Designed for people who want it all
Windows 7 Ultimate is the most versatile and powerful edition of Windows 7. It combines remarkable ease-of-use with the entertainment features of Home Premium and the business capabilities of Professional, including the ability to run many Windows XP productivity programs in Windows XP Mode. For added security, you can encrypt your data with BitLocker and BitLocker-To-Go. And for extra flexibility, you can work in any of 35 languages. Get it all with Windows 7 Ultimate.
Simplify everyday tasks
* Simplify your PC with new navigation features like Shake, Jump Lists, and Snap.
o Ever need to cut through a cluttered desktop and quickly focus on a single window? Now with Windows 7, you can just click, hold down, and give your mouse a shake. Voila! Every open window except that one instantly disappears. Jiggle again—and your windows are back. (Who says an old mouse can't learn a new trick?)
o The taskbar gives you a quick way to find the programs and files you’ve got open. With Windows 7, you’ll see the next big jump (pun intended) in making it easier to find what you need. Jump Lists take you right to the documents, pictures, songs, or websites you use most often. To open a Jump List, just right-click a program icon on the Windows 7 taskbar. You can also see Jump Lists for the programs on your Start menu – just click on the arrow next to the program name.
o Snap is a quick (and fun) new way to resize open windows, simply by dragging them to the edges of your screen. Depending on which edge you choose—top or bottom, left or right—the window will expand vertically, fill the screen, or you can even position windows side by side. Snap makes reading, organizing, and comparing windows a...well, you get the picture.
* Personalize your PC by customizing themes, colors, sounds, and more.
* Easily set up a home network and connect to printers and devices.
o Have you ever needed to print a file at home when you weren’t connected to a printer? Did you decide that even with a home network, it was easier to just put the file on a USB drive and take it to the PC with the printer? That’s one reason we created HomeGroup. New with Windows 7, HomeGroup takes the headache out of sharing files, devices, and printers on a home network. Connect two or more PCs running Windows 7, and HomeGroup makes it easy to automatically start sharing your music, pictures, video, and document libraries with others in your home.
* Back up your complete system over a network.
o Now you can easily configure and schedule regular backups of your important files like photos and financial records—just in case.
Backup and Restore—improved for Windows 7—creates safety copies of your most important files, so if you lose something, it won't be lost forever. Let Windows choose what to back up, or pick individual folders, libraries, or drives. Windows can back up files on whatever schedule you choose. Just set it and forget it. In Windows 7, you can back up files to another drive, your network, or a DVD. Backup and Restore for your personal PC and attached DVD or external hard drives comes with all editions of Windows.
* Help protect data on your PC or portable storage device against loss or theft with BitLocker.
o How can you help protect your data from loss, theft, or hackers? The answer: BitLocker. If you've got information on your PC that you need to protect, you can help prevent theft or loss by using BitLocker data encryption to put a virtual lock on your files.
Improved for Windows 7 and available in the Ultimate edition, BitLocker helps keep everything from documents to passwords safer by encrypting the entire drive that Windows and your data reside on. Once BitLocker is turned on, any file you save on that drive is encrypted automatically.
BitLocker To Go—a new feature of Windows 7—gives the lockdown treatment to easily-misplaced portable storage devices like USB flash drives and external hard drives.
Work the way you want
* Designed to make your PC sleep and resume quicker.
o Windows 7 is ready when you are. When resuming from Standby, Windows 7 is designed to reconnect to your wireless network faster so your PC will be ready to use in seconds. You'll spend even less time waiting for your PC to be ready if you use the Sleep mode.
* Takes full advantage of 64-bit PC hardware and memory.
o If you’ve gone PC shopping lately, you've probably noticed more computers with 64-bit processors, and you may have wondered what advantages they offer. Put simply, a 64-bit PC can handle larger amounts of information than a 32-bit system. Since it can use more RAM—4 GB and up—a 64-bit computer can be more responsive when you're running lots of programs at once.
* Windows XP Mode gives you the business flexibility you need.
o It's the best of both worlds: The new Windows XP Mode lets you run older Windows XP business software right on your Windows 7 desktop.
This feature is designed primarily with small- and medium-sized businesses in mind. Windows XP Mode comes as a separate download and works only with Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate. Windows XP Mode also requires virtualization software such as Windows Virtual PC. Both are available free on the Microsoft website.
* Switch between any of 35 languages.
Make new things possible
* Watch shows for free where and when you want with Internet TV on Windows Media Center.
o Watch, pause, and record live TV. Listen to your tunes. Show off your photo collection. Enjoy online entertainment. And do it all from your living-room couch. In Windows 7, we've made it even better—adding great new features and visual touch-ups. Windows Media Center is available in the Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate editions of Windows 7.
* Send media from your PC to devices on your home network.
o Do you have music on your PC that you want to play on your home entertainment system? Play To, new in Windows 7, makes it easy to use your home audio-video system and other networked media devices to play your music, watch videos, and display photos that reside on your PC. Just right-click the tracks you'd like to hear and select Play To—now you're hearing what you want, where you want it.
* Supports more media formats, including integrated video and Dolby audio codecs.
System Requirements
* 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
* 1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
* 16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
* DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver
Additional requirements to use certain features:
* Internet access (fees may apply)
* Depending on resolution, video playback may require additional memory and advanced graphics hardware
* For some Windows Media Center functionality a TV tuner and additional hardware may be required
* Windows Touch and Tablet PCs require specific hardware
* HomeGroup requires a network and PCs running Windows 7
* DVD/CD authoring requires a compatible optical drive
* BitLocker requires Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 1.2
* BitLocker To Go requires a USB flash drive
* Windows XP Mode requires an additional 1 GB of RAM, an additional 15 GB of available hard disk space, and a processor capable of hardware virtualization with Intel VT or AMD-V turned on
* Music and sound require audio output
