Feature – Earlier this week, Microsoft gave its first presentation about Windows 7 and explained the new feature set, which includes a new taskbar, live task thumbnails and new context menus with application-related options, multi-touch support with gestures and an on-screen virtual keyboard as well as performance enhancing code improvements. Our slideshow shows a comprehensive overview of the new features you can expect to see in the new operating system.
Based on what we knew of Windows 7 before the first presentation this week, there was reason to believe that Windows 7 would be just a rebadged Vista that has the single purpose to buy Microsoft some time to roll out a completely new operating system within four, five years. And we wondered whether a Vista-based operating system could be good enough to accomplish this goal. The presentation hasn’t changed the scenario - it is a Vista maintenance release and we still believe it is a transitional software that will be bridging the gap to something entirely new. What has changed somewhat, however, is our thoughts on how strong Windows 7 can be: Microsoft seems to have a good idea what Vista’s problems are and what users are looking for. Windows 7 looks like it can tackle most of those issues.
There are lots of tiny fixes that, combined, may make a huge impact on the usability of the software. For example, you can finally decide how intrusive the Universal Access Control (UAC) feature should be, you can allow or disable those annoying tray notifications, you can search files across multiple locations at once - even SharePoint sites - with the new Federated Search, connect to wireless networks with two clicks, change how Windows 7 looks and feels with new and, if you want, animated user interface themes. Of course, there is the multi-touch feature, but we believe that this will be a minor addition in Windows 7 and a feature no one has asked for. We just don’t believe that the current usage models of desktop and notebook PCs as well as the available hardware provide much room for such a technology to grow.
And then there are performance improvements, which may be much more significant that we can see right now. The current Windows 7 M3 and the first Beta in early 2009 will not be benchmark-ready, but we talked with industry sources about the promised reduced memory footprint, code-tweaks and Direct3D acceleration. Vista has a lot of room for speed improvements and we should see a noticeable speedup in Windows 7.
So, we went from skeptical to hopeful. Windows 7 looks like a real eye-opener and it looks that Microsoft may have needed Vista and a wave of complaints to get back on track. Of course, that does not change our opinion that Windows 7 may turn out to be the Windows Vista should have been – and our opinion that Microsoft should offer an attractive upgrade program for Vista owners, who are now dealing with a software that isn’t really up to par.
For now, however, we have top say that Windows 7 looks good and easily teh exceeds the expectations we had. This one looks like a winner for Microsoft.
Based on what we knew of Windows 7 before the first presentation this week, there was reason to believe that Windows 7 would be just a rebadged Vista that has the single purpose to buy Microsoft some time to roll out a completely new operating system within four, five years. And we wondered whether a Vista-based operating system could be good enough to accomplish this goal. The presentation hasn’t changed the scenario - it is a Vista maintenance release and we still believe it is a transitional software that will be bridging the gap to something entirely new. What has changed somewhat, however, is our thoughts on how strong Windows 7 can be: Microsoft seems to have a good idea what Vista’s problems are and what users are looking for. Windows 7 looks like it can tackle most of those issues.
There are lots of tiny fixes that, combined, may make a huge impact on the usability of the software. For example, you can finally decide how intrusive the Universal Access Control (UAC) feature should be, you can allow or disable those annoying tray notifications, you can search files across multiple locations at once - even SharePoint sites - with the new Federated Search, connect to wireless networks with two clicks, change how Windows 7 looks and feels with new and, if you want, animated user interface themes. Of course, there is the multi-touch feature, but we believe that this will be a minor addition in Windows 7 and a feature no one has asked for. We just don’t believe that the current usage models of desktop and notebook PCs as well as the available hardware provide much room for such a technology to grow.
And then there are performance improvements, which may be much more significant that we can see right now. The current Windows 7 M3 and the first Beta in early 2009 will not be benchmark-ready, but we talked with industry sources about the promised reduced memory footprint, code-tweaks and Direct3D acceleration. Vista has a lot of room for speed improvements and we should see a noticeable speedup in Windows 7.
So, we went from skeptical to hopeful. Windows 7 looks like a real eye-opener and it looks that Microsoft may have needed Vista and a wave of complaints to get back on track. Of course, that does not change our opinion that Windows 7 may turn out to be the Windows Vista should have been – and our opinion that Microsoft should offer an attractive upgrade program for Vista owners, who are now dealing with a software that isn’t really up to par.
For now, however, we have top say that Windows 7 looks good and easily teh exceeds the expectations we had. This one looks like a winner for Microsoft.