Windows 7: The new-old-Microsoft
Eagerly I rushed to install the release candidate for Windows 7 to see if it is as good as touted not only by Microsoft but also news sources around the world.
I was surprised to see the lack of questions I was asked to install the OS, and in about 20 minutes I was up and running. For the most part I think they’ve largely improved the usability of the installation process for the better.
Whilst I’m not too keen on the random plants growing from the side of the window, the aesthetics are quite nice—and for the first time in forever they have finally utilised the 1024×768 pixels for the loading screen.
Display and Graphics
I was also confused by the sudden appearance of a fighting fish on the desktop, an unusual step away from their usual landscape and flora photographs. It seems that they’re targeting a more contemporary audience of fishmongers.
They have also, thankfully, included the entire windows logo for the ‘Start’ button, rather than chopping off the bottom left corner as in Vista. I’m not too sure about the startling glow effect that happens when you mouse over the Start button, as if some sort of deity has appeared behind a lead-light window. I hope that isn’t the effect they’re going for.
The first program I fire up is Solitaire. I once had a conversation with a friend that all Windows machines should be judged on performance solely on how responsive the solitaire game is. Lets just say that this performed quite poorly, and I am confused as to why I would need hardware acceleration to play solitaire.
For some unbeknownst reason they have decided to provide me with annoying pop-up tips on how to play solitaire, as if anyone who has ever owned a Windows machine before doesn’t know how to play the most appropriate game for the OS. I digress.
Interface and Usability
System menus are large and unusually ugly, and it seems that Windows are going for the consistency approach with this, as it is essentially Vista all over again. It also seems they’ve taken a page out of OS X’s book and are adopting an icon-savvy dock in lieu of what once was wasted space for open programs.
The start menu has a very confusing approach to search. When you search for an item the programs and applications window is replaced with your search terms and where I would naturally expect a ‘cancel’ button to be is a button to shutdown the computer, which I subsequently did—without the option to cancel that request. Bummer.
After a long reboot cycle I was back and able to start browsing with Windows Explorer which is, well, busy. There is a lot of whitespace that is unnecessary which causes an unusual separation of headings and context related items.
For folders that have long list of contents there is a hover effect for the row that is quite loud and could afford to be a little more subtle—most likely to benefit the CPU as well.
Replacing the item preview in the left column is now an info bar along the bottom of the explorer that enables you to edit file details on the fly—which is a very intuitive and useful feature (for those that like to rename files frequently).
Navigating control panel and system settings was baffling and there seemed like it was void of heirarchy or reason for items being in certain places. They have recycled icons which makes it hard to differentiate one menu item from another.
The task bar has ‘flags’ that encourage me to ‘solve important issues’ like my firewall being turned off and there being no present anti-virus software. I think the language could be a little more comforting and less stark in a lot of their UI. Asking the user to ‘solve issues’ seems very unpolished.
Performance
I was running the OS in Virtual Box, so the grade of its performance is a little hard to tell. If we based it solely on solitaire it would be a bad result.
It ran quite fast with only 512mb of RAM, and there wasn’t too much ‘blue-circle-of-doom’ occuring. The interface is quite responsive and loaded windows quite quickly.
It seems like a notable speed improvement and was fast to install, and compared to both XP and Vista’s hour long birthing process took about half the time.
Overall
Mostly it is an overly complicated OS that has little to no workflow. There is a lot of change to the system and I think it is change for change’s sake.
It doesn’t alert me about every single thing I’m doing which is great, though it also doesn’t alert me about things I want to be told about—like the fact the computer is about to shutdown.
The operating system is a large improvement of Vista but certainly not the saviour Microsoft needs. I think it would more appropriately be described as a Vista service pack, than an entirely new operating system.
Welcome to the new-old-Microsoft.
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