Windows 7 IT Education
Upgrading to Windows 7? Learn how to install, deploy and configure Windows 7 for network connectivity, security, maintenance and mobile computing with one of our upcoming Windows 7 courses.
What’s new in Windows 7?
In designing Windows 7, the engineering team had a clear focus on ‘the fundamentals'—performance, application compatibility, device compatibility, reliability, security and battery life. This effort was aided by telemetry data on how PCs are being used and issues that resulted in poor performance or disruption.
Most important to IT pros will be enhancements to manageability and security—how it impacts your day-to-day work. Like Windows Vista, Windows 7 is engineered to make managing a PC environment more automated, controllable and efficient. Both client operating systems bring tools and monitoring capabilities that are not available in a Windows XP environment.
Further, Windows 7 imaging builds on the fundamental improvements made in Windows Vista, adding enumeration and driver management features. Data migration is faster and more flexible with a new ‘Hardlink’ feature, along with Offline Migration support.
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Features of Windows 7:
Built on the foundation of Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista
To begin with, the core architecture of Windows 7 remains the same, as it is built on same foundation as Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista. This ensures that almost all PCs, applications and devices that are compatible with Windows Vista will retain their compatibility with Windows 7.
Manageability
When we speak with IT pros, we usually hear about the pains you face maintaining a standard configuration and preventing end users from adding unauthorized software and hardware. In addition, for remote laptop PCs that spend most of their time off the corporate network, administering patches and updates is challenging and unreliable.
In Windows 7, the User Account Control (UAC) feature and Group Policy Preferences advance further, with a customizable UAC that can be tuned to reduce the number of elevation prompts, if that is appropriate for the environment.
Security and Compliance
Security is one of those evergreen issues in IT management, and Regulatory Compliance is becoming a greater challenge with regulation expansion around the world. While significant advancements in PC security were made with Windows XP SP2, nefarious innovations in malware and social engineering means PCs are still prone to disruptive threats. Additionally, implementing regulatory compliance policy—especially protecting confidential data on mobile PCs—is a particular challenge.
Windows 7 builds on these advancements with a customizable User Account Control that allows IT pros to “tune” the feature based on their environment; for those instances where more flexibility is granted to users, fewer elevation prompts will appear. Conversely, in environments that require greater control over the IT infrastructure, UAC can be strengthened to minimize the changes a user can make.
Deployment
In Windows 7, image creation and deployment is enhanced with advances such as Dynamic Driver Provisioning, the Deployment Image Service and Management tool, Multicast Multiple Stream Transfer, and improvements to user state migration.
Source: microsoft.com