Windows 7 is an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, netbooks, tablet PCs, and media center PCs;^[5] Windows 7 was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009,^[6] and reached general retail availability worldwide on October 22, 2009,^[7] less than three years after the release of its predecessor, Windows Vista. Windows 7's server counterpart, Windows Server 2008 R2, was released at the same time. Windows 7 is succeeded by Windows 8, released on 26 October 2012.

Unlike Windows Vista, which introduced a large number of new features, Windows 7 was intended to be a more focused, incremental upgrade to the Windows line, with the goal of being compatible with applications and hardware with which Windows Vista was already compatible.^[8] Presentations given by Microsoft in 2008 focused on multi-touch support, a redesigned Windows shellwith a new taskbar, referred to as the Superbar, a home networking system called HomeGroup,^[9] and performance improvements. Some standard applications that have been included with prior releases of Microsoft Windows, including Windows Calendar, Windows Mail, Windows Movie Maker, andWindows Photo Gallery, are not included in Windows 7;^[10][11] most are instead offered separately at no charge as part of the Windows Essentials suite.

New and changed features

Windows 7 includes a number of new features, such as advances in touch and handwriting recognition, support for virtual hard disks, improved performance on multi-coreprocessors,^{[13][14][15][16]} improved boot performance, DirectAccess, and kernelimprovements. Windows 7 adds support for systems using multiple heterogeneous graphics cards from different vendors (Heterogeneous Multi-adapter), a new version of Windows Media Center,^[17] a Gadget for Windows Media Center, improved media features, the XPSEssentials Pack and Windows PowerShell being included, and a redesigned Calculator with multiline capabilities including Programmer and Statistics modes along with unit conversion for length, weight, temperature, and several others. Many new items have been added to theControl Panel, including ClearType Text Tuner, Display Color Calibration Wizard, Gadgets, Recovery, Troubleshooting, Workspaces Center, Location and Other Sensors, Credential Manager, Biometric Devices, System Icons, and Display.^[18] Windows Security Center has been renamed to Windows Action Center (Windows Health Center and Windows Solution Center in earlier builds), which encompasses both security and maintenance of the computer. ReadyBoost on 32-bit editions now supports up to 256 gigabytes of extra allocation. The default setting for User Account Control in Windows 7 has been criticized for allowing untrusted software to be launched with elevated privileges without a prompt by exploiting a trusted application.^[19] Microsoft's Windows kernel engineer Mark Russinovichacknowledged the problem, but noted that malware can also compromise a system when users agree to a prompt.^[20] Windows 7 also supports images in RAW image format through the addition of Windows Imaging Component-enabled image decoders, which enables raw image thumbnails, previewing and metadata display in Windows Explorer, plus full-size viewing and slideshows in Windows Photo Viewer and Windows Media Center.^[21]