Beta to RC changes – Turning windows features on or off

The E7 team has posted an interesting blog post about the various Windows features that are available to turn on or off in the Windows 7 RC. Customers are now given more control, flexibility and choice in managing the features available in the RC of Windows 7.

Below are the list of extra features that are added to Windows 7 RC:

Windows Media Player
Windows Media Center
Windows DVD Maker
Internet Explorer 8
Windows Search
Handwriting Recognition (through the Tablet PC Components option)
Windows Gadget Platform
Fax and Scan
XPS Viewer and Services (including the Virtual Print Driver)

Neowin had already reported about Internet Explorer 8 being an optional component in the latest Windows 7 build 7048, and so are the other features. Interesting features to note other than Internet Explorer 8 are the Windows Media Player and Windows Media Center.

However these options (turning Windows features on or off) are not made available during the Windows 7 installation and are available on the post-setup experience for Windows 7

"Finally, we know some have suggested that this set of choices be a "setup option". Some operating systems do provide this type of setup experience. As we balanced feedback, the vast majority of feedback we have received was to streamline setup and to reduce the amount of potential complexity in getting a PC running. We chose to focus this feature on the post-setup experience for Windows 7"

Deselecting a Windows feature makes that feature not available for use, which means that the files are not loaded by the operating system and are staged so that they can be easily added when the features are selected back again. Since these files are staged, users dont require the Windows 7 installation DVD to turn on the features again.

It would be interesting to see whether will there be an option for OEMs to streamline the Windows 7 post-setup experience where they could deselect/select some of the Windows features. This is also a great addition for Corporates where they would be able to streamline the Windows 7 setup for deployment (using the MDOP)