What are the technical differences between Windows Vista and Windows 7?

Question

I'm interested in finding an unabridged technical manual documenting all of the differences between the two operating systems. In Tanenbaum's latest edition of Modern Operating Systems (3rd Edition), he dives into the technical layout of Windows Vista.

I'm looking for something similar or in greater detail describing Windows 7 and also the differences between Windows 7 and Vista.

Any leads, suggestions, tips? They are Much appreciated.

Answer 1

Windows 7 is very similar internally to Vista. The primary changes in Windows 7 made major improvements in performance and fixed annoyances from Vista such as the UAC.

A few extra things to do with device handling have been improved as well, but the driver structure did not change dramatically. A few new wizards here and there also.

For more details:

• Differences between Windows 7 and Vista (Into Windows)
• Windows 7 vs. Windows Vista (diffen)

Answer 2

Check the complete new features list on Wikpedia and a presentation on the kernel improvements.

See these three talks by the kernel developers:

• Arun Kishan: Inside Windows 7 - Farewell to the Windows Kernel Dispatcher Lock - Better playback! :)
• Mark Russinovich: Inside Windows 7 - MinWin, a slimmed down kernel...
• Mark Russinovich: Inside Windows 7 Redux - NUMA, Non Uniform Memory Access.

Answer 3

It's worth noting that, along with excessive memory usage, lots of features were removed as well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_features_removed_in_Windows_7

Probably half of those affect me and so my ample desktop remains on Vista.