Microsoft has finally released a new operating system that is long overdue after the infamous Vista disaster. The new operating system, called Windows 7 (for the lack of a better name), offers a smoother user experience, multi-touchscreen capability and more seamless networking with other computers.

Early reviews have been promising. It’s argued to be the best operating system that Microsoft has released thus far. It’s even comparable to Apple’s Snow Leopard (much cooler name).

But before you rush out to purchase a copy of Windows 7, you need to consider the following facts to see if it’s right for you.

System Requirements:

1. 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
2. 1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
3. 16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
4. DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

Requirements For Additional Features:

1. Depending on resolution, video playback may require additional memory and advanced graphics hardware
2. For some Windows Media Center functionality a TV tuner and additional hardware may be required
3. Windows Touch and Tablet PCs require specific hardware
4. HomeGroup requires a network and PCs running Windows 7
5. DVD/CD authoring requires a compatible optical drive
   BitLocker requires Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 1.2
6. BitLocker To Go requires a USB flash drive
7. Windows XP Mode requires an additional 1 GB of RAM, an additional 15 GB of available hard disk space, and a processor capable of hardware virtualization with Intel VT or AMD-V turned on

If you’re not sure what all that means, try downloading a free Microsoft tool called a Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor, which will scan your PC, report any potential problems and offer ways to fix them.

Should I Upgrade To Windows 7?

Let’s see, if budget is not an issue and you generally like newer technologies, then sure go for it. But priced between $120 to $220, upgrading can be expensive if you don’t really need all the features. If your laptop or desktop is an ancient piece of junk, then consider upgrading your computer to one that comes preloaded with Windows 7. These days, you can probably find one cheap for under $500. If you are happy with XP or Vista (can’t imagine anyone is happy), then you can afford to wait until the prices drops. If you are still not sure, check out Microsoft’s comparison chart or top 10 reasons.

If you had purchased your computer after June 26, 2009, you may be qualified for an upgrade to Windows 7 from the manufacturer. Check out more information here.

What Versions of Windows 7 Should I Get?

The differences between the Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate editions are as follows:

Home Premium:

• Make the things you do every day easier with improved desktop navigation.
• Start programs faster and more easily, and quickly find the documents you use most often.
• Make your web experience faster, easier and safer than ever with Internet Explorer 8.
• Watch, pause, rewind, and record TV on your PC.
• Easily create a home network and connect your PCs to a printer with HomeGroup.

Professional:

• Everything that Home Premium has plus…
• Run many Windows XP productivity programs in Windows XP Mode.
• Connect to company networks easily and more securely with Domain Join.
• In addition to full-system Backup and Restore found in all editions, you can back up to a home or business network.

Ultimate:

• Everything that Professional has plus…
• Help protect data on your PC and portable storage devices against loss or theft with BitLocker.
• Work in the language of your choice and switch between any of 35 languages.

Is It Difficult To Install Windows 7?

If you currently have Vista, then upgrade is a piece of cake. Just pop in the CD, run Setup, and choose Upgrade as the option. The upgrade process is smooth and automatic.

If you currently have XP, your best choice to start fresh. Backup your files (using a USB external drive), reformat the hard drive, and install a fresh copy of Windows 7. I wouldn’t recommend with the complicated process of upgrade from XP to Windows 7. Someone suggests that you may try to upgrade to Vista first then to Windows 7.

Will Windows 7 run old XP programs?

Since Windows 7 just released, most devices still lack updated drivers for Windows 7. However, most users reported that Vista and XP drivers seem to work just fine. For older applications, Microsoft introduced XP Mode, which creates a virtual, or “shadow” Windows XP operating system running inside Windows 7. XP Mode is only available in the higher-priced Professional and Ultimate editions, though.

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Surfing around the net i found these screenshots of windows 7 on gizmodo

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With Microsoft picking up the pace in both the development and marketing of Windows 7, it’s also finding itself moving ahead with the next amendment package for Vista not too long after the release of SP1.

In an early piece of news that we had expected to hear on Monday, Microsoft will release the first beta editions of Service Pack 2 for Windows Vista to private testers on Wednesday, October 29. Those testers will be among the first, according to a blog post from Windows 7 corporate VP Mike Nash this afternoon, to test burning data directly to Blu-ray Discs using only the Vista OS.

“Windows Vista SP2 Beta contains previously released fixes focused on addressing specific reliability, performance, and compatibility issues,” Nash wrote this morning. “We expect Windows Vista SP2 will retain compatibility with applications that run on Windows Vista and Windows Vista SP1 and are written using public APIs. Because we’ve adopted a single serviceability model, these improvements are integrated into a single service pack covering both Windows Vista (client) and Windows Server 2008 (server) versions. This should also minimize deployment and testing complexity for our customers.”

Other features Nash listed include support for the Bluetooth 2.1 specification, which was formally adopted in August 2007. This could enable new notebook computers to support near-field communication (NFC), which lets devices situated very near to one another to share data at wire-like speeds.

Windows Search 4.0 will be added to the mix, although that’s already been available separately. Also, a feature that was originally created for Windows XP Professional SP2, and that was omitted from both Vista RTM and SP1 despite announcements to the contrary, will finally make its re-appearance in Vista SP2: Called Windows Connect Now, it’s a way to quickly deploy a profile for devices to be added to one’s secure wireless network.

While Nash specifically mentioned Vista SP2’s ability to record data to Blu-ray, he did not say whether a revised Windows Media Player would play Blu-ray movie discs. What also isn’t known yet is whether SP2 will handle User Account Control differently than SP1, in response to folks who’ve complained about the propensity of warning messages they receive. These are features we may learn more (or less) about next week during our week-long coverage of Microsoft’s annual PDC conference in Los Angeles.

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In its monthly advance notice the weekend before the second Tuesday of the month, Microsoft said it will only be addressing four security issues this time around, two dealing with Windows. But a surprisingly big Vista bug fix is under way.

If you think about it, the relative security of Windows Vista hasn’t been the subject of much debate recently. If there’s any problem consumers have with it, whether it’s born out of market perception or real-world experience, it’s a feeling that it’s not all that reliable.

So perhaps it’s not such a bad thing that next week’s Patch Tuesday round of fixes from Microsoft will focus less on security — with only four issues in that category to be addressed there — and more on Vista’s overall reliability. A single performance update announced by Microsoft on June 24 will tackle some real-world problems that Vista users have been facing, according to automated feedback the company’s servers receive when Internet-connected Vista users crash.Here’s a little annoyance: Have you ever tried to delete a user account from Vista’s Control Panel, only to be responded to by your system sitting there in an endless loop, doing nothing? Then when you reboot, the account’s not gone? That’s one of the issues this performance update will address.

And what is it about Vista, after you leave your computer on for an “extended period of time” (A day? Two days?) makes it decide that Excel is no longer a valid application for you to run? How many times has this happened to you, to paraphrase a TV infomercial? That’s another bug Vista users should find gone, hopefully.

There’s also interesting little problems such as certain builds of NVidia drivers that cause high-definition audio streams to sound like they’ve been fed through a chipper-shredder, and Windows Mail (the replacement for Outlook Express) triggering a crash when traffic monitoring is enabled through Windows, and e-mail security through ZoneAlarm is active at the same time. These are the little, everyday affairs that some people really look forward to seeing gone. Quite possibly, they impact more users than the average newly discovered vulnerability.

It’ll be nice to see how well this latest round of patches addresses these and a host of other Vista-related issues.

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Hackers continue trying to exploit a patched vulnerability in Microsoft’s Graphic Display Interface (GDI), researchers said this week.

Craig Schmugar, threat researcher at McAfee, reported that the first exploit was discovered on Friday, three days after the issue was patched by bulletin MS08-021.
“One method the bad guys use is to take the patch and reverse engineer it,” Schmugar said on Tuesday. “They look at the files on the computer prior to installing the patch and then after, and try to compare the two and see how they can take advantage of the change.”

The exploit – which can permit remote code execution if a user opens a specially crafted EMF or WMF image file – does not affect customers who have installed the updates detailed in MS08-021, said Bill Sisk, security response communications manager for Microsoft.

“By default, Microsoft Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Server 2008 customers will have this update applied automatically through Automatic Updates,” Sisk said.

Microsoft encourages all customers to apply its most recent security updates to help ensure that their computers are protected from attempted criminal attacks.

Schmugar said that GDI has had vulnerability issues in the past. The fact that Microsoft credited three researchers with discovering the flaw suggests that multiple people were looking for potential problems and more problems could be on the way.

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Microsoft’s Vista Ultimate SP1 and Apple, Inc.’s MacBook Air have been hacked through applications, with only Ubuntu unbreached in the Pwn to Own challenge at CanSecWest. The zero-day vulnerabilities in Microsoft and Apple’s systems have been reported. Shane Macaulay won a laptop and $5,000 for hacking Microsoft Windows Vista.

Last week saw the MacBook Air hacked through a Safari browser at the CanSecWest security conference. But before the week ended, Microsoft ’s Vista Ultimate also fell victim to hackers in the Pwn to Own challenge.

CanSecWest organizers offered a Fujitsu U810 laptop running Vista Ultimate SP1 to any security researcher who could find a way to breach security and gain access to the contents of system files using a previously undisclosed zero-day attack.

Shane Macaulay from Security Objectives won the laptop by exploiting an Adobe Flash zero-day vulnerability. The vulnerability was disclosed to Adobe, which is reportedly working on the issue. No other information is available about the Adobe flaw. Macaulay also won a $5,000 cash prize.

At the end of the last day of the three-day hacker challenge, which was sponsored by 3Com’s TippingPoint , only the Sony VAIO laptop running Ubuntu (Linux) was left standing.

Shifting Rules

The first day of the contest, hackers were only allowed to hack into the computers over a network. No one was able to claim the prizes. On the second day, the rules changed. Contestants were allowed to use the machines to visit Web sites and open e-mail messages.

That rule change made it possible for Charlie Miller, a researcher at Independent Security Evaluators, to hack the MacBook Air using the Safari browser within two minutes.

But the Vista and Ubuntu laptops seemingly remained airtight. On the third day of the contest, the judges again broadened the rules, opening up the scope beyond just default installed applications on those laptops to any popular third-party application, such as Adobe’s Acrobat Reader, the Firefox browser, and voice-over-IP program Skype.

Macaulay installed Adobe Flash on the laptops and proceeded to compromise the system. Macaulay had some help from Security Objectives colleague Derek Callaway and independent researcher Alexander Sotirov.

Means Justifies the End

Contests such as this tend to be high profile and gain a great deal of attention, but people need to realize that similar vulnerabilities are discovered every day and many stay hidden in the underground where they are used by attackers for some time before they’re patched, according to Michael Sutton, director of security research at Safe Channel and a former director at VeriSign iDefense.

“Third-party researchers deserve to be rewarded for the considerable work that goes into uncovering vulnerabilities, so long as they handle the issues responsibly and report them to the appropriate parties to ensure that patches are created and distributed,” Sutton said. “In this case, the contest does just that, so the end justifies the means.”

Client-side vulnerabilities like the ones exploited in the hacking contest are an increasingly popular attack vector. It’s easy to protect a single server that’s guarded by a well-designed fortress of controls, Sutton explained, but it’s a nightmare to secure thousands of client-side applications under the control of nonsecurity-savvy end users.

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Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) Release Candidate (RC)is the new XP version release from Microsoft set to accommodate all previously released updates for the operating system, in addition to some previously released functionalities such as: MMC 3.0, MSXML6, Microsoft Windows Installer 3.1 v2 (3.1.4000.2435), Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) 2.5, IPsec Simple Policy Update for Windows Server 2003, Digital Identity Management Service (DIMS), Peer Name Resolution Protocol (PNRP) 2.1. Plus some new and enhanced functionalities: Black Hole” Router Detection, Network Access Protection (NAP), Descriptive Security Options User Interface, Enhanced security for Administrator and Service policy entries, Microsoft Kernel Mode Cryptographic Module, Windows Product Activation.

For more information about the package, download The official Overview

You can download the installer from Microsoft Download center or just click on one of the following links for a direct download:

English: windowsxp-kb936929-sp3-x86-enu.exe

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