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.

At first, drivers seemed to be a bit of a problem, as I couldn’t get the generic Nvidia driver to install on my laptop (Most vendors only allow their specific video drivers to be installed for some reason).  However, Windows Update had a working driver for me after a reboot.  The main thing I find myself missing in Windows on my laptop is multiple virtual desktops, which is made possible via http://www.codeplex.com/vdm.  While not as good as a native solution, it does get the job done.

My tablet works very well, once I install the Wacom driver, and I’ve been using Evernote to take notes in class.  Battery life is right at what it was in Ubuntu Jaunty, which isn’t horrible, but still less than I like (of course, I’m the one that bought a desktop replacement), and wireless configuration is much improved over XP (and a little better than Vista).  The new wifi interface is similar to NetworkManager’s UI, and native WPA support in Windows is certainly nice.

As soon as I booted a second copy of Windows on my network, Windows asked to connect to the other install (my desktop) to share files via “Homegroup.” Sadly, one sharing feature that I wanted was in Media Center, as I’d like to be able to play back MCE recordings over the network to my laptop.  While I was able to get this working, it didn’t allow access to my tuners from my laptop.

Another big thing in Windows 7 is the new RDP.  With RDP 7, Aero is possible over a decent connection.  It funs flawlessly when I’m on the same network as my computer, and only lags a little bit when connecting from school using a VPN.  However, as I understand it, all the rendering is being done client-side, so it’s not streaming video from the server or anything.

So far, the more I use W7, the more I like it, which for a Microsoft product is very odd.

For the most part, W7 looks a lot like Vista, as they both use the same themes.  The only major difference is the new taskbar, which does away with text labels in favor of larger icons, making it feel more like a dock than a taskbar.  The new taskbar also has some additional functionality that developers will need to hook into first, but for an example, try hovering your mouse over Windows Media Player’s icon while its running to get controls without needing to bring the window up.

Most of the included applications are the same as what are currently available for Vista (IE8, MP11, etc.), but in particular, Media Center has been greatly improved to support QAM, meaning I can now watch and record local HD stations and Digital Cable.

W7 now ships with a decent screengrabber rather than forcing you to PrintScrn and paste into Paint (It’s called “Snipping Tool” and can actually be installed on Windows XP or Vista). Speaking of Paint, its UI has also been overhauled… not that I ever use it.

Most of the changes in W7 are so called “Under the Hood” improvements (hence the version number of 6.1, up from Vista’s 6.0).  While I don’t have any numbers for comparison, it does seem incredibly fast, but on my desktop, that’s not a surprise.  W7 is supposedly less resource intensive, most likely due to the recent netbook craze, and I did get a chance to see the Beta running on a Dell Mini 9 last semester.

Computer enthusiasts will be happy to know that the Windows Experience Index cap has been raised (from 5.9 to 7.9), so they can go back to worrying over what’s bottlenecking their system now (For me it’s my 10,000rpm Velociraptor drive).

One disappointment so far has been that Google Chrome 1.0 doesn’t seem to want to play nicely with W7. I’ve been getting the “Oh, Snap” error page pretty frequently since upgrading.  I’ve yet to give the 2.0 beta a try, but I’ll be doing that shortly (though nothing in the changelog mentioned improved W7 compatibility).

Windows 7 final is supposed to be out by the end of this year.

EDIT:

Chrome 2.0 seems to be much more stable on Windows 7… Huzzah!