Microsoft begins Windows 7 push

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7817190.stm - Can get it from technet

The first public trial, or beta, version of Windows 7 has been released.

Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer used his keynote speech at CES to announce that software developers would get at the trial version on 7 January.

On 9 January members of the public will get the chance to download the successor to Windows for themselves.

Mr Ballmer said Windows 7 would be the pivot of a broader Microsoft push to improve the way its separate software and service families work together.

In delivering the opening keynote, Mr Ballmer has taken over from Bill Gates - who in 2008 bowed out of day-to-day involvement with the company he founded.

In a nod to the chilly economic climate, Mr Ballmer said: "We face some really big challenges. We are all feeling it and its impact will likely be with us for some time."

But, he said, the global economic slowdown would not hobble the pace of technological change.

"I believe our digital lives will only continue to get richer," said Mr Ballmer. "There's no turning back from the connected world."

The newest version of the Windows operating system would, he said, be the "linchpin" of an effort to make it easier for customers to do more with the different Microsoft gadgets and services they use.


Windows 7's new features

Although Windows 7 was a trial version it was, said Mr Ballmer, almost "feature complete" and would help to re-define the way people thought of the software.

Instead of it being an operating system mainly associated with a PC, he said, Windows was becoming a "connected platform and experience".

Microsoft is expected to cap the number of copies of the beta version of Windows 7 available to the public. The minimum requirements for running Windows 7 are a PC with a 1 Ghz processor, 1GB of RAM, 16 GB of disk space, 128MB of video memory and support for DX9 graphics. Connecting all these devices together is the last mile in creating a real breakthrough experience

Steve Ballmer

Some of the Windows 7's features help it work with other devices. A "home group" system makes it straightforward to enrol PCs, Xbox consoles, media servers and other gadgets into a local network that can share media and content.

Demonstrations during Mr Ballmer's keynote also showed changes to Windows Live online services that let it act as a co-ordinating centre for many of the things people do on the web.

In connection with this Mr Ballmer announced a deal with Facebook which would mean any changes a member made to their page on the social networking site would be echoed on their Windows Live pages.


Windows Live's new features

Another feature shown off was a "Quick Add" system that made it easy to annotate e-mail and instant messages with weblinks and other information from specific categories, such as restaurant locations, without firing up separate applications.

Another demonstration showed a phone running Windows Mobile being used to control the list of favourite TV shows and movies that customers of Microsoft's internet TV system Media Room can compile.

"Today much of the stuff we care about sits in silos; on a PC, phone or the web," said Mr Ballmer. "Your experiences are split when you move from one to another."

"Increasingly these barriers are going away," he said, adding that the internet would act as the cloud linking all three.

He predicted that the PC, phone and TV would become closely connected devices that acted as an individual's digital "ecosystem".

"Connecting all these devices together is the last mile in creating a real breakthrough experience for consumers," said Mr Ballmer.