Windows 7

Windows 7 (codenamed Vienna, formerly Blackcomb) is a personal computer operating system developed by Microsoft. It is a part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. Windows 7 was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009, less than three years after the release of its predecessor, Windows Vista. Windows 7's server counterpart, Windows Server 2008 R2, was released at the same time.

Windows 7 was primarily intended to be an incremental upgrade to the operating system intending to address Windows Vista's poor critical reception while maintaining hardware and software compatibility. Windows 7 continued improvements on Windows Aero (the user interface introduced in Windows Vista) with the addition of a redesigned taskbar that allows applications to be "pinned" to it, and new window management features. Other new features were added to the operating system, including libraries, the new file sharing system HomeGroup, and support for multitouch input. A new "Action Center" interface was also added to provide an overview of system security and maintenance information, and tweaks were made to the User Account Control system to make it less intrusive. Windows 7 also shipped with updated versions of several stock applications, including Internet Explorer 8, Windows Media Player, and Windows Media Center.

AC'97

AC'97 (Audio Codec '97; also MC'97 for Modem Codec '97) is an audio codec standard developed by Intel Architecture Labs in 1997. The standard was used in motherboards, modems, and sound cards.

Audio components integrated into chipsets consist of two component classes: an AC'97 digital controller (DC97), which is built into the southbridge of the chipset, and AC'97 audio and modem codecs, which are the analog components of the architecture.

AC'97 defines a high-quality, 16- or 20-bit audio architecture with surround sound support for the PC. AC'97 supports a 96 kHz sampling rate at 20-bit stereo resolution and a 48 kHz sampling rate at 20-bit stereo resolution for multichannel recording and playback. AC97 defines a maximum of 6 channels of analog audio output.

Integrated audio is implemented with the AC'97 Codec on the motherboard, a Communications and Networking Riser (CNR) card, or an audio/modem riser (AMR) card.

In 2004, Intel released Intel High Definition Audio (HD Audio) which is a successor that is not backward compatible with AC'97. HD Audio has the capability to define many more than AC'97's six output channels, but in practice most motherboards provide no more than 8 channels.