Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system
was released on October 22, 2009,
and although their mainstream support ended on January 13,
2015, they are still providing extended support for Windows 7
through January 14, 2020.
Windows 7 has a similar look and feel to the previous Windows
version, Windows Vista.
And although it uses the same type of hardware
and the same software drivers, you'll
find that Windows 7 has a bit of improved
performance over Windows Vista.
In Windows 7, we saw some new features
over Windows Vista such as libraries, HomeGroup,
and the pinned task bar at the bottom of the screen.
There are six main versions of Windows 7, Windows 7 Starter,
Home Basic, Home Premium, Ultimate Professional
and Enterprise, we'll talk about most of these versions,
except for Windows Home Basic.
This was a special version of Windows 7
that was created exclusively for emerging markets.
Before we were using tablets, we were using netbooks,
and Windows 7 Starter was designed
to be used on these network platforms.
For example, we didn't have any DVD playback or Windows Media
Center functionality on a netbook,
because netbooks were not designed with enough CPU
to be able to provide video, and most netbooks
didn't have any DVD hardware.
The limited graphics functionality on a netbook
also meant that you weren't going to use Windows Aero.
You also didn't have Windows Internet Connection Sharing
or ICS functionality on a simple netbook platform.
Obviously Microsoft's Internet Information Service,
which is their web server would not
be running on Windows 7 Starter, and you also
wouldn't have any enterprise-type functionality
on Windows 7 Starter, so you wouldn't
be able to connect to Windows domain,
you wouldn't have any full disk encryption with BitLocker
or individual file encryption with the encrypting file
system.
Windows 7 Starter is also only available as a 32-bit operating
system, and it only supports a maximum of 2 gigabytes of RAM.
Windows 7 Home Premium is the version of Windows
that was built for the consumer market.
As the name implies, this is the version of Windows
that you would commonly find running in the home.
It allowed for DVD playback, there
was graphical functionality with Windows Aero,
you had the Internet Connection Sharing
and IIS web server functionality as well.
But again, because this was in the home,
you didn't have any enterprise functionality
such as domain connectivity, BitLocker, or EFS.
This version of Windows 7 is available as a 64-bit version,
and it supports up to 16 gigabytes of RAM
and two physical processors in the computer.
If you wanted to use a Windows 7 version at home that
was fully featured, then you're probably
going to run Windows 7 Ultimate.
This version included domain support, Remote Desktop,
encrypting file system, and full disk encryption with BitLocker.
This version of Windows 7 is also
available as a 64-bit version and supports
up to 192 gigabytes of memory.
In many ways, Windows 7 Ultimate has the same functionality
as the Windows 7 Enterprise Edition,
except Windows 7 Ultimate is one that can be purchased and used
by the home user.
In the workplace the edition of Windows 7
that's commonly used as Windows 7 Professional.
This has all of the same capabilities as Windows Home
Premium, but it includes the ability
to connect to a Windows domain.
And you can turn on a remote desktop host and encrypting
file system.
The Professional Edition of Windows 7,
though, did not support BitLocker.
So you were not able to have full disk encryption
with Windows 7 Professional.
This is also available as a 64-bit version
and supports up to 192 gigabytes of memory.
If you are a large organization and you
use volume licensing to purchase your Windows licenses,
then you commonly used Windows 7 Enterprise.
This is a version of Windows that
had all of the same functionality
as the Windows 7 Professional, but included
additional multilingual user interface packages
and included full disk encryption with BitLocker.
The hardware requirements for Windows 7
were different whether you were running
a 32-bit version of Windows 7 or 64-bit version of Windows 7,
regardless of which edition.
The CPU that you need is a 1 gigahertz processor.
The amount of memory for the 32-bit version is 1 gigabyte,
and that's doubled to 2 gigabytes
for the 64-bit version.
The 32-bit version of Windows 7 needs 16 gigabytes of free disk
space to install and the 64-bit version needs just a little bit
more at 20 gigabytes.
And for both of these editions you
need a DirectX 9 graphics device that
has compatibility with the Windows display
driver model 1.0 or higher.
Here's a summary of the features available
in these different windows 7 editions.
The edition that has the least functionality
is Windows 7 Starter.
You can see none of these features are available.
It's not supported in a 64-bit version.
You can only get a 32-bit version,
and that only supports 2 gigabytes of RAM.
The Home Premium version includes DVD playback, the Aero
graphics, and the internet Connection
Sharing functionality.
When you move up to the Professional version,
you have the ability to connect to a Windows domain,
and you can encrypt individual files with the encrypting file
system.
With the Enterprise and Ultimate versions of Windows 7,
you include BitLocker functionality so
that you cover all of these different features
for those two editions.