Microsoft officially announced Beta 1 of its newest operating system, Windows 7, at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Thereafter, it was immediately available for download to the brave souls who dared to give Microsoft another chance after the marketing disaster that was Vista.
Windows 7 has a lot riding on it. Vista has been one of Microsoft’s biggest headaches, with critiques coming from all sides. The complaints are many, here are a few: Vista takes up too many resources, it crashes, it’s unreliable, and Vista provids no noticeable benefits over XP. Some of these complaints are justified, some aren’t. Whatever the case, Microsoft has listened.
I downloaded and installed Windows 7 with a certain amount of apathy. I use Vista on my desktop at home. At work, we use Mac Pros with OS X. On the go, my laptop runs XP. I feel each has its own strengths, but none owns complete dominance in my day- to- day computer usage. I opted to install Windows 7 on my laptop after a clean re-format and have been using it daily for the past week.
For those who are looking for a complete 180 degree turn in a different direction from Vista, you will be disappointed. Windows 7 is an evolution of Vista, or perhaps Vista how it should have been. It is not MinWin and it is not some sort of completely new operating system.
That said, Windows 7 is great for what it is. I judge an operating system by how often it gets in my way. OS X is terrible at this due to a lack of options and customizability. Vista’s User Account Control (UAC) is an utter nightmare until it is turned off. XP feels like going back to the stone age of computing, with everything taking longer to get to than it should. Windows 7 takes the strengths of each of these operating systems and leaves as many of the weaknesses behind as it can.
Note that my test system, my laptop, is at or below the recommended specifications for Windows 7. So when I say the installation was seamless, it really means something for Microsoft. Windows 7 recognized and installed all of my hardware immediately with a single update. No blue screens. No freezing.
Installing programs went just as smoothly. While still in beta, I was able to find support for the majority of the programs I use on Vista, including Firefox and Office 2007. Now for the “new stuff.”
The task bar has been re- done. It resembles the OS X dock in appearance without being as large. Programs can be added to and moved around. The quick launch side bar and where windows would normally appear have been melded into one.
When a program is launched, the icon turns a different shade to show that it is running. OS X would do well to try something similar. Hovering over the icon with the mouse, a preview box pops up. If you have two windows open, or say, two tabs open in Internet Explorer 8, two preview boxes will pop up. Click on the one you wish to go to, and it’ll open the window.
I have to admit this was the biggest feature that I was most apprehensive of. I even went so far as to bash if before trying it, as my friends will attest. But it really blew my expectations away. I detest using Vista or OS X now, wishing for the efficiency of the Windows 7 task bar.
The UAC of Windows 7 has also been drastically tuned down by default. The only time I noticed a prompt was during the installing of an .exe file. However, the UAC operates via a sliding bar of security. Turn it down, and you’re left on your own. Turn it up, and you’ll receive more prompts.
Folders and organization have received a few subtle tweaks, and I’m learning more tricks as I go along. Take a window and drag it to the top, for example, and it’ll make the window full screen. Drag a window to the left and it’ll take up the left hand side of the screen. The same is true for the right side of the screen; a really quick, easy way to compare two documents side by side in this market of widescreen dominance.
Not everything is flowers and roses, though. Windows Media Player managed to crash the first time I tried to load it. Sleep mode fails utterly and completely every time, which is a shame since sleep mode is the default for the power button and for closing the lid on my laptop. I had to manually change pressing the power button to shutting down and the closing the lid option to do nothing. What’s worse is when I changed the close lid option to do nothing, it still forced my laptop into sleep mode. Only changing the option to “hibernate” seemed to have any effect.
Microsoft may have a real winner on its hands here. The market is demanding something better and more stable than Vista, and Windows 7 has promise. The beta lasts until Aug. 1, 2009, so we’ll see how it holds up over time, as I install more programs that may threaten the stability of the operating system. For now, though, I’m content to glare at my Vista taskbar and wish it were Windows 7.