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Designing Windows 7
More than a billion people use Microsoft® Windows every day. You use it
in signi cant ways, like earning a living. You use it in personally meaningful
ways, such as using a webcam to visit with a faraway loved one. And you
experience it in small ways, like playing your favorite song or whiling away
a few minutes with a game. Though each situation might be different, your
satisfaction relies on one thing: that your PC works, plain and simple.
In designing Windows 7, we focused on creating a better experience,
regardless of what you do on your PC. And although we’ve made some
architectural changes in Windows 7, we’ve focused mainly on building
upon the platform improvements of the Windows Vista
® and Windows
Server
® 2008 operating systems.
By de nition, a great PC experience means seamless operation across all of your hardware, software, and
devices. We want to make sure you have a broad choice for the programs and devices you use with your
PCs. Today, the Windows Vista Compatibility Center lists more than 10,500 applications and 9,500 devices
with a compatible download or driver version. In most cases, the same software and hardware that works
on Windows Vista will also work on Windows 7.
Furthermore, we were careful to design Windows 7 so that the investments that our partners and our
enterprise customers have made in Windows Vista will continue to deliver great value as they upgrade
to Windows 7. We’ve worked closely with our partners from the earliest planning phase. Before writing
code, we talked to original equipment manufacturers, the companies that make PCs. Before de ning
application programming interfaces, we talked to developers. And before adding support for new
devices, we worked with device manufacturers to understand how next-generation hardware could
create new scenarios.