These represent only some of the changes available in Windows 7 RC and as Steven notes in his intro – this is not an exhaustive list.
Some Changes Since Beta for the RC
We’ve been quite busy for the past two months or so working through all the feedback we’ve received on Windows 7. It should be no surprise but the Release Candidate for Windows 7 will have quite a few changes, many under the hood so to speak but also many visible. Some have asked if the featureset is "frozen" then what will we change--we change a lot of things in the beta based on feedback and we try to do so in a systematic manner with the focus on the goals for the release. The goal of having a fully functional Beta was to make sure we received reliable feedback and not a lot of "hey this doesn't work at all" sorts of reports. This has allowed us to really focus on delivering a refined RC where the changes we made are all the reflection of feedback we have received.
Building on the previous post that looked at the broad view of feedback, we want to start posting on the feedback and the engineering actions we’ve taken in responding to the feedback. We won’t be able to cover all the changes (as we’re still busy making them), but for today we wanted to start with a sampling of some of the more visible changes. We’re still on the same path working towards the release candidate and of course we know everyone is anxious for the next phase of our path to RTM. In the meantime, our full time machines are still running the Beta build.
Today’s post is from Chaitanya, who has previously posted on some of the core user interface work. --Steven
This blog post talks about a few of the improvements that will be in our Release Candidate (RC) based upon customer feedback. There are many under the hood changes (bug fixes, compatibility fixes, performance improvements, and improvements) across the entire dev team that we just don’t have room to discuss here, but we thought you’d enjoy a taste of some changes made by three of our feature teams: Core User Experience, Find & Organize and Devices & Media. The comments in this article come from a variety of verbatim sources, with identifying information withheld.
Desktop Experience
1. Windows Flip (ALT + TAB) with Aero Peek
We’ve received overwhelmingly positive feedback about Aero Peek and how it helps customers switch windows with increased confidence. Daniel wrote to tell us “I’m wondering why Peek was never implemented for the ALT + TAB window. The thumbnails look/behave the same way as the taskbar thumbnails when you hover the mouse over them. It seems logical that they would exhibit the peek behavior, too”. We decided to make this change since we heard many requests for it. One can still quickly flip between and cycle through running windows using the ALT+TAB keys, but when more window information is needed Aero Peek will appear. This is triggered by a time delay as you pause while keyboarding through running windows.
Fig 1.
Aero Peek triggered from Windows Flip (ALT+TAB)
2. Windows Logo + <#> keyboard shortcut
Enthusiasts often ask us for more keyboard shortcuts to simplify their common tasks. Efficiency is key. We’ve answered with a very powerful new keyboard shortcut for the taskbar that may just alienate mice everywhere. Pressing Windows Logo + <#> (where <#> corresponds to an item’s order in Quick Launch) in Vista would simply launch the item. As part of our unification of Quick Launch with the taskband in Windows 7, we now beef up the shortcut so it can both launch and switch. For example, if IE wasn’t running in Fig 1 then Windows Logo + 2 will launch the program (as it did in Vista). If IE is running with a single window, the same shortcut will now switch to the program. The magic really begins when IE is running with several windows or tabs—holding down the Windows Logo and tapping the 2 key repeatedly will actually cycle through the open IE items off the taskbar (with Aero Peek, of course). Letting go simply switches to the corresponding window. Think of this as per-program ALT +TAB shortcut for the first 10 items on the taskbar. If you need a new instance for IE, simply use SHIFT + Windows Logo + <#>. A program’s Jump List may also be accessed via ALT+ Windows Logo + <#>. Finally, you can even flip back to the last active window of a program by using CTRL+ Windows Logo + <#> (this also works by holding CTRL with a mouse click on a taskbar button). Keyboard aficionados rejoice!
3. Needy State
“Needy window” is the internal term we use for a window that requires your attention. Since the ‘90s, the taskbar has always provided some type of visualization to alert the customer to this state such as by flashing the button. A careful balance must be struck between providing information and not irritating the customer. With the new taskbar, we received feedback that Outlook reminders or a Messenger chat sometimes went unnoticed because needy windows were too subtle. For example, Mudassir opened a bug to say “The flashing is not obvious enough to get user's attention. Sometime I don't even notice it. It flashes for a little bit and then stops. If I am away the icon flashes and stops before I come back. The icon is not noticeable.” We’ve made three changes that should address the issue. First, we changed the flashing animation curve to make it more noticeable (from a sine to a sawtooth wave). Second, we used a bolder orange color. Finally, we wanted to double the number of flashes which is currently set to three. As a nod to Windows 7, we decided to go with seven flashes instead.
4. Taskbar “Open With”
Quick Launch always supported the ability to drop a file onto a pinned program and have it open with that program. The new taskbar on the other hand, always treats a drop as a pin command. Drop a program and the program is pinned. Drop a file and the file will be pinned under its respective program’s Jump List and that program automatically gets pinned to the taskbar. It was important for us to keep drag/drop consistent. We believe that for most cases people will open files through the desktop by just double-clicking them or from the Jump List and the default program will open. However, there are some scenarios when a customer wants to open a certain file type with another program. We heard this feedback and decided to revive “Open With” drag/drop on the taskbar with a keyboard modifier. One can hold down SHIFT and drop the file on the desired program.
5. Taskbar scaling
We’ve reclaimed lots of space on the taskbar by unifying launching/switching, by collapsing open windows and by cleaning the notification area. Still, some have asked for even more room to pin the programs they use regularly. We’ve made a change to squeeze in 24-39% more icons before the taskbar scrolls; depending upon your resolution, icon size and assuming the default notification area. Table 1 illustrates the new button capacity before the taskbar begins to scroll as well as the capacity growth since Beta. We believe customers will find more than enough room to pin their common programs.
Table 1.
Maximum taskbar button capacity before scrolling
| Resolution | Large Icons | Small Icons | % Increase from Beta (large/small icons) |
| 800x600 | 10 | 15 | 25% / 36% |
| 1024x768 | 15 | 22 | 25% / 38% |
| 1280x1024 | 20 | 29 | 25% / 32% |
| 1600x1200 | 26 | 39 | 24% / 39% |
6. Anchoring taskbar thumbnails
Hovering or clicking on a taskbar button surfaces all the running windows for that program. Upon seeing a set of open thumbnails, Kozlow asked “How do I know which application has opened the thumbnails group?” In other words, the thumbnails didn’t appear visually connected to the taskbar. We made a visual update that now keeps the color hot-track effect on when the mouse is over a thumbnail. In fig 2 you can see that IE retains its blue Color Hot-track visual even though the mouse is over a thumbnail.
Fig 2.
Color Hot-track stays active when the mouse hovers over taskbar thumbnails
7. Newly installed programs
“Customer in control” is so strong a mantra for Windows 7 we don’t even allow programs to pin themselves to the taskbar when they are installed. This is a task expressly reserved for the customer. We’ve gotten some requests to make this goal a bit easier so now when a program is installed, it is automatically and temporarily surfaced at the bottom of the Start Menu. The customer can easily discover this new addition, launch it directly and optionally drag it to the taskbar for convenient access in the future.
8. Jump List length
Jump Lists are proving to be a valuable tool to quickly jump to commonly access files, folders, links and tasks. Steve filed a bug in which he said “The whole point of the jump list is to make it easier to jump to your favorite locations. However, it doesn't save me time having to scan through a long list of frequent locations.” In other words, sometimes it’s hard to parse an item when the list gets too long. Our telemetry data informs us that in most cases customers are clicking on the first 10 items. Therefore, we’ve updated Jump Lists so that only a maximum of 10 items may be automatically suggested (this doesn’t apply to tasks or pinned items). Don’t worry—there’s even a setting for enthusiasts to customize the length of the list.
9. Increased pinning flexibility with Jump List
For organizational, scaling and identification purposes, the taskbar is designed to hold files, folders and links in a program’s Jump List. Items can only be pinned to the Jump List of programs registered to handle that file type. Based on feedback we’ve received we now allow one to pin items to a Jump List belonging to a program that isn’t registered to handle that file type. Better yet, pinning the item in most cases will create a new registration so that launching it from the Jump List will always open the file with that specific program. For example, one can pin an .HTML file to Notepad’s Jump List and when clicked on from the menu, the file will always open in Notepad even though IE by default handles the file type.
10. Desktop icon and gadget view options
Windows 7 makes gadgets far easier to manage, view and access by building them directly into the desktop. David’s feedback matches what others were telling us: “In Vista, I was able to hide desktop icons while my gadgets were still visible and available. I liked this feature in Vista, especially with all the icons that are constantly dropped on the desktop by app installers. I don't want to see the icons, but I still want to see my gadgets.” In Beta it was impossible to separate desktop icons from gadgets under the View setting available by right-clicking on the desktop. We made a change to afford independent control to each so that one can opt to hide just her gadgets or just her desktop icons.
Touch
11. Aero Peek for touch
We’re excited about Peek and we further refined its functionality. Our touch customers enjoy the benefits of direct manipulation, but inform us they feel left out of some of new functionality that’s available for the mouse and keyboard. We’ve made two improvements that spreads the love. First, the taskbar’s thumbnails now support a touch gesture so one can drag her finger across the UI and trigger Aero Peek. Also, the Show Desktop button is improved so a press-and-hold will allow the customer to peek at the desktop. A regular tap in both these scenarios still to commits the switch.
12. Multi-touch touch keyboard
A funny thing happens when one uses touch to interact with a software keyboard for the first time. The natural instinct is to press multiple buttons simultaneously like they do with a real keyboard. It’s quite reasonable to try to use SHIFT +
13. Multi-touch right-click
People who are rely on touch give us mixed feelings towards tap and hold to bring up a context menu. This approach works, but it also involves a slight delay. We now have a fast new multi-touch gesture for right-click. Simply touch an item with one finger and use another finger to tap and summon a context menu.
14. Drag/Drop and selection
In Beta there was no discoverable way to select text in a website that scrolled both horizontally and vertically. Customers are now able to drag/drop and select items with touch, even inside scrolling pages. The new behavior is optimized for the two most common actions by touch customers—scrolling up and down and dragging left to right.
Networking
15. Internet access feedback
The new network experience from the taskbar’s notification area makes it much easier to find and connect to networks. People seem to also really like the wireless signal strength that is available at a glance. In our effort to simplify the experience we removed indications for some advanced scenarios. Based upon feedback, we’ve decided to introduce a new overlay icon which now reveals when there is a local connection without internet access.
Control Panel
16. User Account Control
If you’ve been following this blog, then you already know about a recent design change we’ve made that will prompt for any modification made to the UAC Control Panel. For more information, please refer to the earlier post on UAC Feedback and Follow-Up.
17. Locking a machine without a screensaver
It isn’t uncommon for IT administrators to want their corporate machines to auto-lock after a certain amount of time. In Beta, enabling this functionality required a screensaver to be set. We’ve since made a change to allow this functionality even when no screensaver is specified.
18. Faster access to High Performance power plan
Clicking on the battery flout from the taskbar notification area offers two different power plans: Balanced and Power saver. Windows 7 laptops are configured by default to use the Balanced plan since this setting best balances a good experience while promoting more environmentally friendly power use. However, some customers tell us they want to be able to quickly toggle between Balanced and High Performance (yet another power plan). We’ve taken a change to now show the latter in the flyout menu when it is enabled under the Power Options Control Panel.
19. Custom theme improvements
We’ve always known customers love personalizing their Windows experience. At the center of this expression of individuality are ingredients such as the desktop background, glass color, sounds and screensavers. In Windows 7 we’ve introduced themes that make it easy to enable a whole package of default combinations or for customers to save their own creations. However, during Beta we heard feedback along the lines of “I just changed my background or color and I see the change, but I thought it was saved when it really wasn’t”. We added text under each theme to not only aid in identification, but also to provide feedback on the state of a theme. The new “Unsaved Theme” text also ties better to the nearby “Save theme” command. These tweaks should make personalization a more predictable and enjoyable experience.
Windows Media Player
20. Improved Internet Radio playback
Internet radio playback continues to gain in popularity. We received feedback that sometimes playback of radio streams may be inconsistent depending on network conditions. It’s worth noting that our understanding of this issue was greatly helped by the broad scale of usage across so many customers and network topologies and our telemetry in the Beta. Windows Media Player has made changes to make streaming playback more reliable and resilient.
21. Improved playback support for video content from digital camcorders and cameras
Customers loved the increased range of formats natively supported by the Windows 7 Beta, but noticed areas where they wanted broader support. For example, one was unable to seek to a specific spot in the video in Windows Media Player or Windows Media Center for AVCHD content that was imported from a digital camcorder. We’ve addressed this. Also, while the support for video from some digital cameras worked great, we also got feedback about supporting a broader set of devices out of the box. We’ve since added support for Windows Media Player to natively support the .MOV files used to capture video for many common digital cameras.
22. Cleaner Now Playing view
Customers are sharing positive reviews of Media Player’s new light-weight Now Playing view. Still some have asked to make the experience even cleaner. We’ve responded with a visual update that is more lightweight and compact.
23. Filtering content that cannot be played
Media Player’s library view is designed to surface and showcase one’s content. However, in some cases items were displayed that couldn’t be played. For example, Apple’s lossless .M4A or .H263 MPEG-4 content would be shown in a library even though Media Player could not play them. In RC, this content will no longer appear in the library view so that there is better expectation of what is supported by the player.
24. Resume from sleep
Customers are used to resuming a CD or DVD after an interruption. With customers choosing new low-cost, smaller form-factor, machines without optical drives, an increasingly popular scenario is to have content played directly from the hard drive. In Beta, it was not possible to resume playback on such content after a laptop goes to sleep. Customers assume the experience should match that of physical media so we fixed the experience to meet this expectation.
25. Quieting Windows Media Player sync relationships
When Media Player is open and a portable media player or a USB drive is inserted, we trigger a dialog to determine whether a sync relationship should be created with the new device. Our original goal was to be proactive and help customers make a decision in context, but we received comments that this experience is jarring. As a result, we will no longer interrupt when the player is running. This is consistent with our “customer in control” goal of Windows 7 and we trust people can manually configure this should they wish to.
26. Easier access to advanced settings
What enthusiast doesn’t want to tweak her player settings? This was echoed by several comments so we’ve made it easier to access and adjust settings. The equalizer, play speed, SRS WOW and other options are now surfaced via the Now Playing context menu under Enhancements.
27. Jump List improvement
Media Player’s Jump List provides quick access to the content customers consume. The list becomes even more powerful and complete in the RC now that we also include items launched from Explorer.
Device Stage
28. Enriching the Device Stage ecosystem
Customers have been so positive about the new Device Stage experience, one of the biggest pieces of feedback we got was “Why aren’t even more of my devices supported?” We’ve taken that feedback to heart and then took the feedback to our IHV and OEM partners to get their support for more devices. Our hardware partners in turn asked us to make it easier to integrate with the Device Stage and we worked with them on improvements. Although Windows already supports tens of thousands of devices, customer feedback on the Beta introduces even more device support in RC via the new Device Stage experience.
Sound UX
29. Improving the headphone experience
Customers informed us that sometimes their audio streams did not properly move from the default speakers to their headphones. The fix required an update to the algorithm we use to detect new devices. In RC the transition works more reliably.
30. Increased audio reliability
In some cases people reported not having any audio device after installing Beta. The problem is that some audio hardware does not work out of the box with our inbox audio class driver. Amazingly there are over 26,000 custom audio drivers and while many are on Windows Update, many are still not. The Release Candidate tightens the Windows Logo test to better ensure clean install delivers baseline functionality for speakers and microphones. Furthermore, we will continue to populate Windows Update with frequently needed drivers.
Windows Explorer and Libraries
31. Improved header
It is great to see customers realize the convenience and power of libraries. Having files aggregated into one convenient view, without worrying where they are all physically located, simplifies many scenarios. The library header in Beta showed only a static string that reflected how many locations were represented as part of the library. We heard feedback that this wasn’t very clear and more importantly, customers preferred to have more information so that they could be better orientated themselves. The RC will introduce a new header that updates to reveal the subfolder as one browses a library. Furthermore, the “Arrange by” views are better expose in the upper right, in proximity of the other view and search controls.
32. Reduced confusion with drag/drop
The Release Candidate will remove the ability to drag/drop a folder into the Libraries node in the Explorer navigation pane. We know some liked this functionality to create a new library, but it also presented some serious design issues. For example, some were surprised to find a new library was created when their intent was to simply copy the folder. More seriously though, there were circumstances where people then deleted the original folder thinking it was already copied. Data loss is a grave concern of ours and we don’t want customers to suffer from such a mistake. Don’t worry though—one can still easily create a new library using the “New Library” or “Include in Library” commands in the Explorer command bar.
33. Reviving familiar entry points
Mando writes, “In Win7 the Win+E shortcut opens an explorer window but the path is “Libraries” instead (which isn’t where I want to go most of the time). Is there a way to configure the target folder of “Win+E” or is there an alternate shortcut that will get me to the “Computer” path like it did in Vista?” RC reverts the behavior and now the shortcut will launch the “Computer” Explorer. Also, we changed the link in Start Menu -> Username to match the Vista behavior.
34. FAT32 support
Local FAT32 hard disk drives were not support in libraries for Beta. RC libraries will now support non-removable FAT32 and NTFS hard disk drives thanks to the feedback we received.
35. Arrangement view enhancements
It’s been great to see people’s reaction to the arrangement views in libraries. Being able to browse using metadata certainly makes quick work of finding files. We’ve received many requests to further enhance the arrangement views in a variety of ways and we’ve made a number of changes in response to them. For starters, RC makes it easier to switch arrangement views—one can now do so directly from the view context menu, which is the familiar home of switching the view mode, sorting, and grouping. Second, the specific arrangement views themselves have been enhanced for RC. The “Month” and “Day” views in the Pictures library now group together both the pictures and videos taken on the same date, whereas previously the videos were split out into a separate group. The “Artist” and “Genre” views in the Music library now show the thumbnails for up to three unique albums per artist or genre instead of typically just one in Beta. The Videos library now features a Length view that lets customers split out the shorter clips from longer movies in their video collection. Finally, we’ve made it so that changing the grouping of the Folder view in a library is now remembered just like other arrangement view customization. People who prefer to see their files grouped a particular way no longer have to reset the grouping each time.
Performance
36. Improving performance through data
Feedback comes to us in many different forms. Typically it consists of comments customers share. However, some of the most valuable information actually comes to us automatically when people just use Windows. PerfTrack, for example, is a telemetry system that provides us with invaluable real-world performance data on over 500 different Windows scenarios. The exciting aspect of PerfTrack is that it represents what people are really experiencing “out in the wild”. Performance is a very important to both the engineering team as well as to our customers and we strive to continuously improve this area. The topic has been discussed in several posts on this blog.
Let’s look at just one example of a Windows scenario that was improved with the help of PerfTrack. The two graphs below show the performance of opening the Start Menu for both Beta and for a more recent version of Windows 7. Some caveats first—the sample sizes are different (after all Beta did go to a far wider audience) and these numbers shouldn’t be taken too literally since they really do just represent a snapshot. The different colors denote performance against the “interaction class”—the acceptable experience range defined by each feature team. In this case we want the Start Menu to appear within 50ms to 100ms. A trace capturing tool running on each machine lets us investigate and fix what may be impacting performance. The charts shows in Beta 85% of interactions were within the acceptable range (i.e. green or yellow, but not red). After examining the traces and making some optimizations, we find 92% of interactions are this range for a more recent build.
Fig 3.
Start Menu Open Times for Windows 7 Build 7000 (Beta)
Fig 4.
Start Menu Open Times for Windows 7 Build 7033
As is evident from this sample of changes, we’ve been very busy improving Windows 7 based upon what our customers are telling us in many forums.
A few more changes from Beta to RC…
Hey folks, just wanted to provide another update (building on the recent post on some changes since Beta) on some of the changes you will see in the Release Candidate. Again, there are many and this is not an exhaustive list. Of course we continue to gather telemetry from the large number of people running the Beta full time. Just a reminder, the Beta is the only official build from Microsoft. Chaitanya compiled this list from a broad set of feature teams focused on visible changes based on feedback that go beyond “bug fixes”, though we included some of the more widely reported bugs on this list as well. –Steven
Desktop Experience
1. Improved taskbar thumbnail overflow
Our customers are enjoying how windows are grouped and revealed on the enhanced taskbar. Some enthusiasts who have a significant number of open windows for a program encounter our scaling mechanism; the thumbnail view turns into a list view. Although this UI is virtually identical to experience in XP and Vista, customers still want to enjoy new functionality of the thumbnail view. Bentronic wrote, “It's nice that there's a little close button on the thumbnail previews--why not have a similar button for when it's showing as a list? Being able to run down the list clicking the close button instead of right-clicking would be great.” For RC we’ve made the list view architecturally the same as the thumbnail view, just sans thumbnails. Customers will now enjoy close buttons and the menus open on hover (in Beta one had to click to open them).
Fig 1.
List View of running windows appears on hover and supports close
2. Control Panel Jump List
Right-clicking on the Control Panel icon on the taskbar in Beta revealed a noticeably sparse Jump List. A few people such as Britney told us “Should most recently used items be displayed in the Jump List of the CPL when pinned to the taskbar? Something should be shown and nothing is there right now”. In RC the Control Panel Jump List offers quick access to recently used items.
Fig 2.
The Control Panel Jump List now surfaces recently used items
2. PowerShell Jump List
By default PowerShell in Beta launched a streamlined console. Customers could load optional modules via distinct shortcuts in the Start Menu. We heard from you that this was a confusing experience. Additionally, PowerShell did not surface a way to launch related tasks such as the Integrated Scripting Environment (ISE) from within their console experience. PowerShell now has a robust Jump List that affords a method to load modules, launch the ISE and open documentation.
3. Remote Desktop Jump List
Rajeev made us smile with his comment, “Being able to add my Remote Desktop shortcut to the taskbar—good. Saving settings and showing them in the Recent items section—awesome. Being able to pin the connections in the Jump List, so they always appear—priceless!” Well, Rajeev and others who shared this request, you will be enjoy this functionality in RC.
4. Applying taskbar settings
Have you ever customized the taskbar, only to find your changes were not saved across sessions? Has the taskbar ever inexplicably moved on you after you log in? For a variety of reasons, previous versions of Windows saved taskbar settings only after Explorer exited at the end of a session. However, if the OS is not shutdown properly these settings did not persist. Based on the bugs we saw from Beta, we decided to change our architecture and write these settings within 30 seconds (providing enough time to batch a group of changes) during the session. This means settings will now be more reliable.
Touch
5. Multi-touch zoom
One of the pieces of feedback we heard from the Beta was that customers enjoy the new multi-touch zoom feature, but wish it was supported in Windows Explorer. In response to this feedback we have added support for the zoom gesture in Windows Explorer. Using the zoom gesture you can switch between view modes in Explorer such as zooming from Small Icons to Extra Large icons.
Windows Explorer and Libraries
6. Invert Selection
In an effort to make improvements to performance, network bandwidth and memory footprint for various scenarios (e.g. libraries, search and search federation), we rearchitected the implementation of the view code in Windows Explorer. As part of this we did not to port “Invert Selection” since this rarely used feature is pretty complex to implement in the context of virtualized lists. Despite the small percentage of usage we’ve recorded, those who missed it have been pretty vocal :-) On one of the blog posts, GGreig summarized what we heard from several of you—“Invert Selection; that's a useful - sometimes absolutely invaluable - little piece of functionality, and I definitely don't want to see it go…Please reinstate Invert Selection.” Given the feedback from enthusiasts, we added back the functionality for RC.
7. Going up?
We’ve heard feedback, especially from those on this blog, that in Windows 7 moving up in the folder hierarchy often requires multiple clicks since longer folder names in the address bar often bump the parent folder into the overflow dropdown.
For RC, we’ve improved the overflow algorithm so that the parent folder’s button will appear in the address bar at all times and therefore going ‘up’ will always be a single click away in a predictable location. When there isn’t enough room to display the parent folder’s full name, it will appear truncated instead of going into the overflow. If space is especially tight, then the current folder’s name may appear truncated too, but in all cases the parent folder’s button will remain as a click target in the address bar.
In addition to making the address bar an even better tool for navigating ‘up’ in Explorer, this change also makes it easier to tell where your are as you navigate around since you can now see at least part of the parent folder’s name. It also avoids introducing any more redundant buttons to the Explorer frame and hence taking away any more screen space from being able to see your address. Also, it goes without saying that if you navigate into a folder, you can still use the back button to go back up. And the keyboard shortcut is also available.
Fig 3.
In Beta, a parent folder would collapse into an overflow dropdown
Fig 4.
In RC, parent folders always remain within single click access
8. Finding music by artist
We covered several of the improvements to arrangement views in the last post, but one we did not mention is that the “Artist” view in the Music Library now accounts for album artists and compilation albums. ShadowChaser summarized some feedback we heard from a number of customers in a comment: “The only concern I still have is with the ‘Artist’ view… it groups by ‘Contributing Artist’, not ‘Album Artist.’” Grouping only by contributing artist results in too many artists showing up and tracks from the same album getting split up in cases where customers didn’t expect. In RC, the “Artist” view in the Music Library groups together multiple tracks from an album by the common “Album Artist” property when it is available, groups tracks from compilation albums together into a “Various Artists” group and finally resorts to grouping by “Contributing Artist”. This reduces clutter when browsing music collection by artist, in addition to improving consistency with artist views in other applications and devices.
9. New folder is always available
We’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback during Beta about adding a top level “New folder” button in Explorer, freeing customers from digging into submenus. A common complaint we received, however, was that the button only appeared when nothing is selected. For RC, we’ve changed this so the “New folder” button will always appear, regardless of selection.
10. Right-click in Windows Explorer
For RC we’ve changed the behavior when right-clicking items in the view to address concerns customers were reporting with the Beta. We heard feedback that it was too hard to find space and get to the view’s background context menu for items such as New and Paste. Previously if one right-clicked over any portion of an item she would get the item’s context menu. We now show the view’s context menu when one clicks on any large white space, including the space between a files name and its properties.
11. Content view for search results
For RC we’ve adjusted the behavior when right-clicking items in the view to address concerns customers were reporting with the Beta. We heard feedback that it was too hard to find space
Content view is the new view mode we’ve added to Windows Explorer for Windows 7. It’s especially useful for search results where it surfaces the most relevant properties for each kind of file (e.g. documents, email, pictures and music) as well as a contextual “snippets” of the file content where the search term match occurred. There are a few changes here in the RC build. One thing we heard feedback on is that customers want to know exactly which properties were being shown for each item, so all properties now appear with labels. The text layout and colors have been updated in response to feedback to make each item even easier to parse and to avoid confusion with the colors used for encrypted or compressed files. We heard loud and clear that many found snippets very useful and wanted to see more of them, so in the RC we’ve allowed longer snippets and we’re using them in more places. In response to feedback we heard from customers when resizing their Explorer window or toggling the preview pane, we’ve made the transitions smoother as additional columns of information about each item are revealed when you make the view larger.
12. Intelligent re-indexing after application installation
In RC the Windows Search service now keeps the index up-to-date whenever support for new file types are introduced to the system. We know that in the past customers have sometimes had difficulties searching for files on their computer after new file handlers are installed. (File handlers govern how content and metadata is made searchable and are typically installed with applications such as Microsoft Office or updates such as the Microsoft Filter Pack).
In Win7 Beta (and previous versions of Windows), customers were required to rebuild their index whenever a new file handler was installed to ensure that any existing files were indexed with the newest functionality. Few customers knew to do this and it was an unnecessarily time consuming operation. Windows Search is more efficient in RC by automatically re-indexing the specific files affected by new file handlers. Rest assured that when one installs support for a certain kind of file, she can search for those files without doing any additional work.
Performance
13. Trimming sound schemes to help performance
We know our customers care about performance. We discovered that by just trimming the shutdown and logoff WAV files, we could save up to 400 ms. Every little bit counts.
Device Stage
14. Baseline Device Stage experience
Device Stage continues to enjoy positive reviews. For example, we saw this post on on a blog: “I have to be honest this works very well, it worked with my MP3 player in showing how much charge it had and other details as well is able to display the manual and offer me everything I needed to do with it effortlessly, including having the correct icon and image of the product.” However, we occasionally hear “too bad , my N70 aint supported either :-( …hopefully they are gonna support a ton more device by the time windows 7 get released”.
We took feedback like this to the devices makers and they too would like more integration given the interest from our customers. Several manufacturers are implementing custom experiences, but a large number have also opted to support their older devices in what we call the “baseline” Device Stage experience.
This UX works exactly like full Device Stage; the device image appears on the taskbar whenever it is connected and tasks are exposed in the Jump List. On first connect, the shell Window containing all of the built-in tasks appears automatically and is always just one click away from the desktop icon or device image in the Devices and Printers folder. When the device maker implements a custom Device Stage experience for a device, it gets posted on the Web and the baseline experience gets upgraded when the device is later reconnected. The core functionality is the same, but all of the branding, imaging and vendor-specific tasks are now available automatically in the same convenient UI.
Fig 5.
Baseline Device Stage experience for a mobile phone
15. Devices and Printers enhancement
PC and laptop makers such as Lenovo, were very interested in doing more than just showing the machine’s icon in Devices and Printers. They told us they wanted to leverage Device Stage to help them better customize the experience for our mutual customers. In RC double-clicking on the PC icon now offers a Device Stage UX. Like the other Device Stage devices, Device Stage for PC will be enabled when the PC maker has chosen to participate with their system.
Fig 6.
Device Stage experience for a PC
Devices and Printers
16. Unified experience for removing devices
One of the tasks customers perform in Devices & Printers is removing devices that are no longer in use. We received feedback that the remove action varied across different device classes. For example, removing a printer only removed the print queue and for Bluetooth devices it only removed the pairing of the device to the PC. We have changed this action to always completely uninstall the device across all device classes – which is the action that most customers expect.
17. Hardware properties
We know enthusiasts use the Device Manager’s property page to check the status of a device. We heard feedback that this wasn’t convenient and so we now also surface the property page directly from the Devices and Printers experience. Simply right-click on the device and one has one less reason to visit Device Manager.
18. Improved eject experience
The Safely Remove hardware functionality enables customers to make sure that their device is ready for removal. During the Windows 7 Beta, customers still had the Safely Remove Hardware functionality available on the taskbar as well as an Eject option on the context menus of applicable devices in Devices and Printers. Based on feedback, we have integrated these two separate pieces of functionality in RC and have changed its name from “Safely Remove” to “Eject”. The tool Notification Area icon still appears, but its context menu now has the option to open Devices and Printers. Also, we have simplified the options by eliminating the drop-down submenu and made the semantics for eject functionality more consistent across the different kinds of media. For example, ejecting an optical drive now ejects the media instead of the drive and ejecting a USB flash drive ejects the entire device instead of an individual volume.
19. USB device reliability on resume
We got feedback from a number of customers that their USB devices (e.g. keyboards, mice and drives) stopped working after a suspend/resume cycle. We worked with a number of customers to get traces and isolated the causes to address them post-beta builds. The work around in Beta was to unplug and replug the device to get it functional again—easy for external devices but not possible for internal devices. This workaround will not be needed on RC builds.
20. FireWire camera support
Some customers informed us they were unable to connected their 1394 HDV camera and stream its contents to their Beta machine. With the help of customers, we were able to identify a fault with our core 1394 stack and we’ve validated the scenario works in RC. This is another good example of the combination of telemetry and more “manual” follow up on the part of our test team.
Device Installation
21. Add Legacy Hardware functionality restored
The Add Legacy Hardware action was provided in Device Manager on past Windows releases to install non-Plug and Play devices. We removed this functionality for Windows 7 with the belief that this was rarely used. Aaron blogged, “You might have noticed that the old 'Add Legacy Hardware' option seems to be missing. I tend to use this quite a bit whenever I need to add in a Loopback adapter or some piece of hardware that is not quite installing correctly.” As a result, this functionality has been restored to Device Manager for RC to help add non-Plug and Play devices.
22. Increased responsiveness of Add Printer Wizard
There are some situations with legacy network printers in which Plug and Play cannot automatically identify the appropriate driver even when it’s available on Windows Update. For these situations, the Add Printer wizard allows customers to download a list of all the printer drivers available on Windows Update so they can manually select the driver for the specific printer being installed. The process of retrieving the list can take a few minutes and we received beta feedback that many people felt their machine was hung since there was nothing in the UI to let them know that it could take a few minutes. We have made some UI changes to indicate that process of retrieval can take some time. Additionally, we have also improved the overall performance of retrieving the list from Windows Update.
System
23. Partition size reduction
In Windows Vista, configuring features such as Windows Recovery Environment and Bit Locker required significant customer interaction. Also, a significant amount of drive space was reserved. The Windows 7 System partition enables features to be configured to work “out of the box” so very little customer interaction is needed to configure and utilize them. Based on feedback and telemetry data received through the beta, it became clear that we could cut the drive size in half (from 200M to 100M).
24. Reserved System Partition naming
The system partition is created automatically by Setup when installing on a machine with no existing partitions. During the Beta the existence of this partition on default installs confused many people and feedback indicated that a label telling them that this is space reserved for the system would be helpful when browsing disk configurations, and further help prevent it’s accidental deletion by enthusiasts. We will now label is “System Reserved”.
25. Dual Boot partition drive letter assignment
For a dual boot configuration for the Beta, the other Windows OS wouldn’t get a drive letter and therefore wouldn’t show up in explorer. We heard overwhelmingly from Beta customers that the lack of a drive letter was confusing and even caused some to believe that their secondary OS was lost. Assigning the drive letter makes it visible in explorer and aids in navigation across OS installations.
26. Pagefile reduction
Through extensive use of Beta telemetry data, we have determined we can slim down the Windows disk footprint further by reducing the default page file size to be 100% of the available main memory. It used to be “Memory + 300MB” so on a 1GB RAM system there was an extra third allocated that is no longer required. The pagefile on some occasions will increase in size if required, but we just pre-allocate less.
Network
27. Improved driver support
Based on telemetry data received from the beta, we identified networking drivers that were not available inbox. We worked with ecosystem partners to achieve increased inbox driver coverage across wireless and wired with significant coverage for some of the new ATOM-based laptops.
We hope you enjoyed yet another sneak peek into what’s coming in RC.
(source: MSDN)
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