Microsoft has announced that it will be making available an early test version of its next Windows OS, “Windows 7,” early next year (2009). According to Microsoft, Windows 7 will do away with most of the nagging problems that have plagued users with Vista, while maintaining Vista’s good features.
I don’t know if this early test release is an effort by Microsoft to gather user feedback or more of an effort of damage control from the failures of Vista. In any case I think they’ve nailed the door shut for any significant further sales of Vista. Would you upgrade XP to Vista knowing that a “new and better Windows” was just a little over a year away?
For you, what would make Windows 7 a good OS? Here’s three basic benchmarks I would use to initially judge Windows 7:
- Does it require additional packages to be truly secure? In my days as a Window user I hated purchasing Windows and then having to immediately purchase a separate suite of software packages and updates to secure it from viruses, spam and intrusion. Vista made gains in this area but was still lacking.
- Can it run for days or weeks without requiring a restart? My last experience with Windows was that you were best off restarting it at least once a day if you wanted to insure stability. If using process/memory/network resource intensive programs I’d often have to restart it more then once per day.
- Can an Install maintain consistent performance for an extended period (years) of time? My history with Windows has been that there is a slow degradation of performance over time and that if installing a new version it is often best to reformat your hard drive for a fresh install. I’ve often reinstalled Windows simply to obtain that new-install level of performance. Two years seemed to be the magic number, reinstalling every two years to keep Windows running smoothly. This issue is why there are so many popular Windows maintenance utilities (disk defraggers, registry organizers, registry cleaners, uninstallers, etc.).
All the bells and whistles be damned, I would want any new Windows to first pass these three hurdles. Both Linux and Apple Mac OS X currently do and I think it’s not too much to expect from the next Microsoft Windows.
These benchmarks are comprised from my experience with Windows over 20 years of working in an I.T. environment and supporting real non-tech users and hundreds of Windows PCs. The benchmarks also figure strongly into my reasons for switching to Mac OS X and my continuing interest in Linux. Your experience and milage may differ.
As a note on Microsoft’s naming of Windows 7, there’s no consistence and I think will be confusing. Let’s see, there’s IE 8 which is part of Windows 7…etc.
Windows (1985)
Windows (1987)
Windows (1990)
Windows NT (1993)
Windows 95 (1995)
Windows 98 (1998)
Windows ME (2000)
Windows 2000 (2000)
Windows XP (2001)
Windows Server 2003 (2003)
Windows Vista (2007)
Windows Server 2008 (2008)
Windows 7 (2010)
Looking back over history this inconsistency in Windows naming is readily apparant and speaks somewhat to a lack of attention to details. Hopefully, this will not again be apparent under the hood of Windows 7 as it was with Vista.