Windows 7 review
By Paul Miller 
posted August 12th 2009 2:05PM
posted August 12th 2009 2:05PM
Windows 7 arrives on the scene three short years after Vista, shoring up its predecessor's inadequacies and perhaps offering a little bit more to chew on. We've been playing with the OS ever since the beta, along through the release candidate, and now at last have the final, "release to manufacturing" (RTM) edition in our grubby paws. Does it live up to its understandable hype and the implicit expectations of a major Microsoft release? Let's proceed on a magical journey to discover the truth for ourselves.
Install / boot times / shutdown
It's the most base of operating system functions. Install, turn on, turn off. But first impressions matter, and Microsoft made sure to give Windows 7 a nice sheen when it came to these things. You can read through our full installation guide for an in-depth look at the pitfalls and triumphs of Windows 7 in this department, but in short: it's fast and lightweight, but the real performance gains can be found on netbooks and with clean installs. Otherwise there's really nothing to put Vista to shame -- though the amazing breath of fresh air a clean install provides should really set cruftware-happy vendors to a bit of soul searching.UI enhancements
Aero Peek
More helpful, however, is the ability to hover over the fly-out thumbnails that pop up from the taskbar app groupings, and isolate that specific window while all other windows are sent to outline mode. It serves as both geography lesson and a rapid navigation method, without feeling as clunky or "all-or-nothing" as previous attempts at windows management in Windows. Check out the video demo below to see how this plays out in practice:
Aero Shake
What we first thought was merely a gimmick has become one of our favorite features: merely grab the titlebar of a window and give it a vigorous shake to minimize all other windows. Great when you're changing tasks and want to rid yourself of the clutter of your previous activities, and we hardly know how we've made it so far in life without it.
Start Menu
Mac OS X might have Spotlight, but Windows now has great instant search as well, and the Windows key has a new lease on life. Merely pop open the Start Menu and start typing and search results start populating. It's not nearly as comprehensive as Spotlight, but it also doesn't seem to be faced with the same slowdowns of its Mac OS X counterpart, and typically tracks down what we're looking for (apps, usually). The Start Menu has also been enhanced with a refined layout and supplemental menus for frequently used items -- offering access to recent items used by that application, along with the new "tasks" list that Microsoft has snuck into the OS, but which are currently only used by a few Microsoft-built apps.
Aero Snap
Perhaps our favorite day-to-day improvement of them all, Aero Snap offers a surprisingly smart way of working with windows, using the mere power of a click and drag. Windows can be maximized by being pulled to the top of the screen, or set to fill one half of the screen by being dragging to the far left or right edge of the screen. An Aero Peek-style outline lets you preview what you're doing, and it's easy enough to bounce away from the "sticky" edges, or pull an already maximized window away from its moorings. Windows Key + Left Arrow or Right Arrow accomplishes the same thing for filling one half of the screen with the current window, and is perfect for lining up document comparisons.
New Taskbar
This one gets all the press, but it's really more a product of Aero Peek than anything clever in and of itself. Basically it takes some ideas from the Mac OS X dock like larger icons and app launcher duties (icons can be "pinned" to remain in place whether the application is open or not, a melding of Windows' old Quick Launch Bar into the taskbar proper), and adds in traditional Windows taskbar activity like the listing of open windows. The default functionality is fine, which keeps everything "stacked" in its respective icon, but the real money is in the "combine when taskbar is full" view, which can be accessed from the taskbar properties. This brings the benefits of verbose item names -- always a big win for Windows over Mac OS's icons-only approach -- without sacrificing the fancy Aero Peek features or the pretty icons. What's not so elegant is how hidden icons in the far-right system tray are now housed in an ugly little pop-up menu.
Even worse is the fact that dragging a file to an app icon in the taskbar doesn't allow you to open that file with the app, but instead asks if you want to "pin" the file to that app. Newsflash: we'd rather not. With a bit of work you can re-add the old fashioned Quick Launch set of mini-icons for drag and dropability, but that's pretty silly. We're glad there's enough customization available to make this livable, but we'd say Microsoft could have done a better job of thinking through its defaults.
Quick display switching
Windows + P = magic! Really, it's the little things that count, and Microsoft has made managing multiple displays and switching between commonly used configurations a total snap.
UI stayed-the-sames
Microsoft got a lot right with its new UI tweaks, but it certainly could've taken things a few logical steps further. For instance, it's odd that there's no built-in support of multifinger trackpad gestures -- why is this something that third party vendors have to figure out all by themselves? We understand that the hardware isn't universal, but we'd like to see Microsoft driving the adoption of such functionality by building clear, reliable support for it into the OS. Two finger scroll in particular: it's the best thing to happen to trackpads since tap-to-click, and we think everybody should've figured that out by now.On the multitouch front, Windows 7's support for multitouch display interaction is laudable but hardly sufficient. Microsoft itself has poured plenty of R&D into finger-friendly interfaces, and we would hope that they'd be building some of that innovation into the OS by now -- the release of the Surface-inspired Microsoft Touch Pack is a nice start, but doesn't go far enough. We shudder to imagine the haphazard implementations of smartphone-style multitouch innovations we're undoubtedly going to be seeing from OEMs in the coming years.
Overall, Microsoft has failed to establish a cohesive styling and operation model to its own applications, which range from the relatively new "ribbon" toolbars of Office, (and now WordPad, above, and Paint), to the website-like Control Panel navigation, to the ancient Device Manager trees, to the tabbed properties panes, and so on. In an attempt to simplify many of its interfaces, frequently used actions have been slowly popping up as buttons where menu bars used to be, while the deep functionality of "true" menus has been hidden elsewhere in the interface. All of this wouldn't be so horrible if Microsoft was the only builder of applications for Windows, but given thousands and thousands of developers out there making widely disparate application interfaces for Windows, we'd really appreciate it if Microsoft took a bit more leadership and more clearly defined a UI design language that was consistent and useful for users.
Notable app changes
Windows Media Center
We've gone way in-depth on this over at Engadget HD, but suffice it to say that Windows Media Center in Windows 7 is vastly superior to Windows Vista's version, and most all of the bugs from the Windows 7 beta seem to be ironed out quite nicely. The interface is a real treat, the extender functionality to the Xbox 360 and 3rd party boxes is much improved and quite snappier, and a truly marvelous amount of hardware is supported.
Windows Media Player
It's pretty much Windows Media Player, you know? The good news is that Microsoft has greatly expanded the codec support, to something bordering on comprehensive:
What's even more fun is the new "Play to" function, which can beam a locally-controlled audio playlist to computers that are part of your HomeGroup, DLNA devices like the PS3, or Media Center Extenders like the Xbox 360. Remotely shared libraries are also automatically detected off of DLNA or Home Server devices, and everything pretty much "just works."
If you're really feeling crazy you can tie your media library to your Windows Live ID and access your home media from anywhere over the internet.
Windows Explorer
It's hard to quantify most of the changes to the basic file browser activities in this release, other than to say "it just works" quite a bit more frequently than it did in Vista. It's smarter about spotting file types, there are solid in-pane previews of music, pictures and video (if you know to turn on the preview pane), and the particular folder we're targeting with a drag and drop is lined up in the simplified left hand sections of "Favorites" and "Libraries" more often than not. Unfortunately, it's not all roses: some media files we knew the OS was perfectly capable of playing through its Windows Media Player-powered preview pane had somehow been "claimed" by Zune and disabled for playback from within Windows Explorer. Looks like somebody missed a meeting.
Internet Explorer
We'll be honest: we avoid IE like the plague, and recommend you do as well. Microsoft continues to make improvements to the browser, and the nagging, over-protective "training wheels" approach to security is probably appropriate for those naive enough to use this thing, but the fact is that there are too many faster, better and "free-er" browsers out there to really waste much time in Microsoft's default. Anecdotally, the browser hard crashed a couple minutes into us writing this paragraph.
Notable app omissions
Windows MailIt was never the highlight of the OS, but Microsoft has for some reason decided to ship Windows 7 completely without a mail application, unless you count the browser. You're encouraged to download Windows Live Mail with the Windows Live Essentials app pack, but while it does an alright job, it's hardly a first string effort, and we're not sure why Microsoft has decided that emailing people isn't really a core functionality of a modern operating system, much less something that Microsoft should have an industry-leading app for inside the box.
Windows Movie Maker
Another item relegated to the Windows Live app pack, and this time slapped with a "Beta" moniker for extra shame. We actually have a bit of a soft spot for Microsoft's no-frills approach to movie editing for the everyman, and if YouTube is any indication, Movie Maker certainly gets the job done for a lot of people. Still, this is probably something that should be spruced up and packed in with the OS, and we're even more sure that it should support the now-defacto AVCHD format by now.
Windows Live Photo Gallery
You guessed it, another one kicked to Windows Live Essentials land, where supposedly "essential" apps go to die. Unfortunately, this particular app seems an even more logical omission, given its too-strong ties to a Windows Live account (something we've owned for years without managing to upload a single photo to, strangely enough).
Other sundry necessities
We could probably understand this app scarcity a decade ago -- Microsoft's job is only really half done when you buy the OS, they also need to keep that Office team afloat -- but given its modern day competition (Apple and Google, to be specific), it's hard to understand why Microsoft is shipping this OS without a calendar app, PDF viewer, lightweight office replacements or an IM / video conferencing solution. Microsoft blames anti-trust laws, stating that it's hard for it to work in all the "services" it wants into its apps if it bundles with the OS, but we'd say most of its applications could do with a bit more "open" when it comes to services (Flickr, YouTube, anything that isn't Windows Live, etc.) anyways. In any case, most computer vendors will be striking a deal with Microsoft or Google or whomever to supply some of these necessities with their shipping computers, but we can't help but think that Microsoft is leaving some vital elements of the operating system incomplete and wide open to inconsistent experiences by neglecting all of these app types in this way.
Security / networking
Microsoft had already done a lot of work since the initial release of Vista on not bugging us incessantly with pop-up security nags, but Windows 7 strikes an even better balance. What is disconcerting is how often security warnings include an "unknown" as the publisher -- it's not really teaching anybody to be judicious about what pops up in the warning if the warning itself doesn't even know what's going on.
In the end we'll find out just how secure Windows 7 is once it's in the wild and hackers start hammering on it, but with the abundance and ease of Windows updates these days, most anybody with an ounce of common sense and a speedy internet connection should be able to steer clear of danger. Meaning: we're all doomed.
On the networking front, HomeGroups are a new Windows 7-specific method of simplifying networking between computers on a local network, and we're really in love. After decades of being stymied by complicated Windows networking setups, we've finally been able to reliably and rapidly connect multiple computers and share files / media / printers / whatever without resorting to a sneakernet or inviting our smarter friends over with their fancy Computer Science degrees to figure it out for us.
Compatibility
Check out our upgrade guide for more info on our specific compatibility issues, but the long and the short of it is that anything we found to work in Vista seemed to work just fine (in some cases better!) in Windows 7. That goes for hardware and software, but of course the real test will be when this OS is unleashed upon the masses -- your mom's brother's 25 year old printer might not make the cut, and we'll be sure to pour out a 40 upon its behalf.
In truth, Microsoft does a very good job with keeping a truly insane quantity of hardware and drivers and vendors happy, but we still think they could do better. New and improved utilities to detect and install hardware are present in Windows 7, but they still don't feel entirely smart enough -- we had to track down plenty of drivers manually, and even dipped a toe now and then into the (shudder) Device Manager, which has hardly received an improvement since World War II. There has to be a better way to make sure people don't have to be smart, patient and lucky to get all their hardware working with their OS.
Of course, it's not a small problem to surmount. The brand new Device Stage seems to best illustrate the scope of this issue. Microsoft has presented a sort of candy-coated exterior to the Device Manager in the Devices and Printers view, which displays devices it recognizes as large, lickable icons, and lets you drill into further functions with a right click, or a double click if you're feeling lucky. Unfortunately, there's only a very small set of devices the OS seems truly at ease with. Sure, it picks up on most anything we plug in over USB, seeking out drivers over the internet and installing them quite painlessly, but actual functionality usually leaves a lot to be desired -- a double click usually gives us only the driest of driver-management options. Of our oodles of devices, most are represented by a generic NAS icon, many are represented with bizarre names (or eight names, in the case of our E71) and only two devices we tried offered a true Device Stage view, which was merely populated with battery and storage status.
It's simultaneously a testament to the insane diversity of devices Microsoft has to deal with, along with the implicit reliance on vendors to provide drivers in a logical and consistent manner. We don't imagine the Device Stage will be populated with truly useful infos on our favorite devices for many months (or years) to come.
Overall speed / stability
Speed is really one of Windows 7's major selling points. Particularly for the netbook set, Windows 7 can turn a machine that's nearly unusable under Windows Vista (especially if it's been saddled with the manufacturer's own set of crapware) into a quite potent workhorse. That's partly to do with the slimmed down kernel of the OS, which has lower memory requirements than Vista, but it's also due to Microsoft's rework of GUI scheduling, which means less bottlenecks and less unresponsive moments.Still, it's not perfect. On the well-appointed machine we performed an in-place upgrade from Vista on (trust us, a clean install is worth the hassle, learn from our mistakes) we found Gadgets taking a while to load on boot, occasional system-wide slowdowns when we were doing a tad "too much" with media, and Internet Explorer felt pretty sad compared to the competition.
While streaming Windows Media Center to our Xbox 360 we had trouble maintaining an internet connection, or perhaps a network connection -- it was unclear which was dropping. After we disconnected and reconnected the network would work again, but would break soon after. We eventually gave up and restarted, after which things seemed to work just fine.
Our worst experiences, however, were with a clean install to a quite modern netbook. The OS became increasingly unstable over time -- Windows Explorer itself seemed to be the main culprit -- and the machine eventually failed to boot entirely. Luckily, the Startup Repair utility managed to jump to the rescue and found a System Restore point that booted fine, though we lost the few customizations we'd made up to that point and were face with basically a fresh install again. It was nice of Windows 7 to recover itself so well, but we would obviously have preferred to not run into that issue in the first place.
SKUs
As for pricing and SKU confusion? Well, you'll have to decide that one for yourself:FROM XP / VISTA |
FROM
WIN7 STARTER |
FROM
WIN7 HOME PREMIUM |
FROM WIN7 PRO |
FULL PRICE |
||
 |
HOME PREMIUM |
$119.99*
|
$79.99
|
N/A
|
N/A
|
$199.99
|
 |
PRO |
$199.99
|
$114.99
|
$89.99
|
N/A
|
$299.99
|
 |
ULTIMATE |
$219.99
|
$164.99
|
$139.99
|
$129.99
|
$319.99
|
Full feature lists and additional SKUs can be found here. Family Pack info is here.
Madness? Yes. But there are still some decent options for most people, and if you've gotten a jump on things you might have already scored yourself that $50 upgrade -- don't you feel smug? In the long run, most people will end up getting Windows 7 with a new machine, so perhaps it doesn't matter so much, but we still wouldn't mind if Microsoft did a bit more work trimming down these full version pricetags. Doesn't Microsoft want those too-cool-for-school Apple hipsters dabbling in the dark side via Bootcamp?
Wrap-up
Where Vista felt like a sprawling mess, Windows 7 has patched up the holes and feels like a tight, unified mechanism. It's hardly full of surprises, but that's usually a good thing when it comes to operating systems. If you've never been a Windows person, there's hardly anything here that will change your mind about that. However, most human beings on this planet have some sort of interaction with Windows on a regular basis, whether by choice or necessity, and Windows 7 is great news for those millions of souls.
Instead of switching up the formula, Windows 7 is really an extension and a refinement of the true tenets of Windows (that we just made up): broad hardware compatibility, coatings of usability over deep functionality, and a "everything for everybody" approach to feature sets and SKUs. With such broad aims, and such a diverse userbase, it's no wonder that there are plenty of spots where the OS still falls short, but taken as a whole it's clear that Microsoft has taken a strong step forward with Windows 7. The world will know on October 22.
Further reading:
 |
How-To: Install Windows 7 and live to tell about it So you're thinking about going to Windows 7, eh? Chances are your head is swimming in a sea of TLAs and confusing charts -- enough to have the most adamant Microsoft defender reaching for a something with an Option key. Fear not, noble purchaser of legal software. |
 |
Windows 7 Release Candidate 1 impressions, insights, and expectations We had a chance to sit down with reps from Microsoft to discuss the new iteration of Windows (and the company's current frame of mind) more in-depth, and we've taken the new build for a bit of a spin around the block. |
 |
Windows 7 multitouch: it's a gimmick (for now) We've spent some time with Windows 7 Beta's new touch and multitouch features this week, and came away largely disappointed. It's not that they don't work, at least on occasion, it's that they don't really provide a comprehensive or pleasurable method for using a computer. |
 |
Windows 7 Beta in-depth impressions Naturally, we're working with a beta here, so things can absolutely get better (or worse), and Redmond might be hiding a feature or two in the wings -- or for the inevitable SP1 -- but we'd say Microsoft has really put its best foot forward here. |
Seems like the speed improvements over vista vary depending on what machine you're currently running? my 2 y/o Dell inspiron has a Core 2 duo processor w/ 2gb of RAM and 100gb harddrive. Surprisingly, it runs vista very very well. No crashes, relatively good speed...I guess having too much open at once gets a bit sluggish, but overall no real complaints. It definitely could be zippier though...
Am i going to see a noticeable speed improvement??
i am not sure how 7's media center can be so much better than Vista's-i have yet to find a large flaw in vistas. it needs add-ons for full functionality, but you couldn't expect ALL that out of the box. we've had a handful of crashes in a year of ownership, that's not bad. up the stability, and we're good to go
I've been using Media Center for many years, beginning with the XP MCE 2005 edition. Vista was a huuuuge improvement on that one. While nothing is completely revolutionized in 7's media center like XP to Vista, there are so many small improvements that it adds up to a big overall improvement.
My favorite is this:
Vista: 3 tuners mixed analog and digital. Set to record using either ATSC or NTSC, and it would always do that.
Win7: Same setup. Set tuner and channel priority in the guide, and if the normal tuner is busy, it will automatically find another tuner or even channel showing the same thing, and record it there.
"Microsoft has presented a sort of candy-coated exterior to the Device Manager in the Devices and Printers view, which displays devices it recognizes as large, lickable icons"
What flavor candy does it taste like?
Where can I get the wallpaper of the flying robots in the second screenshot?
Thanks,
The real question is Where did they find all these wallpaper??? ^^
They were inspired by some one's dreams that they had while they were on drugs. Kind of like Alice in Wonderland.
A picture alluded to it, but the text doesn't address this most important question:
IS IT COMPATIBLE WITH THE "DRAGON" MONSTER HANDSPIKE CONTROLLER?!?!?!?!?!!
By calling Vista a 'turd' you have just offended turds around the world.
that is one hidoues gaming controller you have.
They didnt mention the library thing
Which has to be my largest complaint thus far in Windows 7 is the Libraries thing...and the networking which i still havn't gotten to work just right yet the few times i tried to play with it
Other than that its a great OS, very quick, very stable..Much closer to OS X in terms of user experience
And I'm not getting into the Mac vs Windows crap, I have had both, Used both, Like and Dislike both for their own reasons, I am using a PC right now because when i bought my PC last year, I could not get a mac with the specifications I wanted at the price I wanted, Namely, I didnt want a mac pro, I have a 24" monitor already, and I wanted discrete graphics... :)
What about the libraries do you have a problem with?
Hey if you're the Windows Kenji I'm the Mac Kenji. I'm writing from my MacBook Pro to say that this Windz 7 will be another turd.
I would be very wary, Vista wasnt compatible with even most of MS *own* hardware until 12-16 months after release.
I wouldn't worry...it's been 36 months since windows vista release. Windows 7 has full compatibility with windows vista.
I just want to point out that the windows live apps, that should have been included with the OS, probably kicked to live because microsoft was scare of another IE ordeal
None of the Microsoft Windows Live... apps are worth anything anyway. Who uses them anyway?
I do, I use messenger all the time, as do millions worldwide.
@neal
People still use the IM programs that are associated with the IM services? I thought that everyone used Pidgin, Trillian, Meebo, or other similar programs.
Well, despite my distaste for Apple Inc. (R.I.P., Apple Computer Inc.), I definitely won't be jumping ship anytime soon. But, I have to give microsoft some credit though... stuff like that window shake to empty the desktop was pretty sharp. I'm really surprised Apple hadn't come up with that one around the time they started messing with expose.
You're a very sad man.
Jacob, LifeCams are NOW compatible with Vista. When they first came out, they most decidedly were not. No Vista drivers.
Jacob, when LifeCam first came out (I got it the first week), it most decidedly was NOT compatible with Vista. No drivers.
Vista user. Happy with that although this isn't a surprise considering I had/have an above average PC (Q6600). Most people bitched about Vista trying to run it on horribly underpowered machines. I agree Vista is a complete hog but on ample hardware its fine. Then I tried the 7000 beta and never looked back. Carried on to 7068, 7100 and 7264, before finally using 7600 now (still using RC key, expires Mar 2010)
7 is an absolute joy to use and really utilizes hardware to it's fullest potential. Heck I have 7600 Ultimate on my netbook and its smooth as silk, beating the preinstalled XP hands down, even with just 1GB ram. We're even talking Office working well on it. I launched all office apps as a little stress test and all loaded simultaneously with in 15-20 seconds. WMP rocks too, I use it for all my video although of course nothing comes close to foobar2000 in terms of audio playback/tagging/conversion :P
Aero isn't too shabby on the GMA 950 in it either. Sure its nowhere near as smooth as higher end cards but that said its definitely not unusable. That said I have it disabled merely to get maximum battery life.
All in all whether on the desktop or on the road Windows 7 is simply amazing. Truly leaps and bounds ahead of XP and Vista which were great.
Piracy is so coool!
Piracy? I have been using keys that Microsoft have provided from their website.
If you have a good running and stable Vista installation with no crapware and all the latest drivers and updates, which I had, an in-place upgrade is nothing to shy away from. I definilty notice the performance improvements in 7. It feels smoother overall and the Windows Experiance Index went up quite a bit. The most surprising one was the memory performance. My Vista installation on this hardware had a 5.7 index, dragged down by the memory performance. Everything else was 5.9 except. With Windows 7, the memory performance jumped up to 7.2 and my harddisk at 5.9 became the bottleneck, which is how it's supposed to be. Processer, graphics and memory are all well north of 5.9 now. Of course I don't really know what they could have been on Vista because 5.9 was the cap, but the improvement on the memory front is quite telling.
I got the "E" RTM w/ no IE... love it.
How intersting, considering they canned that SKU and it will never see the light of day - yet you somehome have the RTM version?
Really? It's 2009 and you're doubting being able to find something on the internet? Alrighty.
RTM would be "Release To Manufacture(er)" which the E editions never were, they got poop canned before release, so...yes you likely have something that is not valid in that case.
Ugh, I HATE Aero Snap. At least now I know the name of the feature I hate.
Like most of the new features, it can be turned off in control panel. :)
I like it.
I actually love it, when I booted Vista to use some apps I hadn't installed on W7 I found myself moving the window to the sides to use Aero Snap.
Have to agree with jakem 100%, the last thing windows should try and do is emulate features of Mac OS, take some good stuff, sure, but they have the lions share of the end-user OS market for business user functionality. I use my PC for work, not to show my next door neighbor how I can zoom in on my new neice with a simple two-finger gesture. (Incidentally, I zoom using the scroll region on the right of my trackpad, and that works great!!)
Vista post SP1 has worked fine for me, and 7 looks like a welcome progression. I think we should avoid humoring the Mac vs PC arguments, as its always the person that has less basis for the argument that shouts the loudest. Take solace in the fact that the same people that will blindly claim Mac superiority, are usually doing so, as they are inept at performing simple upgrade and modification tasks to their machine, without big-brother Jobs deciding what they can have.
One thing I would like to see in windows though, as I use it all the time on my Linux boxes, is the 4 virtual desktops. You could solve a lot of issues immediately with the whole window clutter etc, by allowing the user to assign windows to one of 4 virtual desktops. And anyone with 2 monitors could then view two of the 4 desktops at any one time.
"the last thing windows should try and do is emulate features of Mac OS"
Hahah, you mean like Spaces in OS X? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7MHup6kXbU
The Mac (being a UNIX machine) has inherited built-in virtual desktops much like Linux distros have. And Macs have the ability to go up to 16 desktops. Once again, IF Windows photocopies the feature, they'll be last to the party.
"Once again, IF Windows photocopies the feature, they'll be last to the party."
So then you admit Mac is inferior to pretty much every flavor of Linux out there, since they had it first? Instead of focusing on who's "copying" who, let's just look at who has the best software, mmmkay?
On the contrary, OS X is superior for improving upon its virtual desktop inheritance and seamlessly integrating it into the rest of the system. Innovations that have then been adopted by the distant cousins, the Linux distros. That's what one of the things that makes the software quality of OS X stand out.
@Fox Kenji
To say that Windows is stealing and idea, where Mac is inheriting it is completely absurd. Although OSX uses a version of BSD, it does not mean that Apple has any right to take something from a community built on free software, and sell it. I understand your a fanboy, and you do it for the attention, but I need to make sure no one else can take anything you say as logical.
There's some irony in this guy waiting eagerly for a tablet - technology Microsoft really pushed and tried to make mainstream - to make it to Apple while simultaneously accusing Windows 7 of "repackaged BS" just trying to catch up with OS X.
But hey, not like he's going to see the irony himself.
damn fine review. one step closer to consigning my lust for a jobsian machine to the junkpile.
Best OS ever released thus far.
Way to go Microsoft.
You mean best Windows OS ever --maybe.
Windows will never be the best OS ever. That's for sure.
You know... That reminds me.
People who rant and rave about how the iPhone and iPod Touch are the best products out there because they have the "HUGE APP STORE WITH THOUSANDS OF APPS AT YOUR FINGERTIPS" etc etc....
Well guess what.
Windows has millions and millions of apps, at your fingertips, and Mac OS will NEVER have as many apps as Windows does.
There. It's settled, Windows is better, we can all go home now.
I find that the architecture in Windows 7 is still fairly primitive. It's a pretty face on an archaic OS.
Let the low ranking begin.
Prove it.
I'm not sure I'm qualified. I'm a student of architecture and engineering, not computer science. I can, however, explain my reasoning with the disclaimer that I may be mistaken.
Windows, since the NT versions, hasn't been based off a monolithic kernel or a microkernel system. It's been based off a hybrid kernel, similar to that found in some flavors of UNIX and in OS X. In this (and I may be mistaken), Windows sides closer to a monolithic kernel, while OS X sides further towards a microkernel, as it is itself based off the Mach microkernel. The merits and pitfalls of the different types of overarching operating system architectures can be debated endlessly. The one thing that is apparent is that a system based on a microkernel tends to lend itself more to parallel processing, similar to what's being found in multi-core processors and in systems with GPU processing.
The true problem with Windows, I think, is the registry. The idea that both the operating system and application configuration files need to be in the same database dates back to the times when computers couldn't work with separate databases, as sequential processing was all there was, and it's a system that hasn't been significantly overhauled since the earliest versions of Windows. Every other operating system I know of has shifted to separate databases. Every time a program changes something in the registry, it risks an error by where the database values that control the operating system are incorrectly modified or misplaced. In Windows, by design, applications don't run as self-contained bubbles, interfacing at designated points with the operating system, but instead are directly hardwired into the configuration values for the core OS. This compromises security and stability.
My other problem with Windows relates to the weak command line, but has nothing to do with the architecture of the OS itself. Rather than embracing it as an alternative to a graphical interface, it's been essentially castrated. This needn't be the case. It significantly slows down power users who would prefer to use the command interface. I'm a visual person, and I'm not not one of those people, but I don't like that users aren't given the choice.
@david
Powershell.
Google it.
David, on the command prompt issue try running Powershell. It's cmd on steroids.