If you have access to MSDN, TechNet or the Microsoft Action Pack, or your business is covered by Software Assurance, you’ll have access to the RTM code of Windows 7 on Thursday 6 August instead of having to wait for the consumer release in October.

Should you jump right in and start deploying Windows 7 in your company now, or take the usual approach of waiting for SP1? The pre-release versions of Windows 7 have been promising, but does the RTM deliver on that promise?

More than good looks

With so many people having tried out those pre-release versions and the detailed descriptions from Microsoft of Windows 7 engineering decisions, the new interface isn’t going to be a surprise. As with Vista, there is no option to use a ‘classic’ Windows 2000-style desktop; unlike Vista, the Start menu is responsive and the thumbnail previews are intuitive (you can preview, select and manipulate windows directly and naturally).

The new taskbar is more than a larger quick launch toolbar; it shows both open apps and those that are pinned in place with icons that indicate how many windows are open. Jump lists are particularly helpful for getting back to recently used files and you’ll want to consider using them to simplify access to common tasks in line of business applications.

Snapping windows to either side of the screen is a simple way to increase productivity and having a New Folder button always visible in Explorer saves several mouse clicks every time. The Windows 7 much better support for multiple monitors - but there are good functional reasons for the changes too.

Visible improvements, like being able to connect to a wireless access point or get online with a 3G dongle directly from the network icon on the taskbar, reflect improvements under the hood to the network stack that increase reliability. There’s finally a good reason for setting the location of networks that you join as Home or Work; you can allocate printers to a location and when you switch from your home to work network, your default printer will change automatically.

Libraries have the potential to be confusing, but combined with search federation they give businesses the chance to get documents off individual desktops and onto the network where they belong, without making users memorise complex network paths.



You can prepopulate libraries with network folders and document stores, use Group Policy to put them in as links in the Start menu and Explorer with Enterprise Search Scopes and use the OpenSearch-based search federation to include Web services and SharePoint libraries in the built-in desktop search. This is much more responsive than the Vista equivalent, and includes many synonyms so users can search for control panels and settings without needing to know exactly what they’re called.

In control

Microsoft’s PowerShell 2.0 systems management scripting language is built into Windows 7; use it to build management scripts that work with your user’s PCs, taking advantage of the scripting editor and test environment, and a selection of Windows 7-specific cmdlets (pronounced "command-let" ) – including tools for getting and installing hotfixes. PowerShell 2.0 enables remote management of several PCs, so system managers can build and test their PowerShell scripts on their desktops before deploying and running them on all their managed Windows 7 PCs, delivering the results to their own PCs as well.

Windows 7’s troubleshooting tools use PowerShell scripts to handle common issues. There’s a gallery of common troubleshooting packs in the Control Panel, and the Action Center can launch them automatically if there is one available to help solve problems Windows has detected, which should reduce helpdesk calls.

Microsoft will make new troubleshooting packs available online, and you can use the downloadable Trouble Shooting Pack Builder to edit your own troubleshooting scripts for applications running on your network and bundle them up for distribution to your users. Users get a Problem Steps Reporter to describe problems troubleshooters can’t help with; you can use it for documenting processes for training too.

Business PCs aren’t places where just any pieces of software should be installed. As business tools they need to be controlled – but by policy, not by locking down every machine. Windows 7’s AppLocker builds on Microsoft’s existing Software Restriction policies to control who can install what and where. You can lock software down by executable – and by installer. Once an application has been approved, you can restrict to a specific version number or a base version, so users can upgrade when newer releases or updates arrive. Rules are easy to build, using GPEDIT on a Windows 7 PC, with sliders controlling the level of control – from publisher, to product name, to file name to version.



Windows 7 is a lot more insistent than Vista about backing up PCs, and the Action Center aims to make sure that you’ve got a backup strategy for your PCs. Backups can be held on external and secondary drives, or network shares. By default Windows 7 Backup will create a system image (which is regularly updated), and will also save files stored in local libraries. You can choose your own files, but the defaults work for most users. Unlike earlier versions of Windows, Windows 7 now lets you create your own recovery disk that will allow you to rebuild your PC from a backup system image.

Data Security

If you’re worried about data loss from laptops and USB sticks, then BitLocker is just what the doctor ordered. Much the same as the Vista implementation (and with the same pointless restriction to Enterprise and Ultimate), Windows 7’s Bitlocker quickly encrypts laptop hard drives, preventing unauthorised access to data. Group policies control how keys are managed (including just how recovery keys are stored). Good whole disk encryption should be invisible to the end user, and there’s very little performance hit with BitLocker.

Windows 7 extends BitLocker beyond the PC with BitLocker To Go. This encrypts USB keys, something that’s increasingly important as USB keys can now store as much data as a hard disk. Group policies can force BitLocker USB encryption on any key connected to a PC on your network, and reader software on encrypted drives enables users to read them on XP and Vista PCs.

XP Mode and R2

Microsoft recently delivered the RC for Windows 7’s XP Mode. If you’re planning to roll out Windows 7 quickly, but are still unsure if applications are compatible with the new operating system, XP Mode is just the ticket. Based on Virtual PC (and only running in the Professional and Enterprise SKUs of Windows 7, along with the enthusiast-focused Ultimate), XP Mode gives you a virtual Windows XP machine, which integrates with the Windows 7 desktop. Applications running in XP Mode look like any other Windows 7 application – the only difference is the Windows XP Luna window look-and-feel.

The new version of XP Mode installs quickly, with a quick guide that walks users through installing and using XP applications. Applications install in a full Windows XP desktop, and then appear in the XP Mode section of the Windows 7 start menu. Regularly used applications now appear in a Task Bar jump list, along with tools for using USB devices with XP Mode applications.



Easier network access

Some key business features in Windows 7 won’t be available until you roll out Windows Server 2008 R2 (which is available on the same timescale); you need R2 and IPv6 (or IPv4 to IPv6 translation) for the DirectAccess feature that gives remote users connections to network shares and resources without a VPN and IT administrators a connection to push software updates and Group Policy settings whenever users are online. (If you’re still using VPNs, the automatic VPN Reconnect feature will save a lot of frustration as you no longer have to remember to log back in to the VPN after you lose a connection). BranchCache caches content from R2 servers on a branch server or directly on PCs, so a slow branch connection isn’t as much of a bottleneck.

These R2-based features require infrastructure changes. Deploying Windows 7 will obviously require testing and planning, but apart from low-level security and disk utilities there are very few compatibility issues with mainstream hardware and software.

Ready to roll out

Windows 7 performs well on existing hardware; you can expect much better performance than Vista on the same hardware, and Windows 7 runs well on Atom-based netbooks (file copy is faster than XP for example). At the very high end, many-core parallel processing for high-performance computing can take advantage of improvements in the kernel. System-level features like SuperFetch, service, driver and DLL loading and even the page file take fewer resources. Direct2D accelerates 2Dgraphics in the same way Direct3D has for games. And opening more windows no longer eats up system resources; the Desktop Window Manager uses video memory and it uses only half as much memory as in Vista, making systems much more responsive.

That does highlight one of the few compatibility issues with Windows 7; while ATI and Nvidia have the new WDDM 1.1 drivers for a wide range of graphics chipsets, Intel has been much slower to come out with drivers for older chipsets and we’ve seen screen corruption issues with some Intel graphics drivers. Even so, this is a much less significant problem than Vista’s early driver issues.

Windows 7 really has something for everyone; it’s competent and functional due to internal improvements and the user interface is attractive and good for productivity. The very public development cycle has resulted in the equivalent of an SP1 operating system at RTM.

Author: Simon Bisson and Mary Branscombe

Windows 7 RTM review