Windows 7 Review

On October 22nd, 2009, Microsoft will reboot Windows. This day Windows 7 will hit store shelves worldwide.
And yet, there already are millions of users currently running Windows 7, including the gold version of the operating system. For the early adopters that have embraced Windows 7 since before Milestone 3 approximately a year ago, through the Beta Build 7000 and Release Candidate (RC) Build 7100, and every other leaked interim development release of the OS, the Windows reboot has already taken place. A new apex of Windows is now booting on production environment computers on a daily basis, including a few of the machines I’m using.

On October 22nd, 2009, Microsoft will reboot its operating system to the best Windows client the company has developed since MSDOS. Some might be fooled into thinking that Windows 7 was a less ambitious project than Vista, and only a minor upgrade. I disagree. To put it simply, Windows 7 is a result of realistic strategy, made public only in bite-size chunks with the tactic to underpromise and overdeliver. And make no mistake about it, Steven Sinofsky, now president, Windows and Windows Live Division, together with Jon DeVaan, senior vice president, Windows Core Operating System Division, and the thousands of developers on the Windows team, have indeed overdelivered.

The legacy
Windows 7 is so far from the mess that was Vista that it is hard to believe that it is the successor of Windows XP that acted as the foundation of the latest iteration of the Windows client. Vista debuted to a barrage of criticism, some of which originated with the platform’s own testers slapping Microsoft for the release of what they believed to be an OS still far from being finalized. Appearing aimless, bloated and plagued with problems, Vista was only fixed with Service Pack 1, as far as end users are concerned.

But the fact of the matter is that Vista deserves a lot more credit than given. After all, make no mistake about it, dig just a little under the new, shiny Windows 7 surface and you will find Vista. And yet Windows 7 is getting nothing but love and accolades, while Vista got the boot. On numerous occasions I’ve had to sit through anti-Vista diatribes from users who had never used the operating system at all.

But in a sense, Vista also acted as the perfect buffer for Windows 7. Users transformed Vista into a punching bag, and relentlessly took swings at the operating system. Vista simply absorbed a lot of frustration from consumers, albeit it also generated more than its fair share, but it managed to give Microsoft a quasi-clean slate for Windows 7. I don’t care what your perspective on Windows 7 is, but the platform shines when you compare it to Vista, no matter how you look at it.

Editions Just as Vista, Windows 7 comes in a variety of flavors. However, unlike Vista, Microsoft’s stock keeping unit strategy is more cohesive, comprehensive, and focused mainly on three editions of the operating system. Here are the price tags for the main SKUs of the OS: Windows 7 Home Premium (Upgrade): $119.99; Windows 7 Professional (Upgrade): $199.99; and Windows 7 Ultimate (Upgrade): $219.99 - Windows 7 Home Premium (Full): $199.99; Windows 7 Professional (Full): $299.99; and Windows 7 Ultimate (Full): $319.99.

Customers can pretty much ignore Windows 7 Starter – unless buying cheap, hardware restrained netbooks; Home Basic – unless living in an underdeveloped country; and Enterprise – unless they are a Software Assurance customer looking for Volume Licenses of Windows 7. Home Premium, Professional and Ultimate is where all the heat is, one perfect for home users, one for businesses and the last tailored to technology enthusiasts.

Performance:
Even before Windows 7 was out of the gate it dramatically outperformed Windows Vista. And when I’m saying this I’m not even thinking of Vista RTM, but of Vista SP1 and SP2, by which time Microsoft had fine-tuned XP’s successor. Whether you’re booting or shutting down, copying content, or performing any other of a countless list of mundane tasks, Windows 7 will get the job done faster than Vista. It just looks like Microsoft integrated as much horsepower as possible into the new operating system, almost guaranteeing that customers will be thrilled by the experience provided by the new platform.

But performance is much more than just about sheer speed if you ask me. Sure Windows 7 leaves Windows Vista, and even Windows XP, in the dust effortlessly, but at the same time, performance enhancements go beyond responsiveness. In fact, contributing decisively to the overall feeling that Windows 7 is snappier, completing tasks promptly, less sluggish in the most basic of actions compared to its precursor is the fact that the platform makes better use of the hardware resources available.

Windows 7 will consume less RAM, and in fact it will perform under acceptable parameters with just as low as 1 GB of system memory. At the same time, the OS is better tailored to multicore and multi processor machines and is better positioned than Vista to use in a new era of 64-bit architectures. Not only is Windows 7 superior at administering hardware resources, but it is also better at managing services and background tasks. Because of enhanced management capabilities, Windows 7 boots, resumes and shuts down faster, but also offers increased battery life. Users with low-end machines will also be able to turn to an evolved ReadyBoost feature to add USB devices that act as additional memory cache, up to 256 GB.

Compatibility, stability and reliability:
Windows 7 has been built to share the same software and hardware compatibility level as the latest evolutionary step of Windows Vista. Even before finalization, the promise from Microsoft was that application and device drivers that worked for Vista would also work with Windows 7, less so when it comes down to XP. In fact, when jumping directly from XP to Windows 7 you should prepare for the worst case scenario and expect compatibility issues. The same is valid, although to a much smaller degree, for Vista to Windows 7 upgrades. The truth is that, although Windows 7 delivers impressive compatibility with legacy products, sometimes it’s just out of Microsoft’s hands.

Don’t expect a seven-year-old printer for which support has been discontinued by the manufacturer to work seamlessly with your new 64-bit copy of Windows 7, because it won’t! This is why Microsoft is supplying the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor Beta. Download the tool, scan your system, and find out before jumping to Windows 7 if your current system has compatibility issues with the new OS. The key to ensuring that you have a great user experience is to be prepared.

As far as, stability and reliability are concerned, I have never experienced a system crash (Blue Screen) in approximately three months since I’m running Windows 7 RTM Build 7600. And throughout the Beta and RC development stages I only had to endure a handful of system crashes, but this is understandable considering that the OS was still being built at that time. The way I see it, stability and reliability, just as compatibility and performance, are perpetual examples of works in progress. This week Microsoft has made available for download the first stability and reliability update for Windows 7 RTM, just to make my point.

But ultimately, Microsoft has kicked up a notch the stability and reliability capabilities of Windows 7. Drivers run sandboxed to ensure that device- and driver-related crashes are contained and do not deliver a system-wide impact, the OS brings to the table a fault-tolerant heap, and evolved backup, repair and restore capabilities, now easier to leverage, even by inexperienced users.

GUI, NUI and UX:
I believe that only in the coming years, as the world will catch up with Windows 7, will the realization that this was the moment when Natural User Interfaces started to go mainstream will begin to sink in. The new Windows Aero graphical user interface along with the new multitouch capabilities (the natural user interface) provide a unique experience, unmatched by past Windows releases or by rival platforms. The work of Julie Larson-Green, corporate vice president, Windows Experience, is visible throughout the operating system, but fact is that Windows GUI goes much deeper than Windows Aero.

Sure enough, the new Windows Taskbar (Superbar), Thumbnail Previews, JumpLists, Aero Shake, Aero Snap, Aero Peek deliver the bells and whistled for an exceptional and unique UX. But it is the Ribbon/Fluent GUI, set as the preferred user interface for Windows 7-based apps that also boosts UX and ensures that the necessary steps are met for NUIs to become pervasive.

Windows 7 is less closed and more intuitive, less opaque and more transparent, less cluttered and more organized, less rigid and more customizable, less nagging and more relaxed, less inflexible and more streamlined – all aspects contributing to a superior user experience.

Security:
It’s too early to tell whether the new performance improvements introduced in Windows 7 will stand the test of time or not. Microsoft has enhanced User Account Control, introduced the Action Center, boosted IE8 security features and is even providing Microsoft Security Essentials 1.0, a free but basic security solution to protect users running genuine copies of Windows.

It is important to note, that, although a product of the Security Development Lifecycle, Windows 7 does not come close to the breath of security mitigations introduced in its precursor. It was in Vista that Microsoft built in UAC for example, and it was with Vista that the Redmond giant put its foot down and demanded hardware manufacturers to sign all drivers, and didn’t nudge when it was pressured to undo Kernel Patch Protection (PatchGuard). Windows 7 simply builds upon the great security mitigations already available including Address Space Layout Randomization, Stack Randomization, Heap Randomization and Heap Corruption Detection.

But it is important to note, that, just as Windows Vista, Windows 7 features only security mitigations, and no security barriers. This means that, although work has been done to bulletproof Windows 7 even more than its precursors, the operating system in itself is not a panacea for the threat environment. However, recent statistics from Microsoft indicate that out of all the machines Microsoft Security Essentials was installed on just 17% had been infected with malware, compared to 52% of XP and 32% of Vista computers.

source: news.softpedia.com