I’m not usually one to jump right on a new version of Windows and put my personal productivity at risk…as most new releases of Windows (all I can remember recently) were full of holes, stability issues, driver woes, random BSODs and the like…
However, Windows 7 is different – really different…
Windows 7 installs clean, it upgrades from Vista nicely (albeit slowly) and it’s really slick. For anyone running Vista, you should be running, not walking, as fast as you can to get rid of that pesky Vista code and replace it with Windows 7.
For those of you who stuck with Windows XP – well, what can I say, except Windows 7 is what you’ve been waiting for! Here’s my Windows 7 upgrade story, which wasn’t 100% perfect, but was very, very close (close enough to perfection that it has restored my confidence in Microsoft and it’s ability to continue to dominate the software space for some time to come).
WINDOWS 7 DOWNLOAD FROM TECH-NET
Fortunately, I am among those who have realized that it’s less expensive to own a TechNet subscription and have access to virtually everything Microsoft has to offer – in terms of Operating Systems, Applications, etc. (the only other subscription I might consider is MSDN for more developer tool access, but it’s more expensive).
As a TechNet subcriber, I got immediate, early access to the Windows 7 Release / GA version the day it was released (August 6, 2009). As there were clearly many thousands like me downloading the 2.5GB DVD image (an “ISO” standard DVD image), downloading Windows 7 took over 12 hours to complete (my cable modem speeds are around 17Mb to 24Mb download, but I was only able to achieve around 65Kb to 80Kb download ofthe Windows 7 package, due to the download site congestion).
Once I completed downloading the ISO image, I used UltraISO and had a Windows 7 Ultimate DVD burned about 20 minutes later (afer I woke up today… it finished downloading while I was fast asleep, dreaming about who knows what).
WINDOWS 7 INSTALLATION
Another benefit of being a TechNet subscriber is I can legally install and use the product on multiple PC’s – something I’m certainly apt to do. In my case, I have a dual-processor Sony VAIO notebook PC that’s been saddled with running Vista for several years.
Vista ran OK, but I was never really satisfied with its performance or stability. I was actually excited when I plugged the freshly-burned DVD into the player and slapped the drive door closed. As with most everything in Vista, I had to approve the Windows 7 Setup program to run!
I chose the “Upgrade” path, since I wanted to retain everything I had already invested months installing and tweaking on this machine – including my development environment. After examining my existing Vista environment for over an hour (checking for compatibility issues), I was told about a few issues:
- Virtual PC 2007: not compatible and should be uninstalled (I still haven’t uninstalled it, but it doesn’t work on Windows 7 without a reinstallation, as advertised)
- Apple iTunes: while fully-compatible with Windows 7, I was warned to go right now and Deauthorize my Vista machine before completing the upgrade (apparently Windows 7 looks like a unique and different machine to iTunes). I was surprised Microsoft had paid attention to this detail, but it was a very important detail for me, as I was close to running out of authorized computers – Apple only allows a max of 5).
Then the installer went on for some time copying files, then rebooted while I wasn’t paying close attention, and continued to run the Windows 7 installation process. I didn’t time it exactly, but the entire upgrade process took over 3 hours to complete, as it apparently is extremely thorough at examining everything as it’s being copied over and validated.
I didn’t mind the amount of time it took to get my Vista Ultimate system upgraded to Windows 7 Ultimate, which totalled 4.5 to 5 hours start to finish. Why? Well, it’s simple really. It was time well spent. I didn’t have to reinstall any applications, and everything I cared about continued to work after the upgrade. I would’ve taken me at least a week to reinstall everything from scratch, had I performed a fresh install instead of the in-place upgrade of Vista.
Well done, Windows 7 installation team!! Bravo – bravo. Nobody likes reinstalling all their apps and environment, so the clean upgrade was well worth the relatively few hours it took to complete.
Later in the day, I also installed a fresh Windows 7 on my wife’s PC, which had been struggling along with an (apparently unstable) “checked build” of Vista, SP2. The entire install process took around 45 minutes start to finish. Then, I plugged in a USB thumb drive containing the wireless card driver and we were on the Internet with her reformatted, freshly-installed Windows 7 PC. Again, my hat’s off to the Windows 7 team for a great installation experience… the best I can remember since the 1990′s (I think it was that far back!)
Next, we ran into a problem with the HP C4450 printer driver software complaining that Windows 7 wasn’t a supported operating system. So, we “tricked” it into thinking it was installing into a Vista, SP1 system by simply changing the “Compatibility” options on the HP driver installer setup program – worked like a charm (now’s she’s printing using those Vista drivers).
WINDOWS 7 APPLICATION AND DRIVER COMPATIBILITY
Well, it’s still early days, but so far I’ve run most of my applications today and almost everything is running perfectly – in fact, everything is running noticely better and faster than in Vista. I have only encountered one issue, with the AVG Internet Security suite’s firewall. The AVG firewall can’t communicate with a driver, so it’s disabled.
Not a big deal for now, as I just enabled the Windows Firewall instead (which is a lot less pesky than the AVG firewall anyway, in terms of constantly bugging me about every new application that wants to communicate via the Internet). I trust that AVG will publish an update that fixes the AVG Firewall compatibility issue soon enough…
All my other applications seem to be working well – so far so good! Once again, nicely done keeping application and drivers compatible with Vista, for the most part. Obviously, there will always be a few drivers and apps that will not be 100% compatible, but it appears that 95% of my apps and 99% of my drivers all work fine.
WINDOWS 7 – THE RIGHT STUFF
It seems that Microsoft has finally taken a page out of the Apple Usability playbook… maybe after all the public beatings in so many hilarious Mac/Windows comparisons, Microsoft was shamed into investing into some serious usability analysis, because Windows 7 is finally operating within the same user experience universe as the Mac – perhaps Windows 7 even one-ups the Mac (particular for us two-button Windows types).
Windows 7 is fast – really fast, especially when you’re used to using Vista. And there’s a noticable reduction of the much-maligned UAC user interruptions! Amazingly enough, it seems Microsoft still missed one major opportunity with UAC, though – one I thought was rather obvious. When a user approves an application to run via the UAC, why not provide a checkbox something like “Don’t ask me about this application again”? Seems obvious enough… However, despite that particular shortcoming, Windows 7 provides a nice way to adjust the level of UAC interruptions from normal (pretty annoying) to less annoying to OFF (wanna guess where I have my UAC setting?) By the way, you still have to reboot if you turn UAC off – a small price to pay…
Back to the Windows 7 User Interface. From my perspective, there’s a number of great improvements in Windows 7 usability – most notable being the task bar – that horizontal bar at the bottom of the screen. By default, each application you run is represented by a single, larger icon on the task bar. If an application has multiple windows open, when you hover the mouse over that applications task bar icon, you get a set of active window thumbnail images which are large enough to see most of what’s actually showing in each of those windows that pops up above the task bar.
As you move your mouse across each of these miniature windows, that window comes to the foreground and the other windows’ client areas are replaced by a transparent view of the desktop (i.e., the window that’s in focus comes to the top and the others become transparent). This has a very intuitive feel to it and makes it very natural and fast to find what you’re looking for, especially in applications with many open windows.
Another nice feature of the task bar is the ability to “pin” an application to the taskbar. This means if you have an application you run a lot showing up in the task bar, you right-click and choose “Pin this program to the taskbar”. From that point forward, you can click on that application’s icon down in the task bar to activate it, whether it’s running or not. If it’s already running, the window is restored and becomes the topmost window with focus. If the application isn’t running, it gets launched. This is a great usability feature, as it turns the task bar into a “launch pad” for apps, as well as a way of accessing them efficiently.
The new taskbar reminds me of the Mac taskbar, except it’s now even cooler and better with the rollover windows. Oh yeah, and when you move your mouse over these taskbar icons, they light up and the light follow your mouse around – very cool!
Another major improvement is in the “system tray” area – that area in Vista and Windows XP that’s usually cluttered up with all kinds of little icons of all kinds – more than anyone typically wants to see there. By default in Windows 7, there are only 4 icons shown: the volume control, the network/wireless strength indicator, the power/battery indicator and the new “Action Center” icon. There’s a new up-button icon that, when pressed, pops up a small window with the rest of the usual tray icon suspects. There’s also a way to control which of those icons actually get to show up in your system tray (for example, I like to see my Skype icon there, so I can quickly tell whether I’m online, in do-not-disturb mode, etc.). Again, Windows 7 removes more user annoyances.
Oh, one other thing I really like… about the wireless indicator in the system tray area…it shows you something useful now (your wireless signal strength), and when you click on it, up pops a list of all the available wireless networks! Very usable, indeed. I don’t know about you, but I used to hate having to filter out all those dial-up network connections that hadn’t been used since George Bush Sr. was in office!
I’m just scratching the surface here on the Windows 7 user interface improvements, to be sure. Once again, my hat’s off to the Windows 7 team for a great job.
It’s clear that this time around, Microsoft did something different with Windows 7. They actually “thought like a user” and fixed (most of) the little annoyances that in Vista all add up to a marginal user experience. Instead of these things being annoyances, many of them are now joys to use.
So, I’m sure I’ll have more to say about Windows 7 as I use it daily (for more than today); however, if I had to pick a few words to describe Windows 7, they would be:
Turnaround - Microsoft has done the equivalent of a business turnaround with Windows 7, and I would now seriously consider Microsoft a “BUY” again (hey – don’t take my advice on stock trading, though)
Sleek - Windows 7 is sleek enough to kill any thoughts I might have had about switching to a Mac for a slicker, better UI
Fast - Windows 7 is noticably faster from a user standpoint. I haven’t run any actual benchmarks, but as a user, it’s runs well and my applications now feel like they should running atop of dual 2+ Ghz CPUs.
Stable - Windows 7 is (so far) more stable and reliable than Vista or XP
Quality - Windows 7 exudes that often elusive characteristic that’s hard to put your finger on, but you know it when you see it… quality of workmanship.
All I can say is – it’s about time! Nicely done Microsoft. You have restored my faith in Microsoft as a company and Windows as a sustainable platform. Keep it up, please.
And if what we see in Windows 7 says anything about what we can expect from the next version of Microsoft Office, I see a very bright financial future for Microsoft, indeed.
P.S. On the browser front, I still much prefer Google Chrome and Firefox (for its robust plug-ins) over the IE8 browser – sorry Microsoft, but it’s true, and unless you want to lose the browser war, you’d better start thinking about an “IE Turnaround” project (very soon).
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