The Arrival Of Windows 7
Finally
the arrival of the much anticipated operating system, Windows 7.
Although Vista received some of the harshest criticism in years, for
Microsoft, it was still hugely successful, with an extreme overpriced
tag, and a large range of features, it kept the fanboys happy. It's
biggest flaw, was that it consumed so much system memory, that you
needed a beastly machine just to properly run it, and even then, it
consumed so much of your RAM, that many wondered was it even worth it.
The question now remains, what can Windows 7 do for you? It brags about
extremely efficiency in running it's OS, promises to deliver some of the
most innovative features on the market today, and guarantees
satisfaction with a fair price range. Let's take a look at Windows 7
According to Microsoft, Windows 7 is "all about simplicity". Although
there have been eleven official releases of a Windows OS, this is marked
as "Windows 7", and it promises reliability. One of the first things
most of you notice about 7, is it's amazing taskbar, and how it
functions. Instead of dividing up various web browser pages for example,
a single icon appears, and by clicking it, a pop out window of the
multiple tabs or windows, then appears. Yes, Mac has done something
similar, but the look and feel to this on 7, is just unmatchable.
Again there is thumbnail previews of all of the applications that you
have running, and what they consider as a "jump list" for directly
reaching the most often used feature, of the running apps. Not only is
this extremely convenient, but it's beneficial to those whom multitask
such as myself. This is great, because for those of you like me, I have
at least seven applications constantly running, ten to twenty open web
pages or tabs, and also various programs I use nonstop.
Again, they've released multiple editions of this operating system, this
time though, it's Starter, Home Premium, Professional, and of course
the behemoth known as Ultimate. As in with Vista to experience the
majority of the features you needed Premium, this time it's recommended
you grab at least Professional, but in my earnest opinion, if you're
going to fork out the cash for Pro, you might as well grab Ultimate.
Windows 7 also brings out the new "Windows Touch", for those of you with
"touch" hardware. This would make the first operating system to fully
integrate the touch devices with all of the capabilities of the
operating system. It's pretty cool if you have the right tools to use
it, although I still prefer my "old school" mouse and keyboard, for
maximum efficiency and reduced time completing a project.
To upgrade to 7 is very easy if you're running Vista already, and your
reward for it is an extremely fast and innovative operating system. The
upgrade process takes a bit of time though, even on the fastest of
machines. I have a powerhouse machine and it was at least three hours,
and since I was asleep through the rest of the process, I cannot say the
exact length.
However, if you're still on XP, then expect a difficult upgrade. You
must first back up all your files, documents, media, and settings, using
a new tool for this called "Easy Transfer", and they recommend you do
so to an external drive. Then you must do a fresh install of 7, and of
course restore and reinstall of your apps, programs, and setting. This
can be a bit time consuming not to mention frustrating, but I can assure
you, the benefits are well worth the time. Just make sure you have a
free weekend to sit down and complete this uphill task.
Although Microsoft has claimed they will continue to provide security
updates for XP until 2014, waiting too long to grab this new operating
system only delays the inevitable. Just make sure you visit Microsoft's
website first, to make sure your machine is capable of the upgrade. It's
way more efficient than Vista could ever possibly be, so if you can run
Vista, you can run 7 with relative ease. Also in this modern digital
age, even if you forget to back up some of those drivers of utter
importance, it's not very hard to find them on the web. Unless in fact
you forgot to back up the drivers for your network card, which would be a
hassle indeed.
The Start menu itself is invigorating, and refreshing. The ease of which
you can access your favorite files is astounding. The sheer beauty of
it, and browsing through it for the first time, is an experience to
remember. I highly enjoyed just admiring the bitter sweet essence of the
Start menu. Windows 7 feels like the completion of what Vista should
have been, a deeply thought out, and user input based operating system.
Almost as if Vista was a test, to see what needed to be including, if
only that were true.
Now, where Vista could take up to fifteen minutes to boot up, and have
everything running smoothly, even on a fast PC, 7 is a huge triumph over
this. If you run a clean install, and start up 7, wow, it's has a Mac
OS X boot time, which is impressive. Shut down time as well, is also
fast compared to Vista. This is a very lightweight and jam packed
operating system indeed.
Although it has almost exactly the same hardware requirements, I've seen
people actually try to run Vista with only 512mb of RAM, although it
was highly laggy, and at times would make someone such as me who is
active and busy on the PC, want to throw my tower out the window, no pun
intended. So running 7 on a slower machine, if you had ran Vista on it,
would not be a problem what so ever. It's as if they took a mad
scientist, Vista, and Bill Gates, and zipped them into a compressed file
for three years, and this is the end result. Highly worthy of the
Windows name.
Now with 7, if you meet the "Aero" requirements, there is also a new
feature, called "Aero Peek", which allows fully translucent windows, for
those whom have thirty windows open at once. Yes in Vista you could
used "transparent" windows with Aero, but, this is fully translucent
windows, capable of an extraordinary visual experience that even the
those whom are unimpressed by art can respect. That's what the new look
or Aero is, a modern masterpiece, a work of art.
The rapid navigation of the taskbar apps, the translucent Aero features,
the innovative designs, are not all it has to offer. They now introduce
"Aero Shake", which means this, you can literally grab with the
pointer, the titlebar of a window, and shake it around, which will
minimize all of the windows you have open. This is very cool, and you'll
find yourself doing it often. So for those of you counter-intelligence
agents who have classified documents open when a co-worker walks in,
just shake the title bar, and poof, its all gone. Or for those of you
looking at multiple porn pages and the wife walks in, just shake that
title bar with one hand, and uh, hide yourself with the other.
The search function on 7 is also a innovative, where as soon as your
typing into it, results begin popping instantly, and I know search is
not new, but this search is faster, extremely faster. Mac OS X has
something similar, with Spotlight, but Mac OS X is a huge slowdown
compared to this, trust me.
Now, to your media. Windows Media Player has always been a key built in
feature of all Windows operating systems, but now, they've added a
comprehensive codec support. WMP now supports most all codecs, as well
as removing the old direct show codecs, and implementing a new
replacement, called Media Foundation. While it's a bit confusing at
first, especially if you're doing the tasks of encoding, or something
along those lines, it has a very huge potential to become something
great. Again, it's new, and it will take some time for everyone to get
used to so say the least. For those of you that must know about this
main task before making the switch, I suggest you visit HERE for a comprehensive look at Media Foundation.
Something else that is really neat is now you can directly tie your
media library in with your Windows Live ID, and pull up all your songs,
movies, and more, from any computer that has internet access. This is
great, so instead of carrying around a flash drive, or external hard
drive, you can simply sign into your Windows Live ID from a friend's
house, or your work place, and access all of your media, boom, just like
that. A smooth idea indeed for Microsoft. I think this is one more
thing to booster their battle with the new "Bing" engine and features to
compete with Google, but that's another topic.
When it comes to the Windows Explorer, it's still effective as always,
but without being able to put my finger on why it's better, I would
suggest that it's "smarter". Now while exploring your windows and
folders, you can turn on or off the "preview" pane, which shows say for
example, the album cover, or movie cover, etc. Also you can now preview
and play songs directly from within a folder, or other media files. It's
all very interesting.
Another nice trick to the explorer and preview windows, is that for
example, you can plug in a pink iPod, and when installing the drivers
and after, it will show the exact model of the phone, the exact "stock"
color of any device, and it's interesting. So it's just one more thing
for your eyes to admire, or something you can show off to your friends,
its really useless other than that, but none the less, very cool.
On to Internet Explorer. IE8 comes standard in this OS, although I would
not recommend using it. I never use Internet Explorer, for many
reasons. First major reason, is it has huge security flaws, even though
it's overly protected. What I mean by this, as some of you may know, is
IE is tied in with windows explorer, and what that means, is if for
example, you were hijacked, while using Internet Explorer, they have
access to your windows explorer, which is extremely dangerous. I avoid
IE at all costs, use FireFox, it's much faster, has many more features,
and is just all around a better browser. Even Chrome is better than IE,
hell even Safari or Opera, just stay away from IE. The only time you
should ever use IE is on a newly installed OS, to download and install
FireFox lol. Moving on.
The security aspect of 7 cannot really be determined as of yet, seeing
how it's so new. Wait a few months until hackers have had a serious go
at it, before we can determine how secure it is. Again as always, get a
good protection software or a malware app, and you should be straight.
What is nice, is that the newly included "HomeGroup" feature of
networking, allows you to easily change the security standards and
settings of each of the new "HomeGroups".
For years networking a connection between PC's has always been somewhat
of a hassle on all Windows OS's, but now, with "HomeGroup", it is
visually exciting and not at all challenging to network or link your
machines, and can be done quickly as I said with relative ease. This is a
plus for sharing files or folders, or connecting your Windows Media
Center to the Xbox 360 for example. This is all easy to setup, and
convenient with the new interface that's provided.
To compatibility with other products, such as printers, scanners, fax
machines, etc, it shouldn't be much of a problem. Since this OS was
designed amongst the Vista core, almost all of the fixes, patches, and
bugs were worked out in the later Vista service packs. So no worries on
that front. Now of course if you have a twenty year old printer, you
might have a problem, but if not, everything should be as smooth as a
baby's bottom. The Device Manager makes its return again, and it's still
easy to use.
Regardless of the complaints about Vista and how certain hardware
wouldn't work with it, that's just flat out crazy talk. Microsoft still
allows use with more hardware and drives from more vendors and companies
than any other operating system, and that's a fact. There is always
going to be more products that will work with a Windows OS than any
other operating system, and due to the relatively cheap prices for newer
devices, you shouldn't have a problem finding what you need even if
your stone-age device will not work with it.
The stability and speed of Windows 7 is what keeps it in the headlines
as much as it has, and what keeps the Mac commercials attacking it,
because they do feel threatened by it. Machines that would be almost not
usable under Vista, can become a workhorse under Windows 7. This OS has
performance, and performance is in high demand. Microsoft has reworked
the GUI scheduling which in return means that there will be far less
unresponsive times and also much more free CPU for you to work with.
If in fact you're on an older machine, and experience any slowdowns,
they've included the "Startup Repair Utility", which manages the issues
and works out the kinks, and if it cannot, it will find a restore point,
and you can go from there.
On pricing, I'm not sure whether you can purchase Starter in the stores,
or if it's just to be included on some uber cheap netbooks, but I know
that home premium has a Full Price of $199.99, and an upgrade from Vista
is $119.99. Professional, is $299.99 with an upgrade from Vista is only
$199.99. Ultimate however, is a whopping $319.99 and with an upgrade
from Vista can be found at $219.99. Or you can just download the
torrent, which I'll be linking you to at the end of my well written
review of Windows 7.
What's also interesting, is that Microsoft has said that it will
continue to offer security updates as well as Windows Updates, to even
"bootleg" copies of Windows 7. I guess they feel that in order to get
the word out, and to get the fans behind them, that it's a necessity to
have the updates and fixes available to pirates. Or maybe it's because
they'll be making so much money off of it, that they really don't care.
Either way, they're supporting "unofficial" copies of 7 with updates,
and that's a major announcement.
So overall, Windows 7 is an extreme upgrade from Vista, and even a
challenge to the performance of XP. It slaughters Mac OS X with it's
features and compatibility combined, and it's as always going to destroy
the open source operating systems. This OS has so many advantages to
previous operating systems, that if you meet the requirements for it,
there is no reason you shouldn't be using it. It feels great, looks
great, and runs great. I don't know what else you could ask for. I'm
running it on a separate partition, and wow, I am impressed. Microsoft
really did their job with this release, and it's an amazing operating
system. If you can meet the requirements and use it, you definitely
should at least check it out. Chances are you'll fall in love, I did.
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