Microsoft has been pretty tight on leaks up to now so we haven’t had a great deal of information about the upcoming OS, however here are some of the features which you will see introduced with Windows 7:

Evolutionary changes.
This means substantial performance improvements, UI changes and security improvements. Windows 7 basically will improve on all of Windows Vista’s real and perceived shortcomings.

Virtual Drives
This is just speculation at the moment although Long Zheng has some good reasons to suggest it. Native support for disc images is definitely coming with Server 2008 R2 and may also come with Windows 7.

Sensors
Support for contextually aware applications which can detect the location of you and your device.

Windows Credentials
This sounds great and is something I’ve been wanting for ages… a secure ‘vault’ to store logins and registration details for any server, website or program. Windows will be able to log you in automatically anywhere.

Changes to UAC
Windows 7 will introduce a control panel setting which provides a ‘slider’ and 4 different settings for the UAC, essentially ‘most annoying’ to ‘least annoying’. What’s ironic is that Norton Labs have created an alternative UAC which actually does the whole job a great deal better.

Customisable Installation
Bundled Windows application are being removed and replaced with downloadable Windows Live services including Movie Maker, Mail, Photo Gallery, Writer and Parental Controls. There will also be the introduction of a system to control which applications are installed and which aren’t.

Windows Solution Center
Basically an improved Security Center, but with an improved UI and access to all system maintenance and troubleshooting tools.

Home Group Networking
Another Longhorn concept which is now making its way into Windows 7. Easy home networking for sharing files and media.

Updated Applications and UI
Applications like Paint, Calculator and Windows Media Player are all getting a new version and in the case of WordPad and Paint, the office ribbon interface. Paint is now actually pretty decent, a half-way point between the current Paint and Paint.NET.

Unspecified Taskbar Improvements
All that has been mentioned is that a lot of time has gone into improving the Windows Taskbar, and that support for the taskbar over multiple monitors is almost certain.

Improved Games Explorer
Now checks for Game updates and patches which is a great addition.

Virtual Desktops
Finally! Windows gets virtual desktops or ‘workspaces’ which is going to be a huge improvements.

Windows Mobile Device Center
I thought the point was to remove a lot of the unnecessary applications, for some reason the decision was made to include Windows Mobile Device Center rather than as a separate download.

Themes
Not custom visual styles unfortunately, but the kind of themes you could make with Windows 95 and 98 – saving the background, sound scheme and colors.

Multi-Touch
You know this one.

Related posts

• Zoom It (4)
• XP SP3 and Vista SP 1 available through Windows Update (6)
• XP Keep Per User Display Settings (1)
• Word Document Property Tool (0)
• Windows XP Service Pack 3 Release Candidate 2 Refresh (2)

This is my personal list of things of what I’d like to see changed, fixed or included in Windows 7:

Performance:
The biggie… I’m popping this in because it wouldn’t be a real wish-list without it. Personally I find Vista to perform great, better then XP definitely on decent hardware, however I’d love to see Windows 7 just kick Mac OSX and Linux’s ass as far as performance goes.

This is the major topic under discussion in Steven Sinofsky’s Engineering Seven blog. 

Faster Functional Desktop
Sure, I get a boot time pretty close to Microsoft’s benchmarks, however what they don’t mention is that even though the desktop is loaded, a lot of background processes are still going on in the background. It’s a good minute before I get a functional desktop after booting.

Windows Task Bar
I would love for Windows 7 to include some dramatic changes to the taskbar. I don’t mean visually or functionally but things like some new features for the Quick Launch bar, more options for creating menus and folders on the bar and things like that. Also why isn’t doesn’t the Quick Launch bar use the same theme as the taskbar? It looks ugly.

Bloody Annoying Deletion Bug
Sure you can use Unlocker but it would be really nice if Vista actually deleted what I wanted to delete! For me this is the single-most most frustratingly annoying thing in Vista.

Multiple Desktop Support
Everyone else has them, no third party app does it decently yet. It is time.

UI Consistency
Hopefully Windows 7 contain essentially the same Aero theme as Vista and the developers can work on fixing all the UI bugs and inconsistencies across the system. Check out Long Zheng’ Aero Taskforce for some examples.

Redesign ‘Personalise’
I have no idea what they where thinking when they changed all these options around but it’s really annoying trying to work out where is where and navigating between. Make it easier to change all appearance related settings from one place!

System Tray
Do something here, I’m not sure what. It seems especially buggy in Vista, icon menus freezing up and that kind of thing.

Improve Windows Search
Search is fantastic in Vista and I understand why it takes a few seconds to get results, however I really think for simply searching amongst start menu program icons it should be dramatically improved. When I’m searching for a file I can wait a few seconds, when I just want to launch ‘Word’ I’d like instant results as soon as I type ‘Wo…’

Also some more intuitive functions would be nice, similar to Launchy, learning from usage patterns and picking up on typos. I would also be more likely to use virtual folders more if performance was better.

Calculator functions from Start Menu
Why not? It seems pointless to open up the actual app when you could do it straight from the search box.

Multiple Monitors
It’d be great to have a taskbar which stretches across multiple monitors and options for wallpapers to do the same, or perhaps even choose two wallpapers for 2 monitors.

Annoying Notification Popups
Need I say more?

Explorer Doesn’t remember folder settings.

Networking and Sharing
This is a joke, the Network and Sharing center is way too many clicks away and sharing media between devices is incredibly convoluted and confusing.

Related posts

• WinFS, Was it Really so Good? (1)
• Windows Vista SP1 Download (12)
• Windows Vista SP1 breaks applications (2)
• Windows Vista Editions – Do you know the differences ? (6)
• Windows Longhorn Blog (0)