My Review of Windows 7

A couple of days ago, I got my hands on a copy of Windows 7 Professional through MSDNAA.  Both of my computers were already running on the release candidate and have now been updated to the final build, both with fresh installs.

First, some background info:  It should be said that I’m not exactly a huge fan of Microsoft. I switched from Windows to Linux almost exclusively starting in 2004.  Since then, I have used Linux as my day-to-day operating system, and have only used Windows when I had to, usually by way of virtualization.  When I bought my new laptop in 2008, my desktop returned to Windows as it was now the weaker of the two systems and was rarely used, except for some light gaming.  Then, at the beginning of this last semester, I bought a USB Tablet in order to start taking all my notes digitally. Unhappy with the note-taking apps available on Linux, I installed the Windows 7 RC onto my laptop in order to use Evernote and PDF Annotator.  As a result of this, I’m looking at this operating system from the perspective of a Linux user that hasn’t used Windows on a regular basis since XP.

Test Computers:

Dragon (Desktop):

• Core i7 920 2.66GHz
• 6GB DDR3-1333
• 300GB 10,000rpm hard drive
• 2x Geforce GTS 250 1GB

Krayt (Laptop):

• Core 2 Duo 2.5GHz
• 4GB DDR2-667
• 160GB 7,200rpm hard drive
• Quadro FX 570m 256MB

Both computers serve different purposes.  My laptop is my general day-to-day machine, handling internet browsing, communication, and development.  My desktop, on the other hand, is primarily used for gaming and anything else that would potentially need or make use of it’s processing power.  Both machines use WUXGA (1920×1200) displays, and both are running the x64 version of Windows 7 Professional.

First impression:

I had used the Windows 7 beta in a virtual machine, and the release candidate on actual hardware, so the user interface wasn’t much of a shock to me. I was struck, however, at how clean the default desktop is.

The default desktop on Windows 7

Unfortunately, it’s not a sight that most people will see, as most people get Windows preinstalled on their computer, and most vendors will load it down with additional software.

User Interface Improvements:

The most prominent UI change is the new taskbar, which abandons the Icon/Window Name approach we’ve grown used to in favor of a more “dock-like” style that shows only a larger application icon for each running program.  While several people have complained about this, I personally like it as it does help to clean up all the clutter that can be onscreen when several applications are running.  When you click on an application’s icon, it pops out to show all windows in that application.  The taskbar also now has the functionality of the quick launch bar.  Applications can be “stuck” to the taskbar, meaning their icons remain visible even if the program is not running. Active applications’ icons are shown in a box, while the launchers are not.  In the screenshots below, Eclipse is not running.

The newly designed Windows 7 taskbar

The taskbar showing an application with multple windows

Another new feature of the new taskbar is the ability to embed controls in the popup, as shown in this media player screenshot:

Media player controls embedded in window preview

The start menu has remained mostly the same from Vista, with a couple minor tweaks.  First, the search functionality has been expanded to include items from the Control Panel, and items in the start menu can now fly out to list “tasks” which usually list the most commonly used functions of that application.

The start menu

The start menu showing an application's tasks

Included Applications:

Internet Explorer 8:

It’s Internet Explorer. Really, what do you want to know? The user interface is almost identical to IE7, although it does now appear to run each tab in a separate process, similar to the way Google Chrome works.  It also features several “accelerators” which are basically context menus that allow it to easily hook into Windows Live services from anywhere. Beyond that, I can’t comment much except to say it did an excellent job of downloading Google Chrome for me.

Media Player 12:

Likewise, Media Player hasn’t changed much since it’s previous release (version 11). The only difference that I notice immediately is the hook in with the new taskbar, which I mentioned above.  Although, it seems to have come a ways (at least since XP) in file format support, especially related to video.  At least to the point that I haven’t bothered to install VLC yet.  However, with more advanced codecs, you will need to install something, whether it’s a new player or just plugins for WMP.  The first file type that wouldn’t play for me was an mkv.

Wordpad:

Wordpad

Wordpad, on the other hand, has seen significant changes.  The user interface has been updated to resemble that of Microsoft Office 2007 with the “ribbon” UI element.  Like IE, though, I can’t comment in depth as I don’t really use it.  However, it does support both Office Open XML and OpenDocument Text formats, which should make it a decent word processor for people who don’t want to shell out for office.

Paint:

Paint

Paint is another app that has received the ribbon treatment, though it’s functionality stays largely the same.

Performance:

Unfortunately, I don’t have a lower end system on which to test Windows 7.  However, my manager at VMware did run the beta on his Dell Mini 9 (specs: Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz, 2GB DDR2-667, Intel GMA 950, 16GB SSD), and seeing as, in my experience, the OS has been further refined since the beta release, it stands to reason it should run just as well now.  Performance on the netbook seemed to be just fine, as it was able to run Aero without issue and run a few application concurrently, usually Firefox, Outlook, and some sort of instant messaging software.

On my laptop (and of course desktop), Windows 7 absolutely flies.  Startup is quick, and resuming from sleep or hibernate is even quicker (usually just a few seconds).  It connects to wifi instantly (and is ready to go by the time I’ve typed my password to unlock the machine).

(As I’m out in San Francisco at the moment, I don’t have access to my desktop to test startup and shutdown times, among other things.)

Security:

Windows 7 continues to use UAC for security measures, and I continue to urge people to use it.  It operates in a similar manner to sudo in Linux distros, by only elevating user permissions when they are needed.  However, it does popup less often than in Vista.  While it is still being used for any action that needs it, minor actions (such as opening Resource Monitor, or changing the system clock) do not prompt the user for permission, but go ahead and elevate permissions for that action.  The primary action that I notice actually prompting for permission is now application installation.

Windows 7 ships with Windows Firewall and Windows Defender as well, although I still augment those with my own antivirus. During the RC testing stages, I used AVG’s free antivirus tool, and now I’m using ESET’s NOD32.  Both applications work well and are detected by Windows 7, but the primary reason for my switch was the increasing nagging of AVG to upgrade to their paid version.  So far I’ve yet to have a Virus or Spyware infection (knock on wood).

Conclusion:

Windows 7 is a very usable operating system. If you need to run Windows applications and have moderately decent hardware, I’d suggest it over XP or Vista.  The included applications are reasonably useful, and by the virtue of it being Windows, there are a ton of additional applications available for installation.  It also (for the moment at least) tends to have a leg up on XP in terms of security, and is less invasive in that regard than Vista.  Hardware support is also excellent, the only driver that I installed on either system was a video driver.