Windows 7 RC1 Preview: Features and Performance Explored In-depth

jmke · 6th May 2009, 14:56 [**jmke**]

So here we are today with Windows 7 Release Candidate 1, Microsoft's grand attempt at taking Vista and building a more palatable operating system out of it. With Windows 7, Microsoft has ripped the Vista playbook to shreds and they are going an entirely different route. The goal: make Windows 7 successful before it even ships.

http://www.anandtech.com/systems/showdoc.aspx?i=3557

jmke · 6th May 2009, 15:09 [**jmke**]

Quote:

The other big trick as a result of WDDM 1.1 is that support for heterogeneous display drivers has returned. With WDDM 1.0 and its homogenous driver requirement, computers were limited to using video cards that would work with a single driver – in turn limiting a computer to video cards from a single vendor. With heterogeneous driver support, computers are once again free to use non-matching video cards, so long as they have a WDDM 1.1 driver.

Mixed drivers possible again, ATI & NVIDIA co-existing on Win7

jmke · 6th May 2009, 15:18 [**jmke**]

another interesting bit about UAC

Quote:

The concern we have with this compromise is that with applications allowed to auto-elevate from user to administrator, it creates a potential local privilege escalation exploit. For Beta 1, a proof of concept exploit was put together that used rundll32 to disable UAC entirely without informing the user or requiring their intervention. In return Microsoft removed the UAC control panel from the auto-elevating list so that any direct attempts to manipulate it still require user intervention. This blocked the proof of concept exploit while maintaining all the other benefits of Level 2 UAC. It should be noted however that similar exploits could still work with Level 1, as it’s Level 2 without the secure desktop screen (thereby allowing apps to fake pressing the Allow button).

and SSD

Quote:

Disk Defragmenter is now also capable of recognizing SSDs, and will block the defragmentation of those disks since defragmenting is of no use due to wear-leveling algorithms.

jmke · 6th May 2009, 15:26 [**jmke**]

Win7 style menu works nicely in Windows XP

Kougar · 7th May 2009, 11:54 [**Kougar**]

Nice