So, what's really new in Windows 7?

I have been following the Windows 7 reports loosely for quite a while now, and the more I read, filtering out the noise, what I see is really Windows 6.1 over Windows 6.0 (Vista), meaning, not much new, really.

For instance, it looks like the shorter boot times some people were gushing about are really mostly due to the fact that they compare clean installs of Windows 7 with loaded Vista installs on inferior hardware, plus maybe Microsoft doing a little more trickery with delayed-start services, which is really a bit of a scam. After all, under the hood Windows 7 really is Vista, plus some minor interface tweaks. Just as a data point, on my M90 (which is really loaded with software to the brim) I can boot Vista in about 30 seconds to the Welcome Screen. Of course, after that, once the delayed-start services kick in, I can see the hard drive being busy for another five minutes, due to Superfetch and the indexer doing their thing. But apparently, Windows 7 behaves in exactly the same way.

I wonder, is this impression of mine accurate?

Also, people are reporting lower memory usage of Windows 7. This is again tricky business. First of all, there is really no reason to have any less than 4GB on a new machine, so memory use is not really an issue. I also note that memory is there to be used, not to sit around empty. The ultimate question really is, does Win7's slightly different memory management really buy me any performance benefits, on a 4GB machine, under any realistic scenario? I doubt it, but I am open to learn...

But maybe the lower memory usage of Windows 7 is simply due to the fact that Microsoft removed some features from the OS, and made them optional downloads. Is that the case? What is the picture if I add all of these features back in?

I guess what I am really interested in is some attempt at an objective comparison, rather than the usual "Ooooh, it's so new and shiny, so it must be much better than bad old Vista that everybody loves to hate"...

TIA for any input.

 

from what i have observed, the biggest advantage for me is file transfer, using the same device, I can get about twice the speed from 10MBps to 20MBps which though I don't really know why.

 

GUI changes and optimizations in the underlying code.

It's been three years. You are not going to get an XP->Vista radical difference in three years. This is a Win95->Win98 type of update. They are tweaking the stuff that needs tweaking and throwing in a few new things to keep it interesting, while maintaining considerable driver compatibility with Vista.

If you see no reason to change, don't.

 

win7 will not have delayed start anymore. it will have triggered start at the point where it's needed. so no, start behaviour is not the same.

same, they now do multithreaded initialisation of drivers, which helps boottime (espencially if one really lags)

but yes, it's not much change to vista. this is a great thing.

 

I love the fact that my sister's 3 year old Compaq 6515b with a Dual Core 1.9GHz CPU and 512MB RAM struggled with XP but is running 7 32bit with Aero and all the eye-candy on flawlessly.

Aero shake is awesome too.

 

Ahh, so you're saying that lots of services that had a start type of "Automatic" are now set to start type "Manual"? Did you actually compare these between a Vista and a Win7 system? And, if that is the case, you can do the same in Vista, too. It would be interesting to see if that is the reason for the reports of low memory requirements of freshly-booted Win7 systems compared to Vista.

Well, yes, that will buy you a little bit of time if you have a slow processor and a fast hard drive, but it'll probably not mean the world. I am speculating here, mind you...

 

So, what's "Aero shake"?

 

Let's just say, u mix the performance of XP and the Aero interface in Vista.. that is Windows 7.

I've taken a liking to Win 7 as it really is faster than that crap vista, even on a machine like mine. I'll probably get a new laptop with Win 7 bundled. Looking forward for the coming of the end of 2009 (thou it just started ).

 

It's one of the gimmicky GUI things. If you have several windows open, you grab the title bar of one and shake the mouse a little, and all of the other windows minimize.

If you drag a window to the top of the screen, it automatically maximizes.

There's something to make two windows automatically resize to be next to each other, but I didn't try it.

The lower right of the desktop has a "make everything transparent" function that.. does that. This lets one see the background and gadgets that may be on the desktop behind windows.

The taskbar has some interesting features. I discovered if an app has multiple windows, you can highlight one in the preview pane and it will make every other window transparent. It can also be used to navigate tabs in IE8 (I didn't try Firefox).

 

My picture and movie thumbnails loads faster on win7 than in vista. (In vista, it takes forever).

It's using 400-800mb less ram while doing the exact same thing. Maybe even more. It can do everything vista is doing plus adds windows shake, changing background etc etc. Many other hidden features we I don't know about yet.
Key word is, "exact same thing". If Win7 can do the exact same thing, and use less memory, and do it faster, doesn't that make it more efficient?...

I installed every single program that was on Vista to Win7 beta, and I have no compatibility problems. CAN YOU SAY THE SAME ABOUT VISTA BETA? no...

This is just the beta and its already running better than Vista SP1.

Even with a clean Vista install, Vista is still running slow. And the excuse for that is, vista takes time to "learn" or whatever .lol.

Time to move on.

 

Pirx,

Have you seen this website?

http://blogs.computerworld.com/wow_bloggers_quite_like_windows_7

There are a few articles linked there that go into detail on what has changed in Windows 7.

 

So thats what it is. Here I thought IE was freaking out and fading me back to the desktop intermittently.

 

I think that if you're a Vista user, then you will like Windows 7 a lot. If, however, you're looking for a new, transformational experience then you will be very disappointed. Windows 7 is a more optimized Vista basically. Whether it's worth upgrading to 7 will vary from person to person. I personally like the new OS (though less than I expected), but not enough to spend more than $50 for an upgrade, simply because it really is not anything new or revolutionary.

 

Interesting. Thanks for the link!

 

actually, i'm a vista user, and i dislike win7. i like the advancements on the technical side, but the new ui is a huge step back. i honour their try to be creative and innovative, but they failed. usability dropped big time.

a lot of other stuff is great. a lot of stuff is still "waiting to come true in some windows version".

 

Can you be specific? What in the Windows 7 UI is a huge step back, and what in the UI diminished the usability of Windows 7?

 

Yea I can't see myself paying for Windows 7. I would only purchase if I still had an older speced PC that struggled with Vista. But my notebook and desktop are pretty up to date and Vista works very well on them. The new taskbar and slight increase in responsiveness is not enough to switch. I guess I'll see the final release when I purchase a new notebook.

 

Same here. Tweak Vista and you will get alot from it.(disable some startup programs, disable transparency, change some startup programs from automatic to manual...there's a bunch of things one can do here including registry tweaks, plus win7 themes will come out soon if anybody want it).
Win7 might still be tiny bit faster or do a few things better, but i doubt the difference after tweaking vista, will be much.
Unless win7 is very, very cheap, i sticking with Vista till my next lappy
How about a discount for all vista users (buyers)

 

I doubt Win 7 will be cheap being that the beta says Ultimate.

BTW .... Does anyone know what will be cut out on other versions?

 

What I'd like to see is just two versions: Windows 7 Home Premium and Windows 7 Professional. Just like they had with XP.

No one outside of Microsoft knows how many editions of Windows 7 will be produced at this time.

 

I disagree here. The new Taskbar has, finally, been modernized and I am more efficient as a result. Aero Peek is VERY handy. If you can’t get used to the new functionality, you can always switch back to the legacy Taskbar.

 

Seconded. Microsoft should take a page from Apple’s handbook and not sell us “a dozen” f*cking versions again.

 

I agree.

Home Premium and Professional make the most sense.

MAYBE an Ultimate.

 

I think there is no "killer" or "must have" feature in Windows 7, let alone Vista. The biggest reason I run Vista on my machines is because I get better file copy performance over the network. Otherwise, if I was an internet browsing/email/word processing person, I would stick with XP. XP offers everything I want otherwise.

It is funny how people want their OSes to use less memory, less processing power, less harddrive space. I want the exact opposite. I want my OS to fully utilize the ridiculous amount of processing power/memory/HDD on my machines.

Voice recognition, OCR, More display space, etc etc. I would like my browser to organize my RSS feed and automatically open up the the top 20 articles in its own browser. It would be nice if I would even convert articles I selected into an Audio MP3 which I can play in my car on my way to work. Sadly, everyone wants there OS to have less process, less power, less automation, etc etc. These are killer features, but they require that the OS uses more than 10GB of space, more than 1GB of RAM, more than 25% of your processor. IMO, that is worth it. Is it worth it to you?

 

The primary reason most people want the OS to use less resources is that means there are more resources for other programs. If your OS is entirely amazing, that's great, but if you can only launch one program because of all the RAM it uses, you probably aren't going to be too satisfied. And if it uses so much CPU power that your fan is spinning on high all the time, you probably aren't going to be happy either. It's striking a balance - you really don't want it utilizing all the memory/CPU/hard drive power of your machine, though.

The alternative I'd propose is to give the user the option of whether to install these components (or, if it's an OEM copy, an option of whether to activate them the first time they start up - similar to how Windows Media Player or IE7 has a setup program the first time you run it). The Windows 3.11 installation does this, and it's rather nice - you can choose not to install components you're never going to need. With Microsoft's newer operatings systems (at least XP and Win7) it installs all the components for your version - but by offering not to do this it could satisfy both those who want more and those who want less. Microsoft would just have to go back to the way they did it in 1992, and of course develop all those new features.

Microsoft is making a step in this direction with the software downloads from Windows Live in Windows 7. It's probably not as good an option as the optional install from disc that Windows 3.11 had, especially if you have a slow Internet connection, but it is progress. They just need all those additional features now.

 

The taskbar is the biggest change, and I love it. You can pin icons on the taskbar.

 

The other side of the coin is that it CAN utilize all your resources all the time and yet run as many programs as you want. It is just a simple matter of prioritizing resources. For example, on my gaming machine, I have all four cores folding constantly, When I play games, the folding processes are throttled back AUTOMATICALLY to give way for games. Same with my memory consumption. It is throttled back to give way to my foreground processes. Thus, my CPU is constantly being utilized at 90% or more all the time, regardless of what I am doing. If my programs only require 25%, the folding programs pick up the idle cycles.

The technology to prioritize resources exists now. Unfortunately, its user perception and a general hostility towards change that keeps this technology from ever becoming dominant.

The whole point of an OS is to manage resources. I don't want to have to manage my HD space, memory consumption, CPU, etc etc. That's the whole point of getting an OS. It should be automatic. If I am running low on memory, then throttle back the least used programs. If I am running out of HD space, archive the oldest files. If my CPU is topped out, throttle back the lowest priority programs. This is what an OS should do. On the same coin, if my CPU isn't being utilized, throttle up the background programs. If I'm on battery, then throttle down. If I'm plugged in, throttle up. This technology already exists, why can't we just allow Microsoft to perfect it. I didn't buy a Core 2 Duo to utilize just 25% of it. I didn't buy 4 GB of RAM just to use 1.5GB of it......

 

Totally agree with you here. But the whole point of backgroup indexing, defragmentation, pre and superfetching of Vista (which seems to eat battery) is to make things faster/snappier, but Vista, even with all these advance trickery, wasn't/isn't hugely faster than xp without it (infact, even Vista, with some of these activities disabled seems to be faster) and that IS the problem. If Vista has been obviously very fast, i believe alot of poeple would have forgiven its huge thirst for RAM, HD space, CPU etc.
Don't get me wrong, Vista is quite good. It's the most stable OS from microsoft, but it could have been better or faster.
I don't mind if Vista takes 100% of my RAM, and do wierd, para-normal activities with my hard disk, as long as that means the next time i hit Firefox, it will be on my screen before i blink

 

That would be nice, but not necessary. The solution to slow program launches? Keep them open. Whenever Firefox launches on my computer, it has roughly 20 to 30 tabs already open and it takes a few minutes to load all of them up. I don't think there is much any OS can do to speed up webpages. The ISPs are responsible for that.

I'm looking at REAL productivity tools, not these gimmicks like bootup times, program launches, etc etc. Bootup times and program launch optimizations will save you at most..... 15 minutes in a whole day?? I'm looking for ground breaking productivity tools.

An example is on the Upcoming Palm Pre. It is rumored that when it downloads your day's appointments in the morning, it not only downloads the appointments, it then google searches the attendees and the attendee's companies. It then googlemaps your meeting place. Now THAT would save you NOT only time, but also give you an edge that most people don't even bother to harness.

Or how about it allows you to view your colleague's calendars and automatically coordinates a time to meet up, rather than having to send emails back and forth saying "how about monday", "Let me check my calendar"

These are not only real time savers, they are organizational tools that FURTHER your time management.

And the most frustrating part of this post is that, this technology ALREADY exists!!!!

We already have software on the market that provides us with these tools. But because of poor integration, I gotta hack together 10 pieces of software together to automate half this crap. If only, for the love of God, that we allow our computers a little slack and allow them to actually do their job.

These WOULD be killer features. What is holding back our software, is not technology, nor is it the hardware. It's the users refusal to adopt and implement an attitude of change and progress.

 

The firefox thing was just an exaggerated example to back my point. It looks like we were both talking about different things.

I agree with you though...

 

I, unlike most it seems, am very happy that Microsoft chose to or were unable to change too much with this iteration. It should make for a very stable OS out of the gates so I don't have to wait until SP1 to get it, as I was planning to initially.

I totally see where you're coming from.

 

surfasb,

Although those tools are very nice and would be great to have "out of the box" when a user opens up an operating system, I think they have no business inside of an operating system as key features. I can only imagine the logistical nightmare of trying to write software that would integrate with every calendar, email client, and personal manager software available. What features are the bare minimums, and which ones would be universally accepted? How would Microsoft keep up with software updates for all of these other applications to ensure compatibility? Would this even be something that the majority of users would even need? How much bad press would Microsoft get for attempting to force their way into this market and take over - an unfair monopoly that would squeeze out competitors' products?

IMHO, these features are best left to third party applications, and if cross compatibilty is required, then the end users need to demand it from the developers. These are great tools, but not necessary for an operating system to function.

 

That's a well thought out viewpoint. The disadvantage of a barebones OS then would become its advantage. Now for the third party developers to get with the program.

 

Haha! Windows 7 will be released in several different versions in order to confuse (patented, btw) the end user once again.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/windows-7-basic-business-ultimate,6910.html

So who here plans to buy Windows 7 Starter Edition vs. Windows 7 Home Basic?

I'll stick with Vista which is turning into being one solid o/s, thanks. " Vista: There are those users who 'get' it. And those who don't."

Thanks to all for beta'ing W7 for the rest of us anyway. LOL!

That's because Vista was pretty much built/programmed from the ground up. There really wasn't a predecessor for Vista at it's core. Windows 7 is simply an improvement on Vista which the dev's were able to adapt from the growing pains over the last several years.

 

Vista shares a lot of the same code base with Windows Server 2008 as no operating system from Microsoft has ever been truly built 'from the ground up' in the usual start with a ' blank sheet of paper' meaning.

http://blogs.msdn.com/iainmcdonald/...led-sp1-adventures-in-doing-things-right.aspx


If Microsoft were to develop a strictly 64 bit OS with no backward compatibility to the 32 bit world then that would probably fall into the 'built from the ground up' meaning.

 

And Vista is just an outgrowth of XP. Ask any device driver programmer.

 

Exactly my point, code gets reused as much as possible since it is a waste of time, money, and effort to constantly keep reinventing the wheel.

 

but while vista was based on xp, they changed much more under the hood. this resulted for example in the complete change of how gpu drivers work, and the resulting nvidia fiasco because nvidia was just too lazy to get their stuff working at releasedate.

win7 is a nice technical step up from vista, but not a big one. i'll stay with vista, the gui of win7 lacks a lot of usability, once you look behind the "oh, new and shiny".

 

I've been using win7 for a few months now, the usability is far greater with this than what you get with vista.

 

I’m in agreement with this.

 

i agree completely