Features new to Windows 7

[3] A number of new sound schemes (each associated with an included theme) have also been introduced: Afternoon, Calligraphy, Characters, Cityscape, Delta, Festival, Garden, Heritage, Landscape, Quirky, Raga, Savana, and Sonata.

[14] For original equipment manufacturers and enterprises, Windows 7 natively supports the ability to customize the wallpaper that is displayed during user login.

By default, a new user account in Windows 7 contains four libraries for different file types: Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos.

In addition to aggregating multiple storage locations, Libraries enable Arrangement Views and Search Filter Suggestions.

In previous versions of Windows, users were required to install third-party software to burn ISO images.

Windows 7's Start menu retains the two-column layout of its predecessors, with several functional changes: Group Policy settings for Windows Explorer provide the ability for administrators of an Active Directory domain to add up to five Internet Web sites and five additional "search connectors" to the Search Results view in the Start menu.

Microsoft suggests that network administrators could use this feature to enable searching of corporate Intranets or an internal SharePoint server.

Each application has a jump list corresponding to its features, Microsoft Word's displaying recently opened documents; Windows Media Player's recent tracks and playlists; frequently opened directories in Windows Explorer; Internet Explorer's recent browsing history and options for opening new tabs or starting InPrivate Browsing; Windows Live Messenger's common tasks such as instant messaging, signing off, and changing online status.

The new button replaces the show desktop shortcut located in the Quick Launch toolbar in previous versions of Windows.

Both of these are integrated with Windows Explorer, and together provide a simplified view of what devices are connected to the computer, and what capabilities they support.

The actual per-device functionality is defined via XML files that are downloaded when the device is first connected to the computer, or are provided by the manufacturer on an installation disc.

[46] Hilton Locke, who worked on the Tablet PC team at Microsoft, reported on December 11, 2007 that Windows 7 will have new touch features on devices supporting multi-touch.

The operating system works with design capabilities present in modern laptop batteries to report this information.

By default, Windows 7 automatically sets the size of the hibernation file to 75% of a computer's total physical memory.

[54] Windows 7 introduces a new /Energy parameter for the powercfg command, which generates an HTML report of a computer's energy efficiency and displays information related to devices or settings.

[62] Systems equipped with a WDDM 1.0 video card will operate in the same fashion as in Windows Vista, using software-only rendering.

[66] Over time, several technologies have been incorporated into subsequent versions of Windows to improve the performance of the operating system on traditional hard disk drives (HDD) with rotating platters.

Since Solid-state drives (SSD) differ from mechanical HDDs in some key areas (no moving parts, write amplification, limited number of erase cycles allowed for reliable operation), it is beneficial to disable certain optimizations and add others.

Several tools and techniques that were implemented in the past to reduce the impact of the rotational latency of traditional HDDs, most notably disk defragmentation, SuperFetch, ReadyBoost, and application launch prefetching, involve reorganizing (rewriting) the data on the platters.

Finally, partitions made with Windows 7's partition-creating tools are created with the SSD's alignment needs in mind, avoiding unwanted systematic write amplification.

[67] The Enterprise and Ultimate editions of Windows 7 incorporate support for the Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) file format.

[71] According to data gathered from the Microsoft Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP), 35% of Vista SP1 installations boot up in 30 seconds or less.

The more lengthy boot times on the remainder of the machines are mainly due to some services or programs that are loaded but are not required when the system is first started.

Also, Microsoft aims to "dramatically reduce" the number of system services, along with their demands on processors, storage, and memory.

When the left or right remote control buttons are held down to browse the library quickly, a two-letter prefix of the current album name is prominently shown as a visual aid.

This includes support for CableCARD and North American (ATSC) clear QAM tuners, as well as creating lists of favorite stations.

[citation needed] Transcoding (encoding) support is not exposed through any built-in Windows application but codecs are included as Media Foundation Transforms (MFTs).

Microsoft noted in a white paper on the Windows Biometric Framework that the proliferation of these proprietary stacks resulted in compatibility issues, compromised the quality and reliability of the system, and made servicing and maintenance more difficult.

[113][114][115] HomeGroup as a concept is very similar to a feature slated for Windows Vista, known as Castle, which would have made it possible to have an identification service for all members on the network, without a centralized server.

[116] To that end, Microsoft previously created Simple File Sharing mode in Windows XP that, once enabled, caused all connected computers to be authenticated as Guest.