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Windows 7, Effectively Taking Windows Vista Off Life Support
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31-Dec-2008
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The next, and hopefully good-again-like-XP, version of Windows has already had its débutante ball, so to speak, with a preview to the public that, thus far, has been well received. And, given the disastrous performance of XP Service Pack 2.5, also known as Windows Vista, it isn't hard to reason why people have been hungry for something new. As this is still in early development, I will simply be comparing it to XP and Vista, with ratings as far as what should work.
The Look
It's got the look (it's got the look...), just as Vista does. XP, though extremely reliable, does have the kind of “I'm here people, go about your business” interface. Vista, for all its defects, looks quite amazing. 7, thus far, lives up fully to the new standard of performance and presence. And you really can't blame Microsoft for betting Vista's success based highly on presence, that's essentially what gave Mac it's ludicrously popular and powerful renaissance and resurgence (and I still to this day cannot figure out why people buy iPhones, but, that's another story...). Of course, they added a bunch of other stuff that, well, please refer to the other article for more information on that.
Performance
Although multi-core processors were definitely considered by the Vista planning team (or, God, I hope so...), Vista itself used so many resources that any enhanced performance management was negated unless you had the much higher end computers. Which, of course, with an expensive price tag on Vista itself, partnered with the Greatest Depression, a lot of manufacturers pumped out bare minimum models that stood no chance of living up to the expectations of Vista.
Despite claiming they are taking this into consideration, just the improved features they are calling for wreak of another highly resource-intensive operating system that is going to make Vista blush at the very least. The 2 GB of RAM and Dual Core processor that would have been perfect for Vista is effectively replaced by a new minimum of 4 GB of RAM with a Quad Core processor (and don't cheap out, remember, these things run at their individual speed, they can just run four things at once) of at least 3.2 GHz, and a Solid State Drive or SATA II would probably factor much more significantly than before as there is a lot of indexing going on, and this just kills, KILLS, system performance if you have a slow one.
The Cool Stuff
There are some potentially good things on the horizon, of course. They are further expanding the gadgets and allowing you to place them wherever you want on the screen. I personally think the gadgets were the only redeeming quality of Vista; they're incredibly useful, very simple, and free.
There are supposedly major advances in touch, speech and handwriting recognition as well. I also think this is a good area to focus in, as we are moving ever closer to the 'piece of paper computer', and speech recognition thus far has been, go ad it bess. With genuine development here we are definitely on the cusp of having genuine, real life, at home assistance reminiscent of Rosie from the Jetsons. And I'm going to leave that at that, as, Microsoft has a tendency to let down lately.
The Not So Cool Stuff
Despite being somewhat revolutionary, in my opinion, with regard to the .NET architecture, Microsoft is supposedly leaving it behind, or at least out of the limelight. In its place is more XML (which is what Vista relied on, so, needless to say I'm skeptical)...
All in all, it sounds like an improvement, and perhaps even the 'real' version that should have came after XP. Further reviews will go into more detail, but for now, I'm slightly optimistic. |
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