Windows Media Center and other Windows 7 features

Windows Media Center

First introduced as its own edition in Windows XP, Windows Media Center is now a feature in Windows 7 Home Premium and Ultimate editions. Windows Media Center lets you watch, pause, and record live TV, listen to music, view pictures, watch movies, and share media. Windows Media Center promises to be the next TiVo, Moxi, or whatever DVR you use at home. This feature works best with a TV tuner and a remote. Windows Media Center may be launched from Start menu > All Programs.

Windows Media Player 12

Apart from some of the streaming features, Microsoft updated Windows Media Player to version 12 on Windows 7. Additionally, Microsoft added default support for many video and audio codecs that in previous versions of Windows would require a third-party installation. This is a great news for administrators and end users alike as many different formats of audio and video will work out of box. There is still a lack of support for the Matroska codec and files in the .mkv format.

Performance

Microsoft focused most of its development of Windows 7 on performance features. Multiple performance features have been introduced and improved on from Vista. Microsoft realized this was one of the main issues with the Vista release and did not make the same mistake twice.

64-bit Computing

Almost all computers sold in the last few years are 64-bit compatible. In short, this means they have a 64-bit processor. Microsoft has vastly improved 64-bit support in Windows 7. 64-bit computing allows the operating system to handle more than 4 GB of memory so the system can handle larger amounts of information at once.

For 64-bit computing, a 64-bit edition of Windows 7 must be installed. These versions of Windows 7 are available for all editions except for Windows 7 Starter. It is imperative that you install this edition from the start as you will not be able to easily upgrade from a 32-bit to 64-bit version of Windows 7.

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