-
Pros
- Smaller disk and memory footprint.
- Faster installation, startup, shutdown.
- Stable.
- Less intrusive.
- Taskbar icons more flexible.
- New home networking capabilities, including media streaming.
- Working with external hardware is easier.
- Multitouch support.
- Nice new eye candy.
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Cons
- Keeps the Registry and some other Windows baggage.
- Performance not a huge gain over Vista.
- A bit pricey for upgraders.Watch our Windows 7 video review!
Microsoft Windows 7 Specs
| Type: | Business |
| Type: | Enterprise |
| Type: | Personal |
| Type: | Professional |
Windows 7 is finally here. Will it redeem Microsoft's Vista-tarnished image? All indications are that it will. The hardware driver issues that plagued
The new streaming media functionality, together with Windows 7's new taskbar, Device Stage, HomeGroup networking, and XP Mode make this Windows far more than a service pack for Vista—though the two operating systems share much underlying plumbing. That means we haven't seen the compatibility hassles we saw with Vista. But Windows 7's lighter system footprint makes for faster start-up and slightly faster performance. Cap all this with rock-steady reliability, and Microsoft may just have a winner.
One stumbling block, however, is the lack of an official
Editions and Setup
There will be three editions of Windows 7 for sale: Home Premium ($119.99
upgrade, $199.99 full), Professional ($199.99 upgrade, $299.99 full), and Ultimate ($219.99 upgrade, $319.99 full). Anyone with a valid copy of Vista or XP is eligible for the upgrade price. Most users will opt for one of the first two, with Professional obviously suited to workplaces and hard-core techie users. Ultimate includes everything from the other editions, but doesn't add much more than the abilities to encrypt USB drives and switch to any of 35 languages. (Gone are the "Ultimate Extras" of Vista days.)
A fourth edition, Starter, will come preinstalled on some netbooks, but won't be available at retail outlets. Starter won't run eye candy like Aero Glass, though we have found most netbooks run regular Windows 7 well in PC Labs. The Home Basic edition, seen in Vista, is gone (in the United States—it will be made available in developing countries), so Home Premium is the only home choice. Note also that these are list prices, and you can expect to see markdowns as time passes. Also note that Microsoft offers a Student upgrade license for just $29.99, and PC part suppliers have already offered
There will also be so-called "Anytime Upgrades" from the lower editions of Windows 7 to the higher editions. Upgrading from Starter to Home Premium will cost $79.99, from Home Premium to Professional will cost $89.99, and from Home Premium to Ultimate will cost $139.99. Finally, a Family Pack pricing option will allow installation of Windows 7 Home Premium on three PCs for $149.99—a pretty sweet deal compared to the individual licenses. Note also that Microsoft recently announced volume
The operating system's install routine has new icons and a few splash screens ("Checking video performance," and so on) with a new starburst effect. Even the Starting Windows and log-on screens have gained a leafy, patterned background. The installation smartly wouldn't allow me to set up the OS while my laptop was unplugged. And the installer asks to look for updates on first run; I recommend agreeing to this.
If you want to do an upgrade installation, you must be running Vista SP1 or SP2 and have 12.9GB of free disk space. Remember, upgrade installation, in which all your programs and documents are maintained for the new OS, is only available to Vista users. Users of XP and other versions of Windows will have to choose Custom and do a "clean" install.
Installation
I installed Windows 7 on a Dell Mini 10 netbook, a
After installation, however, I had a problem with the laptop's graphics driver—my Windows Experience Index was 1, and I couldn't see Aero desktop effects. Getting the correct driver installed was far less automated than it should have been; I had to go to Dell's site and find the driver. The installer found and installed the correct driver on the HP TouchSmart and a few netbooks I tested, but one netbook had the same graphics driver problem. There have been other reports of laptop driver issues, but you can usually go to the manufacturer's site and get the driver yourself, and it won't be a problem if you buy a new Windows 7 laptop.—
After a year of displaying the Siamese Fighting Fish, aka Betta (get it? Beta?), the central desktop image is now a redesigned Windows flag. One startup characteristic that disappoints me is that the sound is identical to Vista's startup sound. You'd think Microsoft would commission a new startup sound for such a hot new OS. The default theme of the interface has its own new look, yet Vista users will feel mostly at home. Even upgrading XP users will have little trouble with the UI, but neither will they be able to cling to the past.
Microsoft hired some pretty gifted artists to create images for new Themes, including Architecture, cartoonish characters, Landscapes, Nature, Scenes of whimsical art, and United States views. Basic and High Contrast options let you simplify the visual presentation for low-powered machines or no-nonsense-type users. There's even one that looks like Windows of long ago, called Classic. But there's no XP emulation Theme in Windows 7, as there is in Vista, although there is a Windows XP Mode in the Professional and higher versions that allow for XP emulation—more on that later.
When you start up the OS, you see some snazzy eye candy: colored glowing dots that become the Windows flag. The taskbar also has more noticeable changes; for an in-depth look at this new interface cornerstone, check out Jason Cross' insightful article, "
In a nutshell, taskbar buttons are taller than before (although you can make them smaller again). You can choose whether to combine all instances of one app in one button or keep all separate, or to combine them only when space is short on the taskbar.
Taskbar buttons glow when you hover the mouse pointer over them, with related buttons glowing the same color. They also display side-by-side thumbnails with filenames of any documents the app has open, and full-size previews when you hover the mouse pointer over a thumbnail. Clicking a thumbnail opens the app, with the doc in question loaded. You can now move buttons to whatever position on the taskbar you like. Finally, an option lets you pin (or permanently set) a taskbar icon so that it's always present. That's a good thing, since Quick Launch icons have disappeared in Windows 7.
The Windows 7 Start menu is nearly identical to Vista's, except that applications can now display what's called a Jump List when you hover the mouse pointer over one's entry. This list presents a choice of the files and operations most recently and frequently opened and performed with that program. Note, however, that it works only for the large Start menu choice, not when you click on All Programs, and it only works for programs that specifically implement it. Another Start menu difference is in the options that appear to the right of the program list: Network and Connect to are gone, and a Devices and Printers choice has been added. Presumably, Microsoft now trusts users to visit the Network and Internet control panel for networking tasks.
Gone, too, is the Sidebar, although the gadgets that once lived in it can now float freely anywhere on the desktop. If your screen is covered with application windows, the new Desktop Peek function can reveal these gadgets by making all windows on the desktop transparent when you hover the mouse in the lower-right corner of the screen. I prefer the explicit nature of the Show Desktop icon in XP and Vista, rather than the nonintuitive clicking on the unmarked corner. I also found that occasionally all my windows would go away if I'd moved the cursor to the corner unintentionally.
Peek is known as an Aero Desktop Enhancement. Another such enhancement is the new behavior that maximizes a window when you drag it to the top of the screen. Drag it back down and it returns to its previous size. If your desktop gets cluttered and you want to focus on the one window you're looking at,"Shaking"—clicking on the top window bar and moving the mouse rapidly from side to side—minimizes all other windows on the screen.
Another Aero enhancement lets you move two windows to opposite sides of the screen to fill exactly half the screen with each. For this to work, you have to grab the title bar with the mouse pointer and drag it all the way to the edge of the screen. I'm not thrilled about dragging a window to the display's top edge to maximize it, but if you resize one just enough to hit the top or bottom edge, the window will maximize vertically only—quite useful. Double-clicking still maximizes the window, too.—
Libraries
When you open Explorer windows in Windows 7 (most likely from its by-default pinned taskbar icon), you get a new choice on the left side: Libraries. These let you group related files regardless of location, whether on separate drives or networked PCs. Four preset libraries are included: Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos. You can create as many new Libraries as you like, and when you navigate to any directory, an Include in library selection at the top of the window lets you add it to the library of your choice. For more details, check out "
One note: When in a library, you can arrange the contents not only by folder but also by date or tags. Letting people group content in ways defined by use rather than storage location is a move in the right direction. Still, Microsoft could even take it a step further by letting you create a library based completely on content type—say, all videos—rather than making you specify which folders should be included.
The UAC and Other Interruptions
The barrage of messages from User Account Control (UAC) has been a constant source of complaints about Vista. Install a program or make any kind of system-level change, and you get interrupted. Microsoft designed UAC to make Windows more secure by preventing unwanted program installations and system setting changes. The company claims that, as a result, 60 percent fewer malware infections have occurred in Vista than in XP SP2. Maybe so, but the feature seriously annoys users. You can actually turn off these interruptions in Vista, but that hasn't stopped the chorus of disapproval. Windows 7 aims to reduce the number of actions that pop up the dialogs and give you finer control over what triggers them.
In the new UAC's settings panel is a four-position slider whose two ends are Always notify and Never notify. This won't solve all UAC annoyances, but at least it gives users more control than just "on" or "off." Another new Windows 7 strategy designed to reduce interruptions is the "Auto-Elevate" list—a whitelist for apps that are green-lighted to bypass UAC confirmations. For a deeper look at the UAC, see our story "
Windows 7 also reduces distractions from system tray notifications. The OS gives fine-grain control over what balloons a program pops up from this lower-right area of the screen. The icon area itself has been relieved of clutter. By default, you see only a few icons, with the rest accessible via an up arrow. If you like to see all the icons, however, you can set Windows to show them. You can turn icons on and off—even system icons like Clock, Volume, and Network icons. One new system tray entry, Action Center, takes over for the Security Center icon in previous Windows versions. Action Center also handles notifications from several other Windows features, including Updates, Backup, and UAC. Many will welcome the reduction of tray clutter. Personally, I prefer to see all the icons.
Microsoft has also modified a trait of the Vista shutdown button that confused some people. By default, clicking on the red "off sign" button in Vista put the computer into sleep mode. This allowed for a much quicker restart—a few seconds on some PCs. But users thought clicking the button would completely shut down the machine. Now there's no ambiguity left: Shutdown is the default, and only after clicking on the arrow next to it will you see sleep, hibernate, log out, and lock.
Security
The new UAC philosophy naturally has security implications, and security guru Neil J. Rubenking has produced a series of articles addressing those and other Windows 7 security considerations. Security comes into play right from the get-go—that is, at setup, and "
The firewall in Windows 7 has been much improved. It makes configuring home networks smoother and offers separate configuration settings for private (Home or Work) and public networks. Other security-related goodies in Windows 7 are discussed in "
One final step Microsoft has taken to improve security is removing Autorun from non-optical drives connected to a PC. This prevents malicious code on a USB key from contaminating your PC by running when you insert it. The infamous Conficker worm has been known to use this method of infection. And the Engineering Windows 7 blog quotes a finding in a study by Forefront Client Security that "malware that can propagate via Autorun accounted for 17.7 percent of infections in the second half of 2008—the largest single category of malware infections."—
Device Manager
In addition to new icons, the aged Device Manager and the Control Panel have a versatile new jump list, as you'll see if you right-click on their Taskbar buttons. The Control Panel itself gets a few minor tweaks. A new View by menu appears beneath the Control Panel search box. This lets you switch from the default category view to a view that shows all Control Panel items.
Many Control Panel options have been subsumed by the Devices and Printers control panel, or moved elsewhere in the OS. The ClearType Text Tuner, for instance, is still easily found in the Display control. Some of the changes are surprising, however. What's happened to SideShow? For anyone interested in this long-neglected technology, don't worry. I added a SideShow device to Windows 7 (a beta version of the now-canceled Ricavision remote control) and installed the drivers, and the Control Panel appeared. It seems that certain items are keyed to appear only if relevant—which makes sense.
Device Stage
Connecting devices to your PC and getting what you want from them has always been a pain. Connect a cell phone, for example, and you have to decide whether you're interested in the music, contacts, or pictures. The situation is the similar for other devices, too. Many printers do fax and scan, in addition to printing. Microsoft Device Stage provides easier access to all a device's capabilities. For more on this feature, check out "
For each device, the idea is that Device Stage shows a page with a picture of that exact piece of hardware and icons for all its capabilities. Manufacturers create the page in an XML format freely available from Microsoft. Media syncing between a phone and the PC is an example of a task Microsoft hopes Device Stage should make easier. As with Vista's initial driver problems, it's up to the hardware vendors to make this work. If they don't provide the data, a standard property dialog will display. If they do supply the data, everyone wins. But only time will tell if all the parties play ball. So far, I've had very little luck getting devices to present me with a lovely page of options on plug in—even new Windows Mobile phones (forget about my iPhone). For more on phone compatibility with Windows 7, see
Another hardware-related feature is Windows 7's Bluetooth setup process. Just click on the Bluetooth system tray icon and choose "Add a device." When your phone or other device is discoverable, Windows generates a password to type into the device. If it's a keyboardless device, you can enter a code printed on a compatible device, or pair without a code (for things like mice). I tested the process this with an iPhone, and the pairing worked easily. I could then view my iPhone in Devices and Printers (accessible from the Start menu). That's a very cool setup system.
Designed for Touch from the Ground Up
Microsoft is betting that the future of PC computing is touch, and has put a lot of thought into making Windows 7 work with it. I tried the touch interface on an HP TouchSmart, and it's impressive, although I initially had a little trouble resizing pictures by pinching and spreading two fingers. The OS can pop up a mini-keyboard for "touch typing"—something that points to keyboardless tablets. I should note that multitouch wasn't operational right after OS installation; I had to download and install additional drivers.
Touch-capable PCs that ship with Windows 7 will include Microsoft Touch Pack for Windows 7, a set of six multitouch-optimized applications and games designed to showcase Windows Touch in Windows 7. It consists of three casual games, and three Microsoft Surface applications that have been ported to Windows 7. Microsoft hasn't made the pack available for public download, but let's cross our fingers that it will soon. The included Globe app is particularly cool, letting you zoom in and out and spin it using multitouch.
One cool thing you can do is draw in Paint with two fingers at a time. When you touch the screen, the location where you touched it, or "touch point," can be represented by a mouse image. You can then click the left or right button of this virtual mouse, but I find it easier to use the default "water drop" feedback image when your finger touches the screen.—
HomeGroup Comes to Networking
One goal of Windows 7 was to make home networking simple enough for any user. HomeGroup is the result. When you join a wireless network, you can choose to set it as home, work, or public. Choose the first and you have the option of creating a HomeGroup—provided you have the right version of the OS. Note that although any Windows 7 installation can join a HomeGroup, the Home Basic (not available in the U.S.) and Starter editions can't create a HomeGroup. Assuming you've got the right version, you specify which libraries and devices you want to share, and, when you hit "Create now," Windows will generate a password. Joining a HomeGroup with another PC is a simple matter of entering the HomeGroup's password in the joining PC's network options.
A neat advantage of the HomeGroup feature is that if you move between work and home with your laptop, you won't mistakenly print that recipe Web page to your work printer from home. It automatically goes to your default home printer, since you're now connected to the HomeGroup. Making home networking this smart and simple to set up could really be a feather in Windows 7's cap. You can read more about HomeGroup in our article "
In a smaller networking improvement, the new system tray networking icon also simplifies connecting to Wi-Fi. Clicking the icon pops up a window showing all available connections. This saves you from having to open the networking dialog and choose to show available wireless networks. It's a small touch, but it makes a lot of sense for the typical laptop usage scenario, where you might be shifting from network to network quite often.
More Media in More Places
Windows Media Center has gone through dramatic changes between Windows Vista and Windows 7. Eagle-eyed users will note that PlayReady, Microsoft's new DRM scheme for protecting recorded television shows, gets updated to version 1.3 (you can see this in the Programs and Features control panel, once Media Center installs). The inclusion of Internet TV (still beta 2) in the Guide is a big leap forward, exposing even those without an integrated TV tuner to the fun of IP-based TV.
Despite the recent efforts to organize items under Movies, News, Sports, and other categories, content is too sparse; the hoped-for integration of Hulu, TV.com, and other IP-based TV doesn't exist. Yet. Netflix integration with Windows 7 Media Center, however, is a big plus, and Microsoft has hinted at more such announcements on the horizon. Microsoft's search engine
DLNA technology, a standout feature of Windows 7, enables something neat for PCs connected on the same network. A contextual Play To menu item lets you send a video, photo, or song to another PC or device. But Play To is disabled by default. Enable it on one PC by choosing "Allow remote control of my Player" and you'll be able to send files to that PC from others on the same HomeGroup, either from Windows Media Player or by directly clicking a file in Windows Explorer. This worked impressively in my testing.
Unfortunately, Play To is a Windows Media Player technology, not a Windows Media Center technology, even though Center relies heavily on Player's capabilities. This means that, ostensibly for security purposes, the Play To menu exists only when both PCs have WMP actively running. I'd prefer the feature just start the player, since you're sending a tune or video to that machine on which you've allowed the remote playing.
Microsoft is also making it easier to access content remotely in WMP. One new feature that jumps out is the ability to allow access to home media via the Internet. From the Stream pull-down menu in WMP, select the option Allow Internet to home media..., from which you can link an online ID. At present, only Windows Live online IDs are recognized, and the feature doesn't work if you're a member of a network domain (this would usually only be the case in a workplace) or if the home computer is on a public network. For Windows Live IDs, you'll need to download the Windows Live ID Sign-in Assistant software (you'll be prompted).
Link your Windows account to the online account on two computers and you can access media stored on one PC across the Internet, by logging into the online account on the other. Take your laptop to the local coffee shop and you can remotely stream your music from your desktop PC at home. That media shows up as a shared library in WMP—assuming you've left your home computer on and running it.
Another area where WMP has seen improvement is in media file and codec support. Now it can play MOV files. Files it can't play, such as Apple's lossless M4A or H.263 MPEG-4, won't be displayed in its music or video view. In addition, WMP can resume playback from a hard drive after the OS returns from sleep. For more information about new codec support and WMP interface changes, check out "
One of the coolest possibilities of this codec support is that the OS will transcode media files on the fly as you drop, say, a movie file icon onto a video-capable MP3 player's icon. This was demonstrated at Computex this year, but support from device makers is critical—note that iPods aren't yet supported. The transcoding will also be able to take advantage of graphics hardware, although this means the graphics vendors need to add support to their own drivers. We haven't had a chance yet to test drag-and-drop transcoding, but look for future stories on Windows 7 media at PCMag.com.—
Performance and Stability
In PC Labs' testing of Windows 7 over the past few months, we've found the OS to be rock solid. For performance testing, I used the same 2-GHz dual-core Intel laptop with partitions holding Windows 7 and Vista, with
I also ran PCMark Vantage, one of the more realistic tests that runs through a bunch of tasks users might perform, such as viewing and editing photos, video, music, and other media, as well as gaming, communications, productivity, and security trials. The results should be taken with a grain of salt, since the test is intended specifically to benchmark-test hardware running on Vista. (But remember that Microsoft has said that Windows 7 should run everything Vista does.) On PCMark Vantage, where higher numbers are better, the Windows 7 scored 4,107 compared with Vista's 3,567. So the new OS's score was a 15 percent improvement over Vista's on a test that's not even approved to run on Windows 7!
I also ran the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark, which tests Web browsers' speed in rendering JavaScript, but also reflects system speed. I found a nearly 14 percent speed increase from Vista to Windows 7 using Firefox, when comparing the browser that shipped with Vista,
I ran even more benchmarks comparing Vista with Windows 7 on another more powerful laptop, a
One remaining performance consideration—and an unwelcome part of the Windows legacy—is that Windows 7 still uses the System Registry, often a major cause of slowdown because of installed programs and hardware drivers that fail to clean up their Registry entries. Microsoft has made some tweaks to how the Registry operates, but it remains to be seen whether the same system slowdowns result from it after long-term heavy PC use. Microsoft's Mike Angiulo, leader of the Windows PC Ecosystem and Planning team, didn't have a clear answer when asked if any mechanisms in Windows 7 combat Registry clutter.—
Windows Live Essentials and Internet Explorer 8
In an effort to trim disk requirements and install times, Windows won't come preloaded with an e-mail program for the first time in a decade. Furthermore, photo, video, and blog editing, along with instant messaging, have been offloaded to a download in the form of Windows Live Essentials. The updated apps you get there include a new look for these apps and some spiffy features. The Mail app, for example, lets you aggregate all your POP or IMAP accounts into one interface.
The
The OS does include IE8, which is a notable improvement over its predecessors. The browser delivers category-leading security and adds some pretty slick browsing aids, such as Web Slices and Accelerators. It defaults to a more standards-compliant mode but still offers a backward-compatibility button. A predictive address bar brings it closer to Firefox, but the lack of a download manager and robust extension ecosystem hold the browser back. For the first time in over a decade, the OS lets you completely uninstall the browser if you choose.
New Accessories
At Microsoft's Professional Developer Conference last year, Windows head honcho Steve Sinofsky joked that the team decided that it would be a good idea to update the Paint and Calculator accessories at least once every 15 years. Accordingly, the two applets and WordPad finally get a refresh that includes the ribbon interface introduced in
The new Calculator adds Statistics and Programmer modes, and you can cut and paste from it—finally! Calculator also now has a history feature, so you won't have to redo entries you've closed and need again. Templates for common calculations like gas mileage, mortgage estimations, and leases have been added. Unit conversions are a snap now, too. The new accessories are long overdue, but welcome nevertheless.—
Windows 7 for Businesses
New features in Windows 7 are not relegated to those targeting personal and individual users: There's a whole lot in it for businesses, too, such as a far more powerful PowerShell scripting language, better tools for IT staff to remotely service workers' PCs, and a neat feature called DirectAccess that lets employees access network servers without having to install and log in to a VPN.
Corporate IT departments also get control over which programs can run on Windows 7 systems using AppLocker—no more games from home on those corporate desktops. Finally, BitLocker can encrypt entire hard drives, and
XP Mode
When the
In fact, the mode doesn't actually come with Windows 7; you have to download the virtualization software to get it to work, and you'll need a high-end PC to run it. XP Mode offers two options, one that's a full XP desktop and one that's a "seamless" app window. You can install an XP app in the Mode, and seamless apps can access the drives and folders of the host Windows 7 OS. You can even cut and paste between the host and the virtualized OS.
But Mendelson found that the method for setting up a network printer was far too obscure, requiring hit-or-miss entry of Terminal Service port numbers. Additionally, changing settings such as available RAM was arduous, requiring a full restart. He also noted that Microsoft's Customer Experience Improvement Program generated an error when he was switching from seamless to full mode, and that you couldn't drag-and-drop files between host and XP Mode. Though Mendelson's original tests were using the beta of the feature, he found the same problems in the later release candidate. Stay tuned to see whether Microsoft addresses all the issues.
Lucky Seven?
Despite some pundits claiming that Windows 7 is no more than a Vista service pack, there's a lot more to it than that. Microsoft has certainly addressed many of the complaints surrounding Vista, such as the lack of backward compatibility, the lengthy start-up and install times, the broad disk and memory footprint, and the inability to remove IE. But the company has also added a number of new interface helpers that will make the new OS more pleasurable and efficient to use. Figure in improved performance and networking, a smaller disk and memory footprint, and slick handling of devices, and it's hard to call this anything other than a full-fledged new OS.
Windows 7's reduced footprint and improved performance on lower-powered machines would be enough to make it a better OS than its predecessor, and there's plenty more to like about the newest OS. I do wish Windows 7 had dropped the System Registry, which can slow down PCs over time. But it looks like Microsoft has made the right moves to turn around the Windows ship following its ill-fated Vista voyage. Now that it's here, I can say with confidence that Windows 7 lives up to its hype in the way that Windows Vista didn't. I recommend it highly: It's far and away the best OS we've ever seen from Microsoft.
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