Windows 7 Build 7022 Overview
So as you all know by now, Windows 7 build 7022 has made it’s way onto the internet yesterday. Unfortunately this build only leaked in the 32 bit flavor but it still gives us some insight into the direction that Windows 7 is going. The next official build from Microsoft will likely be RC1, so thankfully we have these “unofficial” builds to show us the progress in between. I have to say I am impressed with what I see in 7022. The changes may be small, but I think they are little details that just make the overall experience a whole lot better.
The first thing you will notice about 7022 is the speed of the install process. The build installed about 5 minutes faster than 7000 did (15 minutes on 7022, 20 on 7000). Upon first boot you will also notice that Windows does not ask you to create a Homegroup. This is because it actually creates one for you, and you can go in and tweak the settings on your own later.
Read the full overview after the jump…
Explorer Changes:
You will notice a few more changes when you open the computer properties window (see below)
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Looking at the above screenshot you will notice a few things. First of all the task pane has a new background image. This is a much lighter color and is a lot easier on the eyes. The second thing you will notice is that Windows 7 now lists how much USABLE ram you have in your system. Hopefully this will show people that x86 CANNOT address a full 4 GB of RAM under any circumstances.
Control Panel Changes:
Upon opening the control panel, you will notice that it has changed.
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As you can see above, there is no longer a task pane in the control panel. You now select the view in the upper right where it says “View By:”. The options in that menu are, Category, Large Icons, and Small Icons. As you can guess, the Category view gives you the categorized view of the control panel, while the other two views let you view “All Control Panel Items” which I happen to prefer.
Start Menu Options Changes:
Two new options are now available in the start menu. The first is the option to add a Downloads link into your start menu. This is definitely a welcome change as it gives users the ability to get to their downloads folder with extreme ease. The second option is the option to add a link to Homegroups, which is nice if you have one setup as it is the new front-end for a Windows 7 workgroup based network. See the two screenshots below to see the options:
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Internet Explorer 8 RC1 Integrated:
Of course this build of Windows 7 also comes with an RC1 branch build of Internet Explorer 8, which makes sense since this is actually the RC branch of Windows 7. IE8 in this build seems to be a little faster, yet the rendering issues still plague the browser. See below for a screenshot of the about dialog.
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Windows Media Player Changes:
Windows Media Player in this build has undergone some pretty nifty changes. First and foremost, there is a new icon present. See the screenshots below to look at the other changes:
As you can see in the above screenshot, you can now make the “Now Playing” view even smaller than you could in build 7000. It is now possible to make it as small as the album art thumbnail that shows in this view. I personally love this because a compact media player is a good media player.
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As you can see here, the library view is largely similar, but new buttons have been added that better fit the WMP UI as a whole.
Componentization – Could it be?:
I saved probably the best little addition IMO for last. For ages now I have been saying that the best way to get rid of the “N” editions of Windows would be to make the media components of Windows removable. Well it looks like Microsoft has finally made this a reality. The “Turn Windows Features on or off” dialog now lets you remove Windows DVD Maker, Windows Media Center and Windows Media Player. Kiss the “N” versions goodbye!
Conclusion:
Well I am glad that I decided to try this build out. I got bored yesterday and figured since Microsoft hasn’t given us anything new and interesting to toy around with, then why not. Windows 7 is definitely moving in the right direction. While the changes are not HUGE, they are enough to make the every day experience of Windows that much better. Kudos to the Windows team, you guys are doing an awesome job.
13 Responses to 'Windows 7 Build 7022 Overview'
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The user interface changes in this build look rather impressive, it’s the small details that count. Windows Aero looks less “streaky” as well.
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Have you tried the upgrade/update from build 7000?
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February 9, 2009 at 8:06 pm
Great post Chris and appreciate you digging out the details for this build and what we might see in RC1.
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February 9, 2009 at 8:57 pm
Thanks for the progress update Chris.
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February 9, 2009 at 9:14 pm
Chris123NT:
@xxdesmus: initially I tried an upgrade and was having some issues with the search indexer, so I opted to do a clean install and it’s been smooth sailing since.
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@xxdesmus: You can upgrade from the beta and activate it using that key as well. I upgraded from build 7000 yesterday. The process took about 2 hours, which was about an hour less time than upgrading from 6956 to 7000. The indexing works is fine for me, even after multiple reboots.
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February 10, 2009 at 11:23 pm
kaczula:
“Hopefully this will show people that x86 CANNOT address a full 4 GB of RAM under any circumstances.”
Of course it can – 32bit Linux or Windows 2003/2008 do this without any problem (up to 64GB). Microsoft disabled support for > 4GB RAM on “consumer” 32bit OSes (XP, Vista) due to some vague driver compatibility issues.
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February 11, 2009 at 12:44 am
Really impressive changes in the latest build. Few hours back Winfuture has leaked the screenhots of Windows 7 build 7032 as well. Windows 7 is going great guns!
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Great overview Chris! The fact that there is no x64 bit version available (yet) means I won’t try it. And I would have gone the upgrade path if there had been one.
Really nice to see that they are continuing finetuning the system in the right direction. Hopefully (although probably not) we will see some added functionality or apps in the RC.
Thanks for keeping us up to date!
BTW: Your blog looks great. Like the layout – and the content.
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February 15, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Mark:
Is there anyway way we can have control panel icon sizes like the one we have in vista, eg. Extra Large Icons, Large Icons, Medium Icons, etc. ?
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kaczula, sorry for that but are you nuts? That the most stupid thing I ever heard about computers
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32bit OSes in any matter and flavour and stuff had that limitations and even 32bit applications can just only address 4 GB of ram for them let’s say from a 24 GB available on a 64-bit OS:“32 bits refers to the size of the largest address which the computer is capable of processing. Trying to fit a 64 bit address into a 32 bit space is like jamming the square peg into the round hole. In order to address more memory, you need a computer with a larger address space.
As of this writing, hardware makers are taking advantage of the thirst for more memory by selling 64-bit systems. One such hardware manufacturer is Apple, whose 64-bit Mac Pro is expandable to 32 GB of memory”
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February 26, 2009 at 8:57 am
M0nk:
Dreyfus sorry are you ignorant? You never heard about basic computing terms like Physical Address Extension and 36 bit addressable space? Rofl
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July 3, 2009 at 8:41 am
litemninyuszika:
I personally hate this compact mode. It is *impossible* to use the old size without using a special tool in Vista and Windows 7 to see it’s exact position and size in pixels. I don’t really care about Media Player, because I use KMPlayer.
February 9, 2009 at 7:46 pm
Kristan Kenney: