It has been widely reported in the press that Windows 7 will be released on 22nd October 2009 for retail customers, we have had many customers ask us “ok that’s nice but what does it mean for me”, well in our opinion not a great deal.
When Windows Vista was release almost 3 years ago it was under a fan fair of bells and whistles that would make the “windows experience” better, well as history has shown Vista has been anything but, excessive memory usage, poor compatibility and an administrators nightmare are just some of issues that plagued this release.
Windows 7 on the other hand has had few “new” bells and whistles applied, and should be thought of more as Windows Vista “take 2”, the improvements that have been made are very nice. Items such as the new taskbar (the bar normally at the bottom of your screen) have made it easier to organise the applications you use most.
But by and large the bulk of the improvements seem to be made in areas that caused the Vista experience to be such a pain, Multiple Monitors are handled much better, User Account Control (UAC) has been relaxed so that you now don’t need to say yes 10 times just to do 1 action, These along with general improvements have made my windows 7 experience much smooth then when I tested Windows Vista. Of course there is the normal slew of “security improvements” although even these are more of a adjustment on previously implemented features as opposed to brand new features.
This brings me onto a negative aspect of Windows 7, currently (as of July 2009) you may not upgrade to windows 7 you can only install a fresh copy, This is because of a long running battle between the EU and Microsoft based around “restriction of choice” when it comes to internet browsers. Due to the restrictions put in place, Microsoft will be releasing E editions which will not include a internet browser, and again because of this you will NOT be able to upgrade XP or Vista to Windows 7.
“ok that’s nice but what does it mean for me” I hear you asking again, well it means that if you choose to upgrade your existing machines to windows 7 in Europe, you will have to perform a clean install, including reinstallation of all applications. This normally takes anywhere from 4 to 8 hrs, and depending on applications, can take longer and doesn’t take into accounts any “issues” that might arise during the installation. Microsoft are offsetting this by reducing the price of windows 7 by for the first 3 months of release
Find out more
| Edition |
Before 31st December 2009 |
Post 31st December 2009
|
| Home Premium |
79.99 |
149.99 |
| Professional |
189.99 |
219.99 |
| Ultimate |
199.99 |
229.99 |
In conclusion, Windows 7 seems to be the operating system that Windows Vista should of been, it certainly provided us a stable working platform with the small improvements very noticeable when we used it. As a business tool, it certainly seems to use less resources thus running cooler and cheaper, although we are not sure that these savings and the improvements made are worth the 4hrs + of time required to install the product. if offered either Windows Vista or Windows 7 with a new purchase we would recommend Windows 7 every time. It finally seems that Windows XP has been replaced.
