor architecture. The installation media is the same for all the consumer editions of Windows 7 that have the same processor architecture, with the license determining the features that are activated, and license upgrades permitting the subsequent unlocking of features without re-installation of the operating system. This is the first time Microsoft has distributed 2 DVDs (1 DVD for IA-32 processor architecture, the other DVD for x86-64 processor architecture) for each edition of Windows 7 (except for Starter and Home Basic; only in Retail, not OEM; the installation DVD of Windows 7 Home Basic 64-bit edition is not included in the retail packaging but can be obtained from Microsoft.). Users who wish to upgrade to an edition of Windows 7 with more features can then use Windows Anytime Upgrade to purchase the upgrade, and unlock the features of those editions. Some copies of Windows 7 have restrictions, in which it must be distributed, sold, or bought and activated in the geographical region (One of the geographical regions can be either: Southeast Asia; SouthEast Asia excluding Singapore; India; Middle East and Africa; or Latin America and the Caribbean) specified in its front cover box.

Microsoft is offering a family pack of Windows 7 Home Premium (in select markets) that allows installation on up to three PCs. The "Family Pack" costs US$259.99 in the United States; it was available at a cost of US$149.99 for some weeks when it was first introduced.

On September 18, 2009, Microsoft said they were to offer temporary student discounts for Windows 7. The offer ran in the US and the United Kingdom, with similar schemes available in Canada, Australia, Korea, Mexico, France and India. Students with a valid .edu or .ac.uk email address could apply for either Windows 7 Home Premium or Professional, priced at $30 or £30.

Windows 7 is also currently available as an embedded version to developers (previously Windows Embedded 2011).

Bill Gates, in an interview with Newsweek, suggested that this version of Windows would be more "user-centric".Gates later said that Windows 7 would also focus on performance improvements. Steven Sinofsky later expanded on this point, explaining in the Engineering Windows 7 blog that the company was using a variety of new tracing tools to measure the performance of many areas of the operating system on an ongoing basis, to help locate inefficient code paths and to help prevent performance regressions.

Senior Vice President Bill Veghte stated that Windows Vista users migrating to Windows 7 would not find the kind of device compatibility issues they encountered migrating from Windows XP. Speaking about Windows 7 on October 16, 2008, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer confirmed compatibility between Vista and Windows 7, indicating that Windows 7 would be a refined version of Windows Vista.

Originally, a version of Windows codenamed Blackcomb was planned as the successor to Windows XP (codename Whistler) and Windows Server 2003. Major features were planned for Blackcomb, including an emphasis on searching and querying data and an advanced storage system named WinFS to enable such scenarios. However, an interim, minor release, codenamed "Longhorn," was announced for 2003, delaying the development of Blackcomb. By the middle of 2003, however, Longhorn had acquired some of the features originally intended for Blackcomb. After three majorviruses exploited flaws in Windows operating systems within a short time period in 2003, Microsoft changed its development priorities, putting some of Longhorn's major development work on hold while developing new service packs for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. Development of Longhorn (Windows Vista) was also restarted, and thus delayed, in August 2004. A number of features were cut from Longhorn.

The first external release to select Microsoft partners came in January 2008 with Milestone 1, build 6519. At PDC 2008, Microsoft demonstrated Windows 7 with its reworked taskbar. Copies of Windows 7 build 6801 were distributed at the end of the conference; however, the demonstrated taskbar was disabled in this build.

On December 27, 2008, the Windows 7 Beta was leaked onto the Internet via BitTorrent.^]According to a performance test by ZDNet, Windows 7 Beta beat both Windows XP and Vista in several key areas; including boot and shutdown time and working with files, such as loading documents. Other areas did not beat XP; including PC Pro benchmarks for typical office activities and video editing, which remain identical to Vista and slower than XP. On January 7, 2009, the 64-bit version of the Windows 7 Beta (build 7000) was leaked onto the web, with some torrents being infected with a trojan.^[26][27] At CES 2009, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced the Windows 7 Beta, build 7000, had been made available for download to MSDN and TechNet subscribers in the format of an ISO image.The Beta was to be publicly released January 9, 2009, and Microsoft initially planned for the download to be made available to 2.5 million people on this date. However, access to the downloads was delayed because of high traffic.The download limit was also extended, initially until January 24, then again to February 10. People who did not complete downloading the beta had two extra days to complete the download. After February 12, unfinished downloads became unable to complete. Users could still obtain product keys from Microsoft to activate their copies of Windows 7 Beta, which expired on August 1, 2009.

The release candidate, build 7100, became available for MSDN and TechNet subscribers and Connect Program participants on April 30, 2009. On May 5, 2009 it became available to the general public, although it had also been leaked onto the Internet viaBitTorrent. The release candidate was available in five languages and expired on June 1, 2010, with shutdowns every two hours starting March 1, 2010.Microsoft stated that Windows 7 would be released to the general public on October 22, 2009. Microsoft released Windows 7 to MSDN and Technet subscribers on August 6, 2009, at 10:00 a.m. PDT. Microsoft announced that Windows 7, along with Windows Server 2008 R2, was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009. Windows 7 RTM is build 7600.16385.090713-1255, which was compiled on July 13, 2009, and was declared the final RTM build after passing all Microsoft's tests internally.

Windows 7 includes a number of new features, such as advances in touch and handwriting recognition, support for virtual hard disks, improved performance on multi-core processors,^{[38][39][40][41]} improved bootperformance, DirectAccess, and kernel improvements. Windows 7 adds support for systems using multiple heterogeneous graphics cards from different vendors (Heterogeneous Multi-adapter), a new version ofWindows Media Center, a Gadget for Windows Media Center, improved media features, the XPS Essentials Pack and Windows PowerShell being included, and a redesigned Calculator with multiline capabilities including Programmer and Statistics modes along with unit conversion. Many new items have been added to the Control Panel, including ClearType Text Tuner, Display Color Calibration Wizard,Gadgets, Recovery, Troubleshooting, Workspaces Center, Location and Other Sensors, Credential Manager, Biometric Devices, System Icons, and Display. Windows Security Center has been renamed to Windows Action Center (Windows Health Center and Windows Solution Center in earlier builds), which encompasses both security and maintenance of the computer. Readyboost on 32bit editions now supports up to 256 Gigabytes of extra allocation. The default setting for User Account Control in Windows 7 has been criticized for allowing untrusted software to be launched with elevated privileges without a prompt by exploiting a trusted application.Microsoft's Windows kernel engineer Mark Russinovich acknowledged the problem, but noted that malware can also compromise a system when users agree to a prompt.Windows 7 also supports images in the RAW image format through the addition of Windows Imaging Component-enabled image decoders, which enables raw image thumbnails, previewing and metadata display in Windows Explorer, plus full-size viewing and slideshows in Windows Photo Viewer and Window Media Center.

The taskbar has seen the biggest visual changes, where the Quick Launch toolbar has been replaced with the ability to pin applications to the taskbar. Buttons for pinned applications are integrated with the task buttons. These buttons also enable the Jump Lists feature to allow easy access to common tasks. The revamped taskbar also allows the reordering of taskbar buttons. To the far right of the system clock is a small rectangular button that serves as the Show desktop icon. This button is part of the new feature in Windows 7 called Aero Peek. Hovering over this button makes all visible windows transparent for a quick look at the desktop.In touch-enabled displays such as touch screens, tablet PCs, etc., this button is slightly wider to accommodate being pressed with a finger.Clicking this button minimizes all windows, and clicking it a second time restores them. Additionally, there is a feature named Aero Snap, that automatically maximizes a window when it is dragged to the top of the screen.Dragging windows to the left/right edges of the screen allows users to snap documents or files on either side of the screen for comparison between windows. When a user moves windows that were maximized using Aero Snap, the system restores their previous state automatically. This functionality is also accomplished with keyboard shortcuts. Unlike in Windows Vista, window borders and the taskbar do not turn opaque when a window is maximized with Windows Aero applied. Instead, they remain translucent.

For developers, Windows 7 includes a new networking API with support for building SOAP-based web services in native code (as opposed to .NET-based WCF web services), new features to shorten application install times, reduced UAC prompts, simplified development of installation packages, and improved globalization support through a new Extended Linguistic Services API.^[53] At WinHEC 2008 Microsoft announced that color depths of 30-bit and 48-bit would be supported in Windows 7 along with the wide color gamut scRGB (which for HDMI 1.3 can be converted and output as xvYCC). The video modes supported in Windows 7 are 16-bit sRGB, 24-bit sRGB, 30-bit sRGB, 30-bit with extended color gamut sRGB, and 48-bit scRGB. Microsoft has also implemented better support for solid-state drives, including the new TRIM command, and Windows 7 is able to identify a solid-state drive uniquely. Microsoft is planning to support USB 3.0 in a subsequent patch, support not being included in the initial release due to delays in the finalization of the standard.

Internet Spades, Internet Backgammon and Internet Checkers, which were removed from Windows Vista, were restored in Windows 7. Windows 7 includes Internet Explorer 8 and Windows Media Player 12.

Users are also able to disable many more Windows components than was possible in Windows Vista. New additions to this list of components include Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, Windows Media Center, Windows Search, and the Windows Gadget Platform. Windows 7 includes 13 additional sound schemes, titled Afternoon, Calligraphy, Characters, Cityscape, Delta, Festival, Garden, Heritage, Landscape, Quirky, Raga, Savanna, and Sonata. A new version of Microsoft Virtual PC, newly renamed as Windows Virtual PC was made available for Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions. It allows multiple Windows environments, including Windows XP Mode, to run on the same machine. Windows XP Mode runs Windows XP in a virtual machine and redirects displayed applications running in Windows XP to the Windows 7 desktop. Furthermore, Windows 7 supports the mounting of a virtual hard disk (VHD) as a normal data storage, and the bootloader delivered with Windows 7 can boot the Windows system from a VHD; however, this ability is only available in the Enterprise and Ultimate editions. The Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) of Windows 7 is also enhanced to support real-time multimedia application including video playback and 3D games, thus allowing use of DirectX 10 in remote desktop environments.The three application limit, previously present in the Windows Vista Starter Edition, has been removed from Windows 7.