Welcome to Windows 7

Welcome to Windows 7, the latest operating system from Microsoft, which features great engineering, new innovations, exciting new features, and functionality that will deliver compelling new user experiences!

Windows 7 is by far the fastest, easiest to use, and most engaging version of Windows yet it's designed to take advantage of a new generation of hardware, such as screens or devices that support touch, including those that have multiple touch points, sensors of the environment, location providers, and more. In addition, the operating system offers some great new services, such as a built-in ribbon similar to the one you find in the Microsoft Office applications, and the Windows 7 taskbar, which provides a platform that allows your users to interact with your application more easily.

Another new feature is the Troubleshooting platform (TSP) that provides a consistent automated troubleshooting experience. This platform provides a standard way to diagnose, resolve and verify problems in Windows and in your application, driving better higher user satisfaction.

Beyond some of these developer-oriented features, Windows 7 is an upgrade across the board, containing a new search system that, as hard drives get bigger and computers store more content, allows you to find your stuff more quickly and accurately. The Windows Media Center, the center of the digital home, has been fully upgraded, with a new user experience and support for more hardware and HDTV.

Ultimately, the focus of this tutorial is a specific set of new developer features and application programming interfaces (APIs) that will allow you to build better applications that can take advantage of the new features in Windows 7. Note that this tutorial is looking only at what is new for developers, so if you've never built a Windows application before. However, we've tried to use examples that show you full applications that take advantage of some of the new features.