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86-501: GDI's most significant advantages over more direct methods of accessing the hardware are perhaps its scaling capabilities and its abstract representation of target devices. Using GDI, it is possible to draw on multiple devices, such as a screen and a printer, and expect proper reproduction in each case. This capability is at the center of most " What You See Is What You Get " applications for Microsoft Windows. Simple games that do not require fast graphics rendering may use GDI. However, GDI

172-444: A free and open-source GDI-like class library. Win2D's target audience are developers that use C++, C#, and Visual Basic.NET to develop Universal Windows Platform apps . WYSIWYG In computing , WYSIWYG ( / ˈ w ɪ z i w ɪ ɡ / WIZ -ee-wig ), an acronym for what you see is what you get , refers to software that allows content to be edited in a form that resembles its appearance when printed or displayed as

258-471: A "Family Pack" version of Windows 7 Home Premium was also released for a limited time, which allowed upgrades on up to three computers. In certain regions, copies of Windows 7 were only sold in, and could only be activated in a designated region. Support for the original release of Windows 7 (without a service pack) ended on April 9, 2013, requiring users to update to Windows 7 Service Pack 1 in order to continue receiving updates and support. Microsoft ended

344-614: A Resource Meter program to allow the user to monitor how much of the total system GDI resources were in use. This resource meter consumed GDI objects itself. Later versions such as Windows 2000 and Windows XP can report GDI object usage for each program in the Task Manager, but they cannot tell the user the total GDI capacity available. Overflowing GDI capacity can affect Windows itself, preventing new windows from opening, menus from displaying, and alert boxes from appearing. The situation can be difficult to clear and can potentially require

430-864: A bug related to HDMI audio and another related to printing XPS documents. In Europe, the automatic nature of the BrowserChoice.eu feature was dropped in Windows 7 Service Pack 1 in February 2011 and remained absent for 14 months despite Microsoft reporting that it was still present, subsequently described by Microsoft as a "technical error." As a result, in March 2013, the European Commission fined Microsoft €561 million to deter companies from reneging on settlement promises. The Platform Update for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1

516-673: A class-action lawsuit), among other critiques. As such, the adoption of Vista in comparison to XP remained somewhat low. In July 2007, following the shelving of the Vienna project and six months following the public release of Vista, it was reported that the next version of Windows would then be codenamed Windows 7, with plans for a final release within three years. Bill Gates , in an interview with Newsweek , suggested that Windows 7 would be more "user-centric". Gates later said that Windows 7 would also focus on performance improvements. Steven Sinofsky later expanded on this point, explaining in

602-412: A finger. Clicking this button minimizes all windows, and clicking it a second time restores them. Window management in Windows 7 has several new features: Aero Snap maximizes a window when it is dragged to the top, left, or right of the screen. Dragging windows to the left or right edges of the screen allows users to snap software windows to either side of the screen, such that the windows take up half

688-448: A finished product, such as a printed document, web page, or slide presentation. WYSIWYG implies a user interface that allows the user to view something very similar to the result while the document is being created. In general, WYSIWYG implies the ability to directly manipulate the layout of a document without having to type or remember names of layout commands. Before the adoption of WYSIWYG techniques, text appeared in editors using

774-480: A forced reset of the system, since it prevents core system programs from functioning. In Windows 8 and 8.1, a forced log-off occurs as a result of GDI capacity overflow, instead of a reboot. Direct2D is the successor of GDI and GDI+. Its sibling, DirectWrite , replaces Uniscribe . They were shipped with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, and were available for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 (with Platform Update installed). Later, Microsoft developed Win2D ,

860-478: A native TFTP client with the ability to transfer files to or from a TFTP server. The taskbar has seen the biggest visual changes, where the old Quick Launch toolbar has been replaced with the ability to pin applications to the taskbar. Buttons for pinned applications are integrated with the task buttons. These buttons also enable Jump Lists to allow easy access to common tasks, and files frequently used with specific applications. The revamped taskbar also allows

946-409: A new networking API with support for building SOAP-based web services in native code (as opposed to .NET -based WCF web services), new features to simplify development of installation packages and shorten application install times. Windows 7, by default, generates fewer User Account Control (UAC) prompts because it allows digitally signed Windows components to gain elevated privileges without

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1032-883: A new version of Windows Media Center , a Gadget for Windows Media Center, improved media features, XPS Essentials 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 the Control 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. Windows Security Center has been renamed to Action Center ( Windows Health Center and Windows Solution Center in earlier builds), which encompasses both security and maintenance of

1118-504: A piece of text rendering code he had written could render 99,000 glyphs per second in GDI, but the same code using GDI+ rendered 16,600 glyphs per second. GDI+ is similar (in purpose and structure) to Apple ' s QuickDraw GX subsystem, and the open-source libart and Cairo libraries. In Windows Vista, all Windows applications including GDI and GDI+ applications run in the new compositing engine, Desktop Window Manager (DWM), which

1204-695: A prompt. Additionally, users can now adjust the level at which UAC operates using a sliding scale. Certain capabilities and programs that were a part of Windows Vista are no longer present or have been changed, resulting in the removal of certain functionalities; these include the classic Start Menu user interface, some taskbar features , Windows Explorer features , Windows Media Player features , Windows Ultimate Extras , Search button, and InkBall . Four applications bundled with Windows Vista— Windows Photo Gallery , Windows Movie Maker , Windows Calendar and Windows Mail —are not included with Windows 7 and were replaced by Windows Live -branded versions as part of

1290-647: A refined version of Windows Vista. At PDC 2008, Microsoft demonstrated Windows 7 with its reworked taskbar . On December 27, 2008, the Windows 7 Beta was leaked onto the Internet via BitTorrent . According to a performance test by ZDNet , Windows 7 Beta beat both Windows XP and Windows Vista in several key areas, including boot and shutdown time and working with files, such as loading documents. Other areas did not beat XP, including PC Pro benchmarks for typical office activities and video editing, which remain identical to Vista and slower than XP. On January 7, 2009,

1376-531: A result can disrupt the desired layout and flow. Bravo , a document preparation program for the Alto produced at Xerox PARC by Butler Lampson , Charles Simonyi and colleagues in 1974, is generally considered to be the first program to incorporate the WYSIWYG technology, displaying text with formatting (e.g. with justification, fonts, and proportional spacing of characters). The Alto monitor (72 PPI , based on

1462-482: A suitable driver, while a GDI printer requires a PC running Windows. GDI printers can be made available to computers on a network if they are connected as shared printers on a computer which is on and running Windows. Some "generic" GDI drivers such as pnm2ppa have been written; they aim to make GDI printers compatible with non-Windows operating systems such as FreeBSD , but they cannot support all printers. In order to allow simpler creation of drivers for Winprinters,

1548-488: Is a stripped-down version of Windows 7 meant for low-cost devices such as netbooks . In comparison to Home Premium, Starter has reduced multimedia functionality, does not allow users to change their desktop wallpaper or theme, disables the "Aero Glass" theme, does not have support for multiple monitors, and can only address 2GB of RAM. Home Basic was sold only in emerging markets , and was positioned in between Home Premium and Starter . The highest edition, Enterprise ,

1634-620: Is also enhanced to support real-time multimedia application including video playback and 3D games, thus allowing use of DirectX 10 in remote desktop environments. The three application limit, previously present in the Windows Vista and Windows XP Starter Editions, has been removed from Windows 7. All editions include some new and improved features, such as Windows Search , Security features, and some features new to Windows 7 , that originated within Vista. Optional BitLocker Drive Encryption

1720-600: Is apparent in Windows XP components, such as Microsoft Paint , Windows Picture and Fax Viewer , Photo Printing Wizard, and the My Pictures Slideshow screensaver. Their presence in the basic graphics layer greatly simplifies implementations of vector-graphics systems such as Adobe Flash or SVG . Besides, .NET Framework provides a managed interface for GDI+ via the System.Drawing namespace . While GDI+

1806-460: Is functionally similar to Ultimate , but is only sold through volume licensing via Microsoft's Software Assurance program. All editions aside from Starter support both IA-32 and x86-64 architectures , Starter only supports 32-bit systems. Retail copies of Windows 7 are distributed on two DVDs: one for the IA-32 version and the other for x86-64. OEM copies include one DVD, depending on

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1892-608: Is hardware-accelerated. As such, the GDI itself is no longer hardware-accelerated. Because of the nature of the composition operations, window moves can be faster or more responsive because underlying content does not need to be re-rendered by the application. Windows 7 includes GDI hardware acceleration for blitting operations in the Windows Display Driver Model v1.1 . This improves GDI performance and allows DWM to use local video memory for compositing, thereby reducing system memory footprint and increasing

1978-516: Is included with Windows 7 Ultimate and Enterprise. Windows Defender is included; Microsoft Security Essentials antivirus software is a free download. All editions include Shadow Copy , which—every day or so—System Restore uses to take an automatic "previous version" snapshot of user files that have changed. Backup and restore have also been improved, and the Windows Recovery Environment —installed by default—replaces

2064-501: Is included with Windows XP and later, the GDI+ dynamic library can also be shipped with an application and used on older versions of Windows. Because of the additional text processing and resolution independence capabilities in GDI+, the CPU undertakes text rendering. The result is an order of magnitude slower than the hardware-accelerated GDI. Chris Jackson published some tests indicating that

2150-487: Is installed. With the introduction of Windows XP , GDI+ complemented GDI. GDI+ has been written in C++. It adds anti-aliased 2D graphics, floating point coordinates, gradient shading, more complex path management, intrinsic support for modern graphics-file formats like JPEG and PNG , and support for composition of affine transformations in the 2D view pipeline. GDI+ uses RGBA values to represent color. Use of these features

2236-402: Is limited as the update does not include DXGI / WDDM 1.2 from Windows 8, making unavailable many related APIs and significant features such as stereoscopic frame buffer, feature level 11_1 and optional features for levels 10_0, 10_1 and 11_0. In October 2013, a Disk Cleanup Wizard addon was released that lets users delete outdated Windows updates on Windows 7 SP1, thus reducing the size of

2322-414: Is relatively hard to use for advanced animation, lacks a notion for synchronizing with individual video frames in the video card , and lacks hardware rasterization for 3D. Modern games usually use DirectX , Vulkan , or OpenGL instead. In GDI, a device context (DC) defines the attributes of text and images for the output device, e.g., screen or printer. GDI maintains the actual context. Generating

2408-421: Is the final version of Windows that supports processors without SSE2 or NX (although an update released in 2018 dropped support for non-SSE2 processors). Its successor, Windows 8 , requires a processor with SSE2 and NX (for any then-supported architecture). Windows 7 is the successor to Windows Vista, and its version name is Windows NT 6.1, compared to Vista's NT 6.0; its naming caused some confusion when it

2494-484: Is the only user of the video memory, which was not tenable on multi-tasked environment , such as Windows. The BYTE magazine, in December 1983, discussed Microsoft's plans for a system to output graphics to both printers and monitors with the same code in the forthcoming first release of Windows. On Windows 3.1x and Windows 9x , GDI can use Bit blit features for 2D acceleration, if suitable graphics card driver

2580-464: The Weekly Reader advertised its Stickybear educational software with the slogan "what you see is what you get", with photographs of its Apple II graphics, but home computers of the 1970s and early 1980s lacked the sophisticated graphics capabilities necessary to display WYSIWYG documents, meaning that such applications were usually confined to limited-purpose, high-end workstations (such as

2666-756: The Engineering Windows 7 blog that the company was using a variety of new tracing tools to measure the performance of many areas of the operating system on an ongoing basis, to help locate inefficient code paths and to help prevent performance regressions. Senior Vice President Bill Veghte stated that Windows Vista users migrating to Windows 7 would not find the kind of device compatibility issues they encountered migrating from Windows XP . An estimated 1,000 developers worked on Windows 7. These were broadly divided into "core operating system" and "Windows client experience", in turn organized into 25 teams of around 40 developers on average. In October 2008, it

Graphics Device Interface - Misplaced Pages Continue

2752-563: The HP 1000 minicomputer, taking advantage of HP 2640 —HP's first bitmapped computer terminal. BRUNO was then ported to the HP-3000 and re-released as "HP Draw". By 1981, MicroPro advertised that its WordStar word processor had WYSIWYG, but its display was limited to displaying styled text in WYSIWYG fashion; bold and italic text would be represented on screen, instead of being surrounded by tags or special control characters . In 1983,

2838-613: The IBM Displaywriter System ) that were too expensive for the general public to afford. As improving technology allowed the production of cheaper bitmapped displays, WYSIWYG software started to appear in more popular computers, including LisaWrite for the Apple Lisa , released in 1983, and MacWrite for the Apple Macintosh , released in 1984. The Apple Macintosh system was originally designed so that

2924-504: The Microsoft Universal Printer Driver was created. This allows printer vendors to write Generic Printer Description (GPD) "minidrivers", which describe the printer's capabilities and command set in plaintext, rather than having to do kernel mode driver development. Microsoft has moved away from this printing model with Open XML Paper Specification . Each window consumes GDI objects. As the complexity of

3010-558: The Windows Live Essentials suite. Windows 7 is available in six different editions, of which the Home Premium , Professional , and Ultimate were available at retail in most countries, and as pre-loaded software on most new computers. Home Premium and Professional were aimed at home users and small businesses respectively, while Ultimate was aimed at enthusiasts. Each edition of Windows 7 includes all of

3096-467: The printer driver receives, processes, and sends to the associated printer. The combination of GDI and the driver is bidirectional; they receive information from the printer such as whether it is ready to print or is out of paper. Printers that do not rely on GDI require hardware, firmware, and memory for page rendering while a GDI printer uses the host computer for this. However, a printer with its own control language can accept input from any device with

3182-465: The screen resolution and the resolution of the ImageWriter dot-matrix printers sold by Apple were easily scaled: 72 PPI for the screen and 144 DPI for the printers. Thus, the scale and dimensions of the on-screen display in programs such as MacWrite and MacPaint were easily translated to the printed output. If the paper were held up to the screen, the printed image would be the same size as

3268-418: The typographic unit ) was designed so that one full page of text could be seen and then printed on the first laser printers . When the text was laid out on the screen, 72 PPI font metric files were used, but when printed, 300 PPI files were used. As a result, one would occasionally find characters and words that are slightly off—a problem that would continue up to this day. Bravo was released commercially, and

3354-636: The x64 version of the Windows 7 Beta (build 7000) was leaked onto the web, with some torrents being infected with a trojan . At CES 2009, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced the Windows 7 Beta, build 7000, had been made available for download to MSDN and TechNet subscribers in the format of an ISO image. The stock wallpaper of the beta version contained a digital image of the Betta fish . The release candidate, build 7100, became available for MSDN and TechNet subscribers, and Connect Program participants on April 30, 2009. On May 5, 2009, it became available to

3440-592: The Chromium codebase also dropped support for these operating systems after version 109, including Google Chrome and Opera . A fork of Chromium named Supermium is maintained for versions of Windows older than Windows 10, including Windows 7. Mozilla maintains Firefox 115 Extended Support Release (ESR) to support Windows 7, 8 and 8.1. Mozilla has committed to support it until at least March 2025. Steam ended support for Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 on January 1, 2024. Several Windows 7 components are upgradable to

3526-451: The July 2017 date. On March 18, 2016, in response to criticism from enterprise customers, Microsoft delayed the end of support and non-critical updates for Skylake systems to July 17, 2018, but stated that they would also continue to receive security updates through the end of extended support. In August 2016, citing a "strong partnership with our OEM partners and Intel", Microsoft retracted

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3612-511: The Kaby Lake and Ryzen platforms. Security updates released since March 2018 contained bugs that affect processors that do not support SSE2 extensions, including all Pentium III , Athlon XP , and prior processors. Microsoft initially stated that it would attempt to resolve this issue, and prevented installation of the affected patches on these systems. However, Microsoft retroactively modified its support documents on June 15, 2018 to remove

3698-462: The PC world at the time. Thus, while a Macintosh 15-inch (38 cm) monitor had the same 640 × 480 resolution as a PC, a 16-inch (41 cm) screen would be fixed at 832 × 624 rather than the 800 × 600 resolution used by PCs. With the introduction of third-party dot-matrix printers as well as laser printers and multisync monitors, resolutions deviated from even multiples of

3784-972: The capabilities and features of the edition below it, and adds additional features oriented towards their market segments; for example, Professional adds additional networking and security features such as Encrypting File System and the ability to join a domain . Ultimate contained a superset of the features from Home Premium and Professional , along with other advanced features oriented towards power users, such as BitLocker drive encryption; unlike Windows Vista, there were no " Ultimate Extras " add-ons created for Windows 7 Ultimate. Retail copies were available in "upgrade" and higher-cost "full" version licenses ; "upgrade" licenses require an existing version of Windows to install, while "full" licenses can be installed on computers with no existing operating system. The remaining three editions were not available at retail, of which two were available exclusively through OEM channels as pre-loaded software. The Starter edition

3870-415: The codes/tags. Each program had its own special way to format a document, and it was a difficult and time-consuming process to change from one word processor to another. The use of markup tags and codes remains popular today in some applications due to their ability to store complex formatting information. When the tags are made visible in the editor, however, they occupy space in the unformatted text, and as

3956-616: The computer. ReadyBoost on 32-bit editions now supports up to 256 gigabytes of extra allocation. 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. Windows 7 also has

4042-502: The decision and stated that it would continue to support Windows 7 and 8.1 on Skylake hardware through the end of their extended support lifecycle. However, the restrictions on newer CPU microarchitectures remain in force. In March 2017, a Microsoft knowledge base article announced which implies that devices using Intel Kaby Lake , AMD Bristol Ridge , or AMD Ryzen , would be blocked from using Windows Update entirely. In addition, official Windows 7 device drivers are not available for

4128-435: The end of extended support, available via specific volume licensing programs in yearly installments. Windows 7 Professional for Embedded Systems , Windows Embedded Standard 7 , and Windows Embedded POSReady 7 also get Extended Security Updates for up to three years after their end of extended support date, via OEMs . The Extended Security Updates program for Windows Embedded POSReady 7 ended on October 8, 2024, marking

4214-574: The final end of IA-32 updates on the Windows NT 6.1 product line after more than 15 years. In August 2019, Microsoft announced it would offer a year of 'free' extended security updates to some business users. In January 2023, version 109 of the Chromium -based Microsoft Edge became the last version of Edge to support Windows 7, Windows 8/8.1, Windows Server 2012, and Windows Server 2012 R2. Alongside this, several other web browsers based on

4300-536: The general public, although it had also been leaked onto the Internet via BitTorrent . The release candidate was available in five languages and expired on June 1, 2010, with shutdowns every two hours starting March 1, 2010. Microsoft stated that Windows 7 would be released to the general public on October 22, 2009, less than three years after the launch of its predecessor . Microsoft released Windows 7 to MSDN and Technet subscribers on August 6, 2009. Microsoft announced that Windows 7, along with Windows Server 2008 R2 ,

4386-1024: The latest versions, which include new versions introduced in later versions of Windows, and other major Microsoft applications are available. These latest versions for Windows 7 include: Additional requirements to use certain features: The maximum amount of RAM that Windows 7 supports varies depending on the product edition and on the processor architecture, as shown in the following table. Windows 7 Professional and up support up to 2 physical processors (CPU sockets), whereas Windows 7 Starter, Home Basic, and Home Premium editions support only 1. Physical processors with either multiple cores, or hyper-threading , or both, implement more than one logical processor per physical processor. The x86 editions of Windows 7 support up to 32 logical processors; x64 editions support up to 256 (4 x 64). In January 2016, Microsoft announced that it would no longer support Windows platforms older than Windows 10 on any future Intel-compatible processor lines, citing difficulties in reliably allowing

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4472-463: The most popular version of Windows worldwide. Windows 11 overtook Windows 7 as the second most popular Windows version on all continents in August 2022. As of 2024 , just 3% of traditional PCs running Windows are running Windows 7, although it remains relatively popular in parts of the world, such as China (where it is tied with Windows 11), and is second most popular in some countries. Windows 7

4558-747: The network with a password , and files and folders can be shared with all other devices in the HomeGroup, or with specific users. The default libraries, along with printers, are shared by default, but the personal folder is set to read-only access by other users, and the Public folder can be accessed by anyone. Windows 7 includes improved globalization support through a new Extended Linguistic Services API to provide multilingual support (particularly in Ultimate and Enterprise editions). Microsoft also implemented better support for solid-state drives , including

4644-582: The new TRIM command , and Windows 7 is able to identify a solid-state drive uniquely. Native support for USB 3.0 is not included because of delays in the finalization of the standard. At WinHEC 2008 Microsoft announced that color depths of 30-bit and 48-bit would be supported in Windows 7 along with the wide color gamut scRGB (which for HDMI 1.3 can be converted and output as xvYCC ). The video modes supported in Windows 7 are 16-bit sRGB, 24-bit sRGB, 30-bit sRGB, 30-bit with extended color gamut sRGB, and 48-bit scRGB. For developers, Windows 7 includes

4730-587: The new file-sharing system HomeGroup, and support for multitouch input. A new " Action Center " was also added to provide an overview of system security and maintenance information, and tweaks were made to the User Account Control system to make it less intrusive. Windows 7 also shipped with updated versions of several stock applications, including Internet Explorer 8 , Windows Media Player , and Windows Media Center . Unlike Windows Vista, Windows 7 received critical acclaim, with critics considering

4816-436: The next: Windows 9x had a limit of 1,200 total objects; Windows 2000 has a limit of 16,384 objects; and Windows XP and later have a configurable limit (via the registry) that defaults to 10,000 objects per process (but a theoretical maximum of 65,536 for the entire session). Windows 8 and later increase the GDI object limit to 65,536 per user login session. Earlier versions of Windows such as Windows 3.1 and Windows 98 included

4902-508: The older Windows XP version to the most recent Windows 10 versions; a patch to correct the flaw is currently available. In September 2019, Microsoft announced that it would provide free security updates for Windows 7 on federally-certified voting machines through the 2020 United States elections . On September 7, 2018, Microsoft announced a paid "Extended Security Updates" (ESU) service that will offer additional updates for Windows 7 Professional and Enterprise for up to three years after

4988-520: The on-screen image, but at twice the resolution. As the ImageWriter was the only model of printer physically compatible with the Macintosh printer port, this created an effective closed system. Later, when Macs using external displays became available, the resolution was fixed to the size of the screen to achieve 72 DPI. These resolutions often differed from the VGA-standard resolutions common in

5074-584: The operating system to be a major improvement over its predecessor because of its improved performance, its more intuitive interface, fewer User Account Control popups, and other improvements made across the platform. Windows 7 was a major success for Microsoft; even before its official release, pre-order sales for the operating system on the online retailer Amazon.com had surpassed previous records. In just six months, over 100 million copies had been sold worldwide, increasing to over 630 million licenses by July 2012. By January 2018, Windows 10 surpassed Windows 7 as

5160-667: The operating system to operate on newer hardware. Microsoft stated that effective July 17, 2017, devices with Intel Skylake CPUs were only to receive the "most critical" updates for Windows 7 and 8.1, and only if they have been judged not to affect the reliability of Windows 7 on older hardware. For enterprise customers, Microsoft issued a list of Skylake-based devices "certified" for Windows 7 and 8.1 in addition to Windows 10, to assist them in migrating to newer hardware that can eventually be upgraded to 10 once they are ready to transition. Microsoft and their hardware partners provide special testing and support for these devices on 7 and 8.1 until

5246-454: The optional Recovery Console of Windows XP. A new system known as "Libraries" was added for file management; users can aggregate files from multiple folders into a "Library." By default, libraries for categories such as Documents, Pictures, Music, and Video are created, consisting of the user's personal folder and the Public folder for each. The system is also used as part of a new home networking system known as HomeGroup; devices are added to

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5332-501: The output requires a handle to the device context (HDC). After generating the output, the handle could be released. GDI uses Bresenham's line drawing algorithm to draw aliased lines. GDI was present in the initial release of Windows. MS-DOS programs had manipulated the graphics hardware using software interrupts (sometimes via the Video BIOS ) and by manipulating video memory directly. Code written in this way expects that it

5418-405: The performance of graphics operations. Most primitive GDI operations are still not hardware-accelerated, unlike Direct2D . GDI+ continues to rely on software rendering in Windows 7. A GDI printer or Winprinter (analogous to a Winmodem ) is a printer designed to accept output from a host computer running Windows. The host computer does all print processing: GDI renders a page as a bitmap, which

5504-528: The phrase: Many variations are used only to illustrate a point or make a joke, and have very limited real use. Some that have been proposed include the following: Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft . It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009. It is the successor to Windows Vista , released nearly three years earlier. Windows 7's server counterpart, Windows Server 2008 R2 ,

5590-476: The processor architecture licensed. The installation media for consumer versions of Windows 7 are identical, the product key and corresponding license determines the edition that is installed. The Windows Anytime Upgrade service can be used to purchase an upgrade that unlocks the functionality of a higher edition, such as going from Starter to Home Premium , and Home Premium to Ultimate . Most copies of Windows 7 only contained one license; in certain markets,

5676-453: The program's Remote Desktop Protocol , allowing for the possibility of remote code execution , may now include related flaws, collectively named DejaBlue , affecting newer Windows versions (i.e., Windows 7 and all recent versions) as well. In addition, experts reported a Microsoft security vulnerability , CVE - 2019-1162 , based on legacy code involving Microsoft CTF and ctfmon (ctfmon.exe) , that affects all Windows versions from

5762-408: The promise that this bug would be resolved, replacing it with a statement suggesting that users obtain a newer processor. This effectively ends further patch support for Windows 7 on these older systems. Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) was announced on March 18, 2010. A beta was released on July 12, 2010. The final version was released to the public on February 22, 2011. At the time of release, it

5848-450: The reordering of taskbar buttons. To the far right of the system clock is a small rectangular button that serves as the Show desktop icon. By default, hovering over this button makes all visible windows transparent for a quick look at the desktop. In touch-enabled displays such as touch screens, tablet PCs, etc., this button is slightly (8 pixels) wider in order to accommodate being pressed by

5934-859: The sale of new retail copies of Windows 7 in October 2014, and the sale of new OEM licenses for Windows 7 Home Basic, Home Premium, and Ultimate ended on October 31, 2014. OEM sales of PCs with Windows 7 Professional pre-installed ended on October 31, 2016. The sale of non-Professional OEM licenses was stopped on October 31, 2014. Mainstream support for Windows 7 ended on January 13, 2015. Extended support for Windows 7 ended on January 14, 2020. Variants of Windows 7 for embedded systems and thin clients have different support policies: Windows Embedded Standard 7 support ended in October 2020. Windows Thin PC and Windows Embedded POSReady 7 had support until October 2021. In March 2019, Microsoft announced that it would display notifications to users informing users of

6020-524: The same machine. Windows XP Mode runs Windows XP in a virtual machine, and displays applications within separate windows on the Windows 7 desktop. Furthermore, Windows 7 supports the mounting of a virtual hard disk (VHD) as a normal data storage, and the bootloader delivered with Windows 7 can boot the Windows system from a VHD; however, this ability is only available in the Enterprise and Ultimate editions. The Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) of Windows 7

6106-541: The screen resolution, making true WYSIWYG harder to achieve. The phrase "what you see is what you get", from which the acronym derives, was a catchphrase popularized by Flip Wilson 's drag persona Geraldine , first appearing in September 1969, then regularly in the early 1970s on The Flip Wilson Show . The phrase was a statement demanding acceptance of Geraldine's entire personality and appearance. As it relates to computing, there are multiple claims to first use of

6192-684: The screen. When a user moves windows that were snapped or maximized using Snap, the system restores their previous state. Snap functions can also be triggered with keyboard shortcuts. Aero Shake hides all inactive windows when the active window's title bar is dragged back and forth rapidly. Windows 7 includes 13 additional sound schemes, titled Afternoon, Calligraphy, Characters, Cityscape, Delta, Festival, Garden, Heritage, Landscape, Quirky, Raga, Savanna, and Sonata. Internet Spades , Internet Backgammon and Internet Checkers , which were removed in Windows Vista, were restored in Windows 7. Users are able to disable or customize many more Windows components than

6278-485: The software eventually included in the Xerox Star can be seen as a direct descendant of it. In late 1978, in parallel with but independent of the work at Xerox PARC, Hewlett-Packard developed and released the first commercial WYSIWYG software application for producing overhead slides (or what today are referred to as presentation graphics). The first release, named BRUNO (after an HP sales training puppet), ran on

6364-484: The system standard typeface and style with little indication of layout ( margins , spacing , etc.). Users were required to enter special non-printing control codes (now referred to as markup code tags ) to indicate that some text should be in boldface , italics , or a different typeface or size. In this environment there was very little distinction between text editors and word processors . These applications typically used an arbitrary markup language to define

6450-577: The upcoming end of support, and direct users to a website urging them to purchase a Windows 10 upgrade or a new computer. In August 2019, researchers reported that "all modern versions of Microsoft Windows" may be at risk for "critical" system compromise because of design flaws of hardware device drivers from multiple providers. In the same month, computer experts reported that the BlueKeep security vulnerability , CVE - 2019-0708 , that potentially affects older unpatched Microsoft Windows versions via

6536-465: The window increases, with additional features such as buttons and images, its GDI object usage also increases. When too many objects are in use, Windows is unable to draw any more GDI objects, leading to misbehaving software and frozen and unresponsive program operation. Many applications are also incorrectly coded and fail to release GDI objects after use, which further adds to the problem. The total available GDI objects varies from one version of Windows to

6622-566: Was also restarted, and thus delayed, in August 2004. A number of features were cut from Longhorn. Blackcomb was renamed Vienna in early 2006, and was later canceled in 2007 due to the scope of the project. When released, Windows Vista was criticized for its long development time , performance issues, spotty compatibility with existing hardware and software at launch, changes affecting the compatibility of certain PC games, and unclear assurances by Microsoft that certain computers shipping with XP before launch would be "Vista Capable" (which led to

6708-616: Was announced for 2003, delaying the development of Blackcomb. By the middle of 2003, however, Longhorn had acquired some of the features originally intended for Blackcomb. After three major malware outbreaks—the Blaster , Nachi , and Sobig worms—exploited flaws in Windows operating systems within a short time period in August 2003, Microsoft changed its development priorities, putting some of Longhorn's major development work on hold while developing new service packs for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. Development of Longhorn (Windows Vista)

6794-562: Was announced in 2008. Windows president Steven Sinofsky commented that Windows 95 was the fourth version of Windows, but Windows 7 counts up from Windows NT 4.0 as it is a descendant of NT. Originally, a version of Windows codenamed " Blackcomb " was planned as the successor to Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 in 2000. Major features were planned for Blackcomb, including an emphasis on searching and querying data and an advanced storage system named WinFS to enable such scenarios. However, an interim, minor release, codenamed "Longhorn,"

6880-727: Was announced that Windows 7 would also be the official name of the operating system. There had been some confusion over naming the product Windows 7, while versioning it as 6.1 to indicate its similar build to Windows Vista and increase compatibility with applications that only check major version numbers, similar to Windows 2000 and Windows XP both having 5.x version numbers. The first external release to select Microsoft partners came in January 2008 with Milestone 1, build 6519. Speaking about Windows 7 on October 16, 2008, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer confirmed compatibility between Windows Vista and Windows 7, indicating that Windows 7 would be

6966-492: Was intended to be an incremental upgrade to Microsoft Windows , addressing Windows Vista's poor critical reception while maintaining hardware and software compatibility . Windows 7 continued improvements on the Windows Aero user interface with the addition of a redesigned taskbar that allows pinned applications, and new window management features. Other new features were added to the operating system, including libraries,

7052-615: Was not made mandatory. It was available via Windows Update, direct download, or by ordering the Windows 7 SP1 DVD. The service pack is on a much smaller scale than those released for previous versions of Windows, particularly Windows Vista. Windows 7 Service Pack 1 adds support for Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX), a 256-bit instruction set extension for processors, and improves IKEv2 by adding additional identification fields such as E-mail ID to it. In addition, it adds support for Advanced Format 512e as well as additional Identity Federation Services . Windows 7 Service Pack 1 also resolves

7138-441: Was possible in Windows Vista. New additions to this list of components include Internet Explorer 8 , Windows Media Player 12 , Windows Media Center, Windows Search , and Windows Gadget Platform. A new version of Microsoft Virtual PC , newly renamed as Windows Virtual PC was made available for Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions. It allows multiple Windows environments, including Windows XP Mode , to run on

7224-401: Was released at the same time. It was succeeded by Windows 8 in October 2012. Extended support ended on January 14, 2020, over ten years after the release of Windows 7, after which the operating system ceased receiving further updates. A paid support program was available for enterprises, providing security updates for Windows 7 for up to three years since the official end of life. Windows 7

7310-456: Was released on February 26, 2013 after a pre-release version had been released on November 5, 2012. It is also included with Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 7. It includes enhancements to Direct2D , DirectWrite , Direct3D , Windows Imaging Component (WIC), Windows Advanced Rasterization Platform (WARP), Windows Animation Manager (WAM), XPS Document API, H.264 Video Decoder and JPEG XR decoder. However support for Direct3D 11.1

7396-686: Was released to manufacturing in the United States and Canada on July 22, 2009. Windows 7 build 7600.16385.090713-1255, which was compiled on July 13, 2009, was declared the final RTM build after passing all Microsoft's tests internally. Among Windows 7's new features are advances in touch and handwriting recognition , support for virtual hard disks , improved performance on multi-core processors, improved boot performance, DirectAccess , and kernel improvements. Windows 7 adds support for systems using multiple heterogeneous graphics cards from different vendors (Heterogeneous Multi-adapter),

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