3852 ebook windows7

1 Get Ready for Windows 7, an Internet.com IT Management eBook. © 2009, WebMediaBrands Inc.

Get Ready for Windows 7

Back to contents an IT Management eBook®

Get ready for Windows 7


2 Windows 7 Review: Why I Like Windows 7

5 And the 3 Most Important New Features of Windows 7 Are…

7 Windows 7 IT Pro Feature Watch List

9 Gartner: Windows 7 OK for Vista Disgruntled

11 Windows 7 Security: Good, Bad or Ugly?

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Contents…

This content was adapted from Internet.com’s Datamation, Enterprise IT Planet, and CIO Update Web sites. Contributors: Andy Rathbone, Steven Warren, Dries Janssens, and Sonny Discini.

1 Solving Storage for Your SMB, an Internet.com Storage eBook. © 2009, WebMediaBrands Inc.



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After nearly eight years, Windows XP had grown as comfortable as an old car. Just as I’d forgotten about the growing number of dings on my car’s bumper, I’d forgotten how many third-party tools

I’d used to prop up Windows XP. After adding CD and DVD burners, search programs, Firefox, three media players and a host of other tools, my Start menu’s three columns reached the far edge of my desktop.

That’s why running Windows 7 for the past seven months brought back the excitement of driving a new car. And for the first time, my once trusted Windows XP began looking like a car that needed much more than a paint job.

It’s partially my own fault. Like many others, I skipped Windows Vista. And Vista, for all its faults, provided a strong, secure base. Unfortunately, Microsoft ruined Vista’s improvements by adding overly aggressive security, thick layers of meandering menus, and a sense of being designed by a huge committee.

Windows 7 strips away that ugliness to create something that’s light yet strong, useful yet still playful. Windows 7 grabs me in a lot of ways Windows XP no longer does.

Wallpaper Oddly enough, Windows 7’s new wallpaper provides a great

example of how Windows 7 pulls off a difficult mix of being both utilitarian and fun. Windows 7 softens Vista’s armored-guard persona by adding a healthy dose of personality. Its backgrounds come stuffed with groovy psychedelic land-scapes, dreamy Dada-esque creatures, and candy-colored

anime art.

By draping this whimsy over Vista’s security underpinnings, Microsoft’s helping make people feel both safe and creative with their computers, a feeling that comes so naturally to Apple.

Even if the backgrounds don’t suit your fancy, you must admire how Windows 7’s design team deliberately chose wallpaper that would have been shot down in a traditional boardroom. That’s a big change from Vista, where every-thing seemed to fall to the lowest

common denominator.

Minimal Hardware Demands Vista’s bloat kept it from running on netbooks, the PC industry’s single bright spot these days. Windows 7, by con-trast, runs fine on most netbooks, as well as on older PCs. Needing another test machine while writing Windows 7 For Dummies, I installed Windows 7 on a Pentium III with 16MB of video memory. Surprisingly enough, Windows 7 not only installed, but its automatic trip to Windows Update brought

Windows 7 Review: Why I Like Windows 7

By Andy Rathbone

By draping this whimsy over Vista’s security underpinnings, Microsoft’s helping make people feel both safe and creative with

their computers, a feeling that comes so naturally to Apple. ”“



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the PC some new drivers, as well. That old Gateway PC will never be a game machine, of course, but it works fine for the essentials, e-mail and the Internet.

Chances are Windows 7’s slimmed down footprint will fit well on your PC, as well, whether it’s a modern netbook or a borderline antique.

Adjustable User Account Control Probably the most welcome change is that Windows 7 tones down User Account Control’s overly aggressive policing. But if you still find yourself grinding your teeth more than work-ing, a sliding control lets you adjust Windows 7’s paranoia level to match your own. It’s refreshing to feel in con-trol of your PC rather than the other way around.

Shortcut Keys Once you learn a few shortcut keys, they become addictive, and Windows 7 brings several welcome ones. For example, placing two windows side-by-side on a crowded desktop took a lot of mouse maneuvering in Windows XP. In Windows 7, you click the first window, and press Win+Right Arrow to scoot the win-dow against the right edge. Follow up with a Win+Left Arrow on the second window, and you’ve lined them up side-by-side, ready for quick information swapping.

Windows 7 comes loaded with many other creative key-board shortcuts, a sign that the team had time to focus on subtle details rather than major overhauls.

Taskbar Jumplists Windows 7 overhauled the taskbar with jumplists – pop-up menus listing frequently accessed items and common tasks. Need to see one of your favorite Web sites in a hurry? Right-click the taskbar’s browser icon, click the favored site’s name from the pop-up list’s “Frequent” section, and the browser opens to that site.

Can’t remember the location of that helpful folder you opened yesterday? Right-click the Explorer icon, click the folder’s name from the jumplist, and start digging in. With jumplists, Windows 7 adds a feeling of immediate gratifica-tion that all too often went missing from Vista.

Libraries After people amass a decade’s worth of digital informa-tion, finding pieces of that information becomes the biggest challenge. Windows 7’s libraries tackle the organization part of that problem by letting one library show the contents of several folders. Store your music in the Public Music folder, for example, and those tunes automatically appear in every user account’s Music library.

Libraries break tradition, and IT people will be doing a lot of tutoring in the months to come. But once people grasp the concept, they’ll be able to spend more time working with

their information rather than finding it.

Homegroup With Windows 7, Microsoft finally realized that people don’t need the same level of security on their home networks as they do on the Internet. Homegroups let everybody type a single password into their networked PCs. Those PCs then join hands to become a Homegroup, where every PC on the network can share all the music, pictures, and videos stored by everyone else. Of course, anybody can opt out of sharing their media. But chances are, most people will embrace this easier way to share their vacation photos and music.

Windows 7’s a huge step forward from Microsoft Vista, and it’s versatile enough to last for years to come. But Windows 7’s certainly not perfect.

As to be expected, Windows 7 is often too much about Microsoft’s needs, rather than your own. For example, Win-dows 7 no longer comes with an e-mail program, so Win-dows 7 understandably pushes Microsoft’s new Windows Live Mail program as a replacement.

Try to download Windows Live Mail, though, and the instal-lation program tries to install Microsoft’s entire suite of Live programs. Then the installer tries to hijack your Home page to Microsoft’s ad-soaked MSN, and switch your search en-gine to Microsoft’s Live Search.

And the program repetitively begs you to sign up for a Windows Live e-mail address, no matter how many e-mail addresses you’ve accumulated over the years.

If you’re upgrading Windows Vista to Windows 7, Microsoft

With Windows 7, Microsoft finally

realized that people don’t need the same level of security on

their home networks as they do on the

Internet.

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switches your default browser to Internet Explorer 8, no matter how many years you’ve been using Firefox. Internet Explorer’s Favorites and Feeds areas come pre-stuffed with links to Microsoft’s products.

In short, Microsoft’s trying to wring as much cash as possi-ble from their enviable position of automatically landing atop 90 percent of the world’s desktops. There’s nothing wrong with business making money, of course. One day, hopefully, Microsoft will be a little less obnoxious about it.

Let’s hope the company doesn’t pile it on so thick it ruins the Windows 7 experience I’ve found so far. n



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Many businesses skipped the adoption of Win-dows Vista for just cause: they were happy with their stable versions of Windows XP. With Win-dows 7 now RTM you will see a strong adoption

by 2010 and here is why: green computing, mobile comput-ing, and Windows XP mode.

The Kermit Factor Under the hood, Windows 7 does have some features that make it greener than its predeces-sor, Windows Vista. Today more than ever, companies are focused on reducing costs. The simplest way to reduce overhead costs is to reduce your power consumption. Windows 7 has this feature. It is a fact that Windows 7 is more en-ergy efficient than Windows Vista and Windows XP.

One new feature is called timer coalescing. In modern processors, timer coalescing better schedules the work your processor does. By grouping tasks sent to the pro-cessor core at the same time, the processor can complete jobs quicker and then go back to sleep.

Another great feature that will save your company money is the ability to manage power consumption via group policy, WMI, and a command line utility called PowerCfg. Running PowerCfg on a computer or pushing out to multiple com-puters will allow you to identify energy efficiency issues by

tracing the computer for 60 seconds and saving an energy report locally. Additionally, you can also run parameters to find out why specific computers will not go to sleep. All of this control allows you to save lots of money in a corporate environment.

In order to save the most money on power consumption, you need to be able to push out changes at a global level. This is where Windows 7 shines by allowing you a more granular

power management group policy setting. You can configure many power management settings, which in turn saves you money. Windows 7 has much more control than its predecessors ever had.

Mobile Computing For corporate environments with a large mobile workforce, moving to Windows 7 will have significant advantages. First, Windows 7 now has a one-click wireless network that allows you to choose your network profile in one simple click. It is strikingly similar to Apple and a great benefit for roaming mobile

users.

One of the most useful features is the much improved bat-tery life. In several tests I performed using the same laptop; I was able to get better battery life on Windows 7 when run-ning a DVD movie―up to 25 percent better. When I reimaged my laptop with Windows XP and Windows Vista, battery life suffered. As a bonus, I also enjoyed the 11 second boot

And the 3 Most Important New Features of Windows 7 Are…

By Steven Warren

For corporate environments with a large mobile workforce, moving to Windows 7 will have significant advantages. ”“



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time. So will you.

Microsoft introduced BitLocker disk encryption with Win-dows Vista. This first pass of BitLocker only allowed you to encrypt the volume that had the operating system installed. The service pack 1 release extended this and allowed you to encrypt other drives, as well. Windows 7 trumps that by allowing you to take advantage of its fast-food BitLocker edi-tion that enables you to encrypt USB thumb drives and other removable media.

Another plus for mobile users is adaptive display brightness that allows you to dim the display after a certain amount of activity in addition to powering it off after five to 10 minutes of non-use. This can all be managed via group policy as well and is a huge cost savings considering laptop displays are roughly 30 percent of a laptop’s total power usage. In a corporate environment, this could add up to a significant savings.

Windows 7 also provides new power management features for wired and wireless networking. When users disconnect the network cable, Windows 7 can automatically place the adapter into a lower-power state. This feature is known as D3. This will save you up to .5 watts.

When you reconnect the network cable, Windows 7 will put the adapter back into a full-power state. This is called D0. Additionally, Windows 7 enables wireless network control-

lers to enter low power modes, as well. All of this functional-ity can be managed through power policy settings to give the IT administrator more control over power usage across the corporate environment. Windows Vista had this technol-ogy but the low power mode support was not there.

XP Mode With Windows 7, Microsoft introduces Windows XP mode. Windows XP mode consists of a virtual based environment and a fully licensed copy of Windows XP with service pack 3 (SP3). It will be available, for free (via download), to users of Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate edi-tions. This is Microsoft’s answer to corporations who are reluctant to upgrade from Windows XP. If you have legacy applications that work only on Windows XP but you want to progress, Windows XP mode is your answer. You can run your legacy applications seamlessly while taking advantage of all the power consumption savings and other new features Windows 7 has to offer.

At the end of the day, laptop batteries will run longer and require less charging. Your corporate desktop machines will require less energy when being used and save you money while idle. Just these two simple updates will guarantee cor-porate rollouts by 2010. The kilowatts saved will alone justify the costs of the upgrade. n



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With all the commotion surrounding Windows 7, one could almost forget that most companies have not even made the leap to Vista. Does Windows 7 have what it takes to make these

customers skip Vista? Or will Redmond be forced to deploy every trick in the book to avoid a repeat of Vista’s less-than-stellar reception?

Users and Administrators at OddsIllustrating the disconnect between IT professionals and home users, the most publi-cized complaint about Vista among end users is its most heralded feature among system administrators: User Account Control (UAC). Windows 7, on the other hand, promises a fine-tunable checks-and-balances system, which may prove more inviting to average because of its less-intrusive behavior.

For system administrators and power users, Windows 7 may be tempting because of its seemingly endless list of new features that may prove to be just a tad more useful than Vista’s Sidebar (which will disappear in Windows 7, although Gadgets remain). Below is a list of some of these features that I think are particularly promising.

PowerShell 2.0Both Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 will include this PowerShell on steroids upgrade to the much loved origi-nal PowerShell. A GUI that will look familiar to Visual Studio users (complete with debugging features and color-coding), and more than 200 new cmdlets should make even UNIX users jealous. Additionally, PowerShell 2.0 will make remote executing available to administrators, thus enabling them to execute scripts on multiple networked computers at once.

For an inside look at Power-Shell’s progress from Micro-soft, be sure to bookmark the PowerShell Team Blog.

DirectAccessWith DirectAccess, Microsoft seems to be acknowledg-ing the growing number of telecommuters and the need to effectively manage their sys-tems: mobile users will be able to connect to the corporate network without the hassle of having to set up a VPN.

DirectAccess uses IPv6-over-IPsec (IPv6 should already be on every administrator’s mind

anyway, and the advantages are obvious: through Group Policy settings, mobile computers can be managed any time the computer has Internet connectivity (and not only when the computer connects to the network). This ensures that

Windows 7 IT Pro Feature Watch List

By Dries Janssens

Additionally, PowerShell 2.0 will make remote executing available to administrators, thus enabling them to execute

scripts on multiple networked computers at once. ”“



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even mobile computers stay updated and in line with local policies.

BranchCacheIs that the sound of your WAN breath-ing a sigh of relief?

BranchCache allows the administra-tor to enable intranet-accessed data to be cached locally at the branch office, resulting in “like-local” access speeds. BranchCache’s Hosted Cache Mode hosts the locally cached data on a branch office Windows Server 2008 R2 system, while Distrib-uted Cache caches the data directly on branch PCs.

Windows Troubleshooting PlatformWindows Troubleshooting Platform aims to be a programmable platform — it’s based on PowerShell — to facili-tate user troubleshooting. The tool will allow administrators to use, customize, and develop Win-dows Troubleshooting Packs to target specific user issues.

Bitlocker to GoBitlocker’s drive encryption functionality is being extended to include USB sticks. Administrators will have control over password length, and can even prevent users from writing to USB storage devices before Bitlocker protection has been applied.

In this day and age of data leaks and insider threats, this is a welcome new twist.

ApplockerApplocker greatly tightens an administrator’s control over what applications users can, and more importantly, cannot

run. “Publisher rules” allow the administrator, through Group Policy, to fine tune installation rules based on an application’s digital signature.

PC SafeguardWhereas Microsoft has been offer-ing the Shared Computer Toolkit (or SteadyState for XP and Vista) as a separate download for those looking for a reliable way to lock down their computers in multiple-user situations, PC SafeGuard will be integrated into Windows 7. While few details has been released, it seems like PC SafeGuard will be able to both lock (portions of) hard drives, and erase all user activity after the user logs off.

Fine-Tunable UAC

Four settings will be available: “Never notify”, “Notify when programs try to make changes”, “Always notify” and the current Vista-default behav-

ior of “Always Notify and Wait for my Response.” Without a doubt, this flexibility will be loved by some and loathed by others.

Windows CredentialsI have been using the excellent Roboform Password Man-ager (which not only safeguards all your passwords in a password repository, but also has the ability to automatically log you in to website interfaces) for years. I’ll be very inter-ested to see how Windows 7’s Windows Credentials stacks up, as it is touted to have exactly those capabilities as well.

As you can see, Windows 7 promises a good mix of tools to help administrators manage systems on their corporate net-works and exert better control over their user environments. Now, the wait begins. n

BranchCache allows the administrator

to enable intranet-accessed data to be

cached locally at the branch office, resulting in “like-

local” access speeds.

”

“



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As Windows 7’s commercial debut looms, one major IT research firm is recommending that if corporate IT shops aren’t already well along in deploying Windows Vista, they’d be better off going straight

to Vista’s replacement -- Windows 7.

“Organizations with a Windows Vista project well underway should stay the course, but most others should target Windows 7,” the research report co-authored by Gartner analysts Michael Silver and Stephen Kleynhans says.

The report reinforces another one Gartner released in late March urging corporate IT to begin planning for Windows 7 deployment as soon as it ships rather than wait for the first service pack before beginning the process.

A recently released survey of 320 network and systems administrators, though, found that quick migration to Micro-soft’s forthcoming Windows 7 may not be as easy to accom-plish as it is to talk about.

The Root of All DeploymentsThe reason: money, of course.

The survey was performed by Amplitude Research on behalf

of VanDyke Software.

What the Amplitude study found is that only 23 percent of IT shops surveyed are currently beta testing Windows 7, while about the same number plan to after its official release.

That still leaves 50 percent that have no plans to test Win-dows 7 at all at this point. The view gets even tougher when the question comes around to those who actually plan to deploy Windows 7 -- 61 percent have no current plans to deploy Windows 7.

Interestingly, those most ame-nable to moving to Windows 7 are shops whose IT budgets increased in 2009. Of those, 57 percent plan to deploy Windows 7 while, of those whose budgets decreased, only 37 percent had any plans to deploy.

According to the Amplitude Research survey some 41 per-cent of respondents said their IT budgets declined this year.

“The top two reasons for not deploying Windows 7 were ‘Feel more comfortable sticking with current versions of Windows (44 percent)’ and ‘Can’t justify the return on in-vestment (33.3 percent),’” Amplitude said in a release.

Gartner: Windows 7 OK for Vista Disgruntled

By Stuart J. Johnston

A recently released survey of 320 network and systems administrators, though, found that quick migration to Microsoft’s forthcoming Windows 7

may not be as easy to accomplish as it is to talk about. ”“



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Should I Stay or Should I Go?Still, there are plenty of variables that have to be taken into account. Nothing is cut and dried, and surveys can yield dif-fering results.

For instance, in a survey of 475 IT firms with 1,000 or more employees, conducted in February and March, and released this week, another Gartner report found only 12 percent in-dicated they have outright canceled a planned client project since October 2008.

That doesn’t mean that some projects haven’t been post-poned, however.

And a survey released in April by ChangeWave Research, found that 53 percent of 2,000 IT buyers it polled plan to skip Vista altogether and will go directly from XP to Windows 7.

Meanwhile, Silver’s and Kleynhans’ report also outlines other important issues that may slow corporate adop-tion of Windows 7.

“Between waiting for vendor support and testing, planning, preparing, and piloting, few organizations will be able to begin large-scale production de-ployments until 12 to 18 months after the RTM, in late 2010 or early 2011,” their report says. That could mean a late payday for Microsoft.

In fact, that’s significantly later than Microsoft is hoping for -- not exactly the picture of explosive enterprise sales right out of the chute, although shops with a preponderance of Windows XP machines may move earlier and thus help fuel early purchase orders.

“With more than half of organizations planning to skip Vista, most organizations will have to move to Windows 7 to main-tain a supportable environment as Windows XP ages. We advise organizations to move off of Windows XP by the end of 2012 to avoid application support problems, even though Microsoft will support Windows XP into April 2014.”

If It’s Not One Thing, It’s AnotherSilver’s and Kleynhans’ report highlights some reasons for economic optimism.

“Consumers and small and midsize businesses are more

likely to run what ships on new PCs, so they will be early adopters of Windows 7,” the report says.

Meantime, another analyst agrees there’s a lot of pent up demand among consumers and small businesses, but he cautions that nothing is ever really simple.

“This is a complicated subject because it takes a lot of plan-ning and you’re investing in deciding whether or not to roll out an operating system,” Michael Cherry, lead analyst for operat-ing systems at Directions on Microsoft, told InternetNews.com.

“Every organization is going to be dif-ferent … [and it’s] a time when busi-nesses are sitting on their wallets,” Cherry added.

So what other advice do Silver and Kleynhans have to offer?

“Organizations that have not prepared to deploy Vista [should] skip Vista and target Windows 7,” the report says. Their rationale is that preparing to deploy Vista will require the same amount of effort as preparing to de-ploy Windows 7. Why do it twice?

“At this point, targeting Windows 7 would add less than six months to the schedule and would result in a plan

that is more politically palatable, better for users, and results in greater longevity.”

However, Silver and Kleynhans also have recommendations for organizations that are already in the midst of deploying Vista.

“Continue with Vista, but plan to switch to Windows 7 in late 2010 or early 2011, especially if you’re switching to Vista through a hardware refresh,” they said.

In fact, during his opening keynote at Microsoft’s TechEd 2009 technical developers conference in Los Angeles, senior vice president of Windows Bill Veghte said that the company is now sure it can deliver Windows 7 in time for the holiday sales season. However, he also added his own advice to the mix.

“If you’re just starting your testing of Vista, with the release candidate and the quality of that offering, I would switch over and do your testing on the release candidate, and use that going forward,” Veghte said. n

At this point,targeting Windows 7 would add less than six months to the schedule and

would result in a plan that is more politically palatable, better for users, and results in

greater longevity

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Lucky for us, much of the long-awaited security function-ality made its way into the beta build of Windows 7, so let’s take a look at the features.

Old Friends, New TwistsReturning from Windows Vista are Kernel Patch Protection, Service Hardening, Data Execution Prevention, Address Space Layout Randomization, and Mandatory Integrity Levels.

Windows XP SP2 gave us the Security Center. Windows 7 discards this and in its place is an Action Center that incor-porates alerts from 10 existing Windows features: Security Center; Problem, Reports, and Solutions, Windows Defender; Windows Update; Diagnostics; Network Access Protection; Backup and Restore; Recovery; and User Account Control.

In Windows 7, users can adjust consent prompt behavior using a slider control, if they have administrative privileges. Microsoft says they’ll still be protected against malicious software, even if they never see another alert. While this may or may not be true, users have been conditioned to see alerts whenever something is hap-pening. Without them, perhaps a false sense of security will develop on the part of the end user.

Windows Filtering PlatformWindows 7 introduces something called the Windows Filter-ing Platform (WFP). The idea is that third parties can take advantage of aspects of the Microsoft Windows Firewall in their own products. Microsoft says “third-party products also can selectively turn parts of the Windows Firewall on or off, enabling you to choose which software firewall you want to use and have it co-exist with Windows Firewall.”

While this sounds nice on paper, I can’t see a vendor teaming their product with the Windows firewall. Smart money says they’ll just use their own and ignore the Microsoft solution.

One nice thing to note about Windows 7 is that it makes it easier to configure that all-im-portant home network. When users hit network problems, they curse the firewall and they’re often right to. Windows 7 addresses the problem by taking over home network setup and making sure the firewall doesn’t interfere.

We also see that scrollbars were removed in the configura-tion settings screen, as has the Software Explorer feature, and real-time protection in Windows 7 has been improved to reduce the impact on overall system performance; a wel-come change from the bloat of Vista.

One nice thing to note about Windows 7 is that it makes it easier to configure that all-important home network. ”“

Windows 7 Security: Good, Bad or Ugly?

By Sonny Discini



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An Inclusive BitLockerVista sailed in along with a fleet of new security features, among them BitLocker, a whole-disk encryption tool de-signed to protect your data even after an attacker makes off with your laptop. BitLocker utilizes a chip called a Trusted Protection Module (TPM). The Vista TPM transparently decrypts the drive once you’ve authenticated yourself with a password or smart card. A laptop thief can’t break into the locked drive, even after booting to a different OS or moving the drive to another computer.

BitLocker drive encryption also supports removable storage devices, such as flash memory drives and portable hard drives has been added in Windows 7. This means that users can keep sensitive data on all of their USB storage devices as well as the physical drives on the host mentioned above.

As a side note to Bitlocker, using groups, you can ban writing to any removable drive that isn’t BitLocker-protected. It’s a very useful tool against the very real problem known as podslurping. With this policy in place, employees can still bring in the virus-of-the-month on an unprotected drive, but they can’t take away an unprotected copy of the personnel database. It’s also helpful to know that BitLocker to Go also allows users to securely share data with other users who have not yet deployed Windows 7.

That said, the testing I performed proved otherwise. I could not get this to work so I went to Microsoft and they con-firmed that this is an issue in the beta build but will be fixed before final GA release.

Biometrics, System Restore and AppLockerBiometrics enhancements include easier reader configura-tions, allowing users to manage the fingerprint data stored

on the computer and control how they log on to Windows 7. And System Restore includes a list of programs that will be removed or added, providing users with more useful informa-tion before they choose which restore point to use. Restore points are also available in backups, providing a larger list to choose from, over a longer period of time.

I’ve seen more problems caused by System Restore than solved by it; I’m not a big fan. Still, users often resort to it when trying to clean up a real or imagined malware problem. In Windows 7, you’ll at least have a clear idea of what collateral damage may result, as it lists all programs and drivers that would be removed or brought back by invoking a particular System Restore point. It’s way better than guessing at the right restore point and hoping for the best, which is what you have to do now.

Another enhancement is Ap-pLocker, accessed through Local Security Policy. It’s a

way to control which programs users can and can’t use, and it’s a lot more flexible than Vista’s Software Restriction Policies. Still, it’s not for the average user. Most IT shops should be pleased with this enhancement. I can see it being tailored to just about any corporate need.

Virtually all the changes in the security area are simply tweaking and improving on existing Vista features. But then, that’s what Windows 7 is all about, right? While the en-hancements seen thus far in the beta are nice, they aren’t stunning. n

Biometrics enhancements include easier reader

configurations, allowing users to manage the

fingerprint data stored on the computer and

control how they log on to Windows 7.

”

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