Being an avid technology enthusiast, I grabbed a copy of Windows 7’s RC (Release Candidate) the day it was released to the MSDN users. I still do not agree with MS’s policies and ideologies (I converted to Linux years back), but that doesn’t prevent me from checking out their products and seeing for myself what they have been up to.

One fine December morning I embarked on the mission to get the new system installed, even though I had the copy of the OS lying around since almost a month. The only way I could figure out to install the OS was using a pen-drive, since my DVD reader was toast. As I soon realized, the difference between absolute brilliance and dumbness is very fine. One wrong step and you end up on the other side. It was the brilliant recipe for a debacle, having never loaded an OS using a pen-drive before. After a few minutes of research I came across this. 20 minutes later I had a bootable pen-drive. Took a deep breath and 20 minutes later I had a Windows 7 installation. Yay! Success at last.

Have been using it for about 20 days as I write this article and it seems like a pretty neat release. I hated XP to the core and am willing to take on anybody who supports it or thinks it was a good release. Vista was never bad for me and I still have no idea why people cribbed so much about it. It was a memory hog and there were a few nagging problems with it but MS has closed most of them with MS. Lets jump to the review part.

THE GOOD

UAC disable:

The user is finally the king when it comes to disabling User Account control. This was the biggest eyesore in Vista for me. It basically felt as if Miscrosoft was questioning my integrity as a PC user by constantly warning I was at risk even when I clearly new I wasn’t. Even after disabling it, a constant X showed up on my notifications bar to ensure I had it in the back of my mind, always! Custom options provided for the same makes life really easy in 7.

Resource friendly: Better boot up, down times

Some benchmarking tests present on the internet argue Windows 7 is at par with XP in resource management if not faster(Vista is obviously the looser here). I never had the guts to install XP on a personal PC after 2007 but I can ensure this is a very fast OS. Load times are very good and at just a tad slower than my Ubuntu install. Even after booting the system it remains very responsive.

All new Taskbar: To most it seemed like a rip off of the MAC OS X’s patented task bar but not to me. MS has maintained its individuality in designing it. It takes a bit of getting used to but there is a lot of space and option once you are done learning it. The control to pull up the Desktop has moved to the right of the taskbar which needs a bit of getting used to. UI (User Interface): Vista was a big step in terms of UI over XP. The scope for improvement therefore lay in the performance tweak which has been improved with Aero performing a lot better than before plus being a lesser memory hog. A number of new themes, wallpapers etc. shall keep users happy.

A new WordPad and Paint:

Ever since Windows 95 came out and to as recently as Vista, these two programs never witnessed any changes. They finally have. WordPad now looks like a scaled down version of MS Word 2007 and not like a up-scaled version of Notepad. Paint finally looks like a image editing software (although it isn’t anywhere even close to Photoshop, Corel or GIMP). Various other accessories like the calculator, sound recorder etcetera have been renovated to go with the refreshing look of 7.

THE BAD

Heavily Priced:

One of the perennial eyesore of Windows products makes its way into this release as well. The pricing is a big pain especially when you have just as good OSs like Ubuntu doing the same thing for free. Maybe a little less candy but can definitely doable considering the superbly high price tag of 7.

Endless flavors:

If you thought Vista with its 4 flavours(Home Basic, Home Premium, Business and Ultimate) was a toughie to digest, hold on before you see what 7 has in store for you. 7 comes with no less than 6 flavors. Picking up the right flavor is a exhausting job. Plus the division of features points to MS’s intent at forcing you to buy the ultimate version which as the name suggests is the most expensive of them all.

Risk prone:

All Windows users are aware of the elusive term ‘computer virus’. If you think Windows 7 will wipe that off in any way then you couldn’t be more wrong. MS has added 10 odd programs like always to try and fight the problem but its roots like in the very basic architecture their OS are made on which is where the flaw lies. At the same time virus developers have evolved significantly and have acquired stealth capabilities which have been transferred to the programs they code. So get ready for a full on virus attack in case you do not protected well against it.

Steep Learning curve:

A little less significant but a point worth mentioning. Vista users wouldn’t be bothered much but this addresses those users who have held on to their 98, ME and XP systems all this long hoping to make a big jump. At first sight 7 might look very intimidating to them but nothing that cannot be fixed.

Conclusion:

In all as I mentioned earlier Windows 7 looks pretty impressive not just in looks but also usage. The Kernel version 6 has been finally come off age and delivered on most of the promises MS made regarding it a couple of years back. It is not a revolutionary product by any stretch of imagination since Vista did most of what 7 does. Its an evolutionary product. Thankfully MS agrees to this statement of mine as per their press releases and blog posts. It would be interesting to see if XP users finally garner the courage to shift to the bleeding edge of MS software as well how MS recovers from the Vista ‘debacle’. It would also be interesting to see the next generation of MS OS where they predict to move away from their registry system(not confirmed yet) which has served them so well since forever and ensured their hold over the OS market. Time for me to close this review and go some computing on Windows 7.