History of Microsoft Windows - Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2

Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2

Windows 7 is the current major release after Windows Vista and was released to manufacturing on 22 July 2009, and reached general retail availability on 22 October 2009. It was previously known by the codenames Blackcomb and Vienna. Windows 7 has the version number NT 6.1.

Some features of Windows 7 are faster booting, Device Stage, Windows PowerShell, less obtrusive User Account Control, multi-touch, and improved window management. Features included with Windows Vista and not in Windows 7 include the sidebar (although gadgets remain) and several programs that were removed in favor of downloading their Windows Live counterparts.

Windows 7 ships in six editions:

• Starter (available worldwide)
• Home Basic
• Home Premium
• Professional
• Enterprise (available to volume-license business customers only)
• Ultimate (available to retail market with limited availability to OEMs)

In some countries (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland), there are other editions that lack some features such as Windows Media Player, Windows Media Center and Internet Explorer called names such as "Windows 7 N." Microsoft focuses on selling Windows 7 Home Premium and Professional. All editions, except the Starter edition, are available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Unlike the corresponding Vista editions, the Professional and Enterprise editions are supersets of the Home Premium edition.

At the Professional Developers Conference (PDC) 2008, Microsoft also announced Windows Server 2008 R2, as the server variant of Windows 7. Windows Server 2008 R2 ships in 64-bit versions (x64 and Itanium) only.