Windows 7 at PDC 2008

Well, pending the launch of Windows 7 planned, according to rumors, for the end of 2009, make a little ride on what was officially unveiled during the demo.

Begin with the graphic interface of the desktop of Windows 7 that probably some of you will characterize it like a blending between Vista, KDE and Mac OSX.

Windows 7 interface
Windows 7

As you can see, the Windows 7 interface, although similar to Vista, is announced as lighter, more coherent and less flashiness than the one of Windows Vista.

The Start Menu has less useless icons and should be more functional.

Start menu Windows 7

The taskbar has been improved, it is inspired by the famous Apple because now it will behave a little like Mac OSX dock. Some personal touches of Microsoft are added to innovate the principle. It is like this that we can see appearing at the passage of the mouse a thumbnail of the different windows of the same application…

Taskbar Windows 7

…but also a very interesting novelty : jump lists. With a simple right click on the icon of your application since the taskbar, you can access quickly to various documents, options and file in relation with the application. Here a video realized by Neowin.net :

Apparently, Microsoft became more flexible with customization. They allow the user to configure entirely the notification area and it may that we might be able to create and customize themes for Windows 7.

File Explorer should also be improved. It will include a new function named Library in order to better manage your content like photos, pictures and music. It allows you to add storage and keep the pictures stored locally across lots of drives but have links to the library.

Library function

Other new features will be improved in Windows 7, too, such as :
– Action Center, a device to help the user resolving different problems that he can encounter
– Device Stage, to manage all peripherals connected to you PC since the same area

Device Stage

– Windows Media Player, with the possibility to launch music remote, etc.

Windows Media Player

– A new interface for the calculator, a ribbon interface for Paint and WordPad…

Paint Windows 7
Wordpad Windows 7

– And also support multi-touch interface.

Multi-touch interface Windows

– etc. (for more, click here or there)

There are plenty others new features, but you have probably understood that Windows 7 will be an improved version of Windows Vista, but more simple and adding lots of novelties and better performance.

For the moment it is only a pre-beta, so this interface isn’t definitive and all may evolve before the final version of Windows 7.

Source : Crystal XP