Windows 7: It's All About The Features

Chris A. MacKinnon

8/25/2009

It’s almost time for enterprises to open their doors to the newest addition to the Windows family—or is it? When Windows Vista came on the scene, many enterprises were so entrenched with Windows XP, they hesitated, and Vista was not widely deployed. So what new features has Microsoft developed that speak directly to enterprise users? What is so appealing about the latest offering from the king of OSes? Here is a look at Microsoft’s newest operating system.

Feature-Rich

Bob Kelly, senior product manager at KACE (www.kace.com), says there are a number of Windows 7 features that will appeal to enterprises and data centers. “For starters,” Kelly says, “a new admin feature available to those that deploy Windows 7 in a Windows Server 2008 r2 environment is a feature called BranchCache, which enables content for file and Web servers on a WAN to be cached at local branch offices (for a natural reduction in network traffic) and therefore offers an improved response time.”

This cached data can either be distributed across peer client computers (in distributed cache mode) or centrally hosted on a server (in hosted cache mode). BITS (Background Intelligent Transfer Service) 4.0 was also updated to leverage BranchCache.

According to Kelly, Windows 7 will also provide a better experience for those in VDI (virtual desktop interface) mode. Such an experience has always meant reduced functionality and feature sets, but Windows 7 removes many of these limitations. “This includes support for Windows Aero, use of multiple monitors, [and] viewing of videos in Windows Media Player 11 and also includes some administration tools for manipulating these virtual images,” he says.

Kelly says that startup and standby resume times have also been significantly enhanced in Windows 7, and the new Taskbar introduces many intuitive features, which are most noticeable when you first use it.

Benefits For Admins

Although the new Taskbar is definitely a nice step forward for Windows users, Kelly says Microsoft has also focused more on how Windows 7 makes life better for administrators. He says, “Despite User Account Control being a powerful and necessary security feature of Windows Vista, it has been more of an annoyance due to the frequency with which it was presented, along with the lack of useful information offered by the notifications.” Kelly says this has been addressed in Windows 7 by providing more granular control over when prompts appear onscreen and by offering accurate information about what has caused the warning.

AppLocker, a new feature in Windows 7, replaces software restriction policies and gives administrators the ability to control how users can use scripts, applications, and installation files. Rules are defined based on digital signatures to dictate the files that are permitted to run. If specific files are not included in the rules, those files are not permitted to run.

Kelly says managed service accounts have also been introduced in Windows 7 to reduce the account management overhead that is required for critical services and applications. “The benefit here,” Kelly says, “is that you can isolate privileges for an application without the need to manage a new account.”

Kelly points out that many of the admin-focused features of Windows 7 (such as AppLocker and the new service accounts) apply to Windows 7 in a Windows Server 2008 r2 environment. “With so many compelling features tied to this new release of Windows Server, there are likely to be a lot more than desktop updates taking place in the coming months,” he predicts.

From WinXP To Win7, Virtually

Calvin Hsu, director of product marketing for the desktop delivery group at Citrix (www.citrix.com), says Windows 7 offers a number of compelling features for enterprises and their users, including productivity enhancements, reliability improvements, user-friendly security controls, and a relatively slim overall footprint. However, if enterprises did not adopt Windows Vista last time around, Hsu says the challenge will be getting from WinXP to Win7. “Increasingly, we are finding that enterprise customers are taking advantage of this upgrade cycle to rethink their overall desktop strategy and implement an infrastructure that will make Windows 7 future migrations dramatically easier and less costly,” he says.

“Today, users have a very binary, unsettling transition—one day their PC is running XP, the next it is Windows 7, and rarely are any of their settings preserved,” Hsu continues. “By introducing Windows 7 virtual desktops and virtualizing applications, the transition can be much easier for enterprises. Users can still have their XP environment for a time, with the Windows 7 virtual desktop delivered to the same device. Then, use of XP can be phased out after the transition period is complete.”

In Hsu’s opinion, to leverage desktop virtualization for Windows 7, a key consideration is ensuring that users get the same rich desktop experience as a local PC. He says Windows 7 includes some fundamental enhancements to the way graphics and multimedia are displayed, namely Windows Presentation Foundation, which is built on Microsoft’s DirectX technology and provides hardware acceleration and enhancements to graphics and user interfaces.

Article by Chris A. MacKinnon for

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Windows 7: It's All About The Features

Chris A. MacKinnon

8/25/2009

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Windows 7: It's All About The Features

Chris A. MacKinnon

8/25/2009

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