Making Windows 7 touchable involved for Microsoft a focus on the evolution of the existing experience, namely optimizing the graphical user interface for touch, and not delivering a Touch UI or a Touch Shell. The Redmond company emphasized that the end purpose was to make touch capabilities pervasive throughout the operating system, and not to limit the new interaction model to just a sub-set, and UI variant optimized just for touch that would replace the default graphical user interface.

“As you can see from the beta, we are focused on bringing touch through the Windows experience and delivering optimized touch interface where appropriate. A touch shell for launching only touch-specific applications would not meet customers’ needs – there would be too much switching between “touch” mode and Windows applications. Instead, we focused our efforts on augmenting the overall experience so that Windows works great with touch,” revealed Reed Townsend, program manager, Microsoft Touch Team.

Testers with touch-capable hardware that have played around with Windows 7 Beta have already been able to “get a feel” of what the operating system is capable of. Even as early as Beta Build 7000, Windows 7 offers support for a range of natural gestures, including tap, drag, drag-and-drop, scroll, right-click, back, forward, zoom, and rotate, Townsend explained. In effect, the next iteration of the Windows operating system will manage, in combination with the right hardware, to make touch-computing mainstream, underlining the Redmond company's strong commitment to Natural User Interfaces.

In addition, Windows 7 offers “Improved high DPI support - the broad benefit to touch is that UI elements are rendered closer to their intended size – usually larger – which makes small buttons, links, and other targets easier to access with touch. Improved window management - the updated taskbar and windows arranging features go a long way towards making Windows easier to use with touch. [And] Touch keyboard - the on-screen keyboard has been optimized for touch with glow key feedback that’s visible when your finger is covering the letter and multitouch support for natural typing behavior and key combinations. It’s designed for quick usage, like entering a URL,” Townsend added.