Intel, Microsoft event to highlight Windows 7 improvements
Intel and Microsoft will hold an event next week to discuss collaboration on improvements to Windows 7.
The event, on September 1 in San Francisco, will "share how the two companies collaborated on key enhancements during the development of Windows 7," according to Intel. Steve Smith, vice president and director, Intel's Digital Enterprise Group Operations, and Michael Angiulo, general manager of Windows Planning and PC Ecosystem at Microsoft, will talk at the event. Microsoft plans to launch Windows 7 on October 22.
Windows 7 collaboration will be demonstrated by engineers from both companies, according to Intel. Not surprisingly, Microsoft is working closely with Intel, whose chips will power the vast majority of PCs running Windows 7.
In a blog posted in July, Intel described how Microsoft and Intel "saw unique opportunities to optimize Windows 7 for Intel processor technology" in the areas of performance, power management, and graphics.
The blog discusses improvements to multitasking based on "SMT Parking," which provides additional support to the Windows 7 scheduler for Intel Hyper-threading Technology. With Hyper-threading, the operating system sees a single processor core as two cores (i.e., a dual-core chip becomes a virtual quad-core processor), thus potentially improving multitasking--or doing tasks (threads) simultaneously.
In addition, improvements over Vista for boot and shutdown times have been implemented during the Windows 7 development cycle, according to the blog.
And on Intel's Web site, the chipmaker lists desktop motherboards and associated drivers that have passed logo certification for Windows 7.
Another beneficiary of improved Windows 7 technology: Intel solid-state drives, which are typically faster than hard-disk drives and gaining ground in niche markets such as high-end laptops, gaming PCs, and servers. SSDs will be able to take advantage of Windows 7 technology called the Trim Command. Trim will allow blocks of data to be freed up for reuse to better maintain the performance of the SSD.
Windows 7 will also do more than previous operating systems with graphics via DirectX 11. Advanced Micro Devices has described DirectX 11-related technology that enables games developers to create smoother, less blocky and more organic looking objects in games. And, beyond games, Windows 7 has the potential to turn a graphics processing unit (GPU) from AMD or Nvidia into a general-purpose compute engine, used to accelerate everyday computing tasks like a central processing unit, or CPU. Specifically, "the compute shader" can be used to speed up more common computing tasks. The buzz word used to describe this technology is a mouthful: GPGPU or general-purpose graphics processing unit.
Brooke Crothers has served as an editor at large at CNET News, an editor at Dow Jones' Asian Wall Street Journal Weekly, and a senior editor at InfoWorld. His CNET blog covers chip technology and computer systems, and how they define the computing experience. He also contributes to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. Follow Brooke on Twitter @mbrookec. 
I just better keep using my registry logger program and remove the registry files programs make after I uninstall them.
Really now. How dare a company try and hide settings in a registry.
They are not very honest if you ask me.
Also maybe with 7 Symantec will stop relying on security checks when a battery goes dead and antivirus says my subscription has expired.... yeah riiiight!
It sure is good to know some things will never change.
The sun will come up in the morning.
The price of gas keeps going up.
The_happy_switcher makes another pointless and ignorant posting about a subject of which they have no knowledge.
Something that is close to instant on and off, and is fast, simple, clean, and virus free.
I don't need 4 gigs of ram and expensive hardware to run Windows, Wordpad, Paint.
All I care about is the Web because it runs so much more stuff than Windows apps.
So give me a Web OS please and I know that Google Chrome OS will be great because Google Talk, Gmail, and Google Docs are so much better, cleaner, & easy to use than what Microsoft offers in those spaces.
Windows as an OS will be redundant when Web OSes really take off.
gas prices just fell recently
the world will end
Gas prices have gone up over 10 cents in just this weekend alone for my area. It's been going up 15-20 cents a week for the last month or so.
Microsoft definitely got Windows 7 right. It will be interesting to see what SP1 brings to the table.
I used to be one of the "Windows Haters", and rightfully so because of Vista. But Windows 7 is a monumental leap forward, and has many fans already- before it's been released!
Sure, I don't think many people will fall in love with Windows, but 7 makes it much more bearable to do many everyday tasks.. The UI is streamlined and improved, and you can definitely notice that the system is much more responsive and snappier as well.
Oh, and about BSOD. Windows 7 is based on the secure and mature underpinnings of Windows Vista.
PR wise, yeah, Vista was a disaster. But after having years to refine that code, Microsoft has made vast improvements to stability of 7 in terms of devices and drivers- two big reasons systems would BSOD. I've yet to experience a Blue Screen encounter.
I'm not trying to say I love Microsoft or Windows now, I still think they are a dastardly company. But as far as Windows 7 goes, I think that people should actually use it themselves and maybe, just maybe, people might "like" Windows again.
Oh, and as far as the Intel integration and tweaking goes- I'm running 7 Ultimate RTM on my Dual Core Atom 330 w/ only 2GB ram. The verdict? As fast and stable as XP!
My HP multifunction wouldn't scan, and there was no support for my Netgear media player or Storage Central units.
If it weren't for those issues, I'd upgrade in an instant. Windows 7 is otherwise superb; fast, reliable and easier to use.
Maybe I'll try again after the official release (or maybe SP-1) ... I'm not going to pay for software that forces me to upgrade hardware at the same time, particularly when some of that hardware is less than 12 months old. Patience....
And @MackSunum, the reason it is taking so long to boot after you cut the power, is that it is runing "Chkdsk /f" in first so your system isn't further corrupted by your not going though the shutdown process. It is being robust and self correcting. It is a good thing.
If you want to play with kindergarten toys - buy a PC with Windows 7
If you want to play with the big boys - buy a Mac
[CNET editor's note: Offensive comment deleted.]
gphillips31 is just a troll
I think it's safe to say the account was created for one purpose and one purpose only.
And oh, I know kids in kindergarten that make a heck of a lot more sense than you do.
But I'm just saying things. :|
It seems like there is more Microsoft technology to build on in Windows 7, but who is building on this stuff anymore? Anyone? Who is going to be using the trim command? Who used the hybrid hard drive support and other useless stuff in Vista?
Acer is putting Linux in ROM, RIM just bought a WebKit browser, Google Chrome OS is Linux and WebKit, and I hear people talk more about the Facebook API and the iPhone API than any kind of Windows development.
What's the elevator pitch on Windows 7? If I have XP now, I should backup my system, wipe it, install Windows 7, reinstall all of my applications, and carefully restore all of my documents ... for what?
What's the 1 feature that is worth the upgrade price all on its own? For example, for Leopard it was Time Machine, and for Snow Leopard, it is easily MS Exchange or QuickTime X depending on the user. What's the Windows 7 feature that later on I'll say "that was worth the $399 all by itself"?
It's just amazing that the features are so few and far between. It's amazing to see people still going through the motions like it's 2003 and this is the follow-up to XP.
- by lflores0860 August 27, 2009 2:32 PM PDT
- Hi, I already installed window 7 ultimate and it's work good you don't need to install all your drivers it's automatically installed by itself. but if it's not compaible it will automatically download it thru internet that how it great. one thingt i recognized was if window 7 can't download your driver it tell you. that was happen to me cause my microtek scanner 3800 was not recognized and was not installed yet, i try to look other oftion in microtek.com but it was not available yet. but all in all it was great and boot fast.
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