The Windows 7 Review

The new Windows 7 Beta is a total image makeover from Microsoft after their disastrous Vista. Even though it is Beta, it seems more or less pretty stable without much bugs and people can even think of using it as their everyday OS (well that is surely not recommended). Well my system specifications are pretty unimpressive and Vista had clearly put my system down to it's knees but 7 seems to be pretty impressive at the performance with system specs that read-

Intel Pentium 4 1.73 GHz
Intel 915GM Graphics Chipset (XPDM)
512 MB RAM (Although Microsoft recommended 1 GB minimum RAM)
80 GD HDD (20GB dedicated for Windows 7)

Now, let's get into the inards of the OS. The startup is cool with four animated flashing lights making up the Windows logo and progress bar has been removed. Logs in pretty quickly and starts up preparing the desktop in a jiffy. Let's look at all the standout features of the New Windows 7.

Important Features

Superbar
The first thing you will notice on the desktop is the change of the taskbar. Not only by looks, but also by functionality. Larger icons with no text take up less space and look beautiful. The Vista Start Orb is now replaced with a glowing new Orb. The rest of the start menu is the same as Vista but with faster and efficient searches. Looks like 7 has been made to be an intelligent OS that understands and processes the User's demands fast.

Jump Lists
Jump Lists is an exciting new feature and does not remain the same boring right-click any more. It is way more better. Right clicking each active application or folder presents you with the related options. For example, for right click on Windows Media Player running in the backgorund, you get different playing options. Right clicking on an open folder gives you a list of frequently used files and folders making navigation a whole lot more easier.

Aero Peek
Unluckily due to my very modest hardware of my Laptop, I was not able to experiment this particular feature but from what I read on the Internet was that this is another feature pretty impressive and much more functional than the WinFlip in Vista which most people never ever used. You can literally peak through open windows to see the window below or the desktop below. Clearly a very nice and useful concept.

Less Obtrusive UAC
Well this had to be a feature becuase of the problems UAC had created with Vista. Now the UAC is pretty much less obstrusive and you can also configure it in 4 levels to control how much it disturbs or nags you.

Search different sites right from Explorer
Yes and that's a very very new and cool feature. Just add a .osdx file of that respective site and then all you need to do is select the site in Windows Explorer and start searching through the Search Bar. New and innovative feature. No need to open any browsers. You can try it by seeing the template available in the site below-

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/742-windows-7-search-federation-providers.html

Seems faster than Vista and XP
Yes, I said it, XP too. Although not in all places, but 7 does manage enough punch to beat Vista hands down and XP with a fierce competition. Even on my system, Windows 7 works very snappily and is a whole lot of fun to use. Loads applications pretty fast and the startup times are simply mind boggling. It just takes around 15 seconds for everything to set up and get up and running. Impressive! It seems pretty stable too. Even though it's a Beta, my Laptop hasn't hanged even a single time nor it has seen a BSOD (Blue Screen of Death). This is good work from Microsoft as Beta versions are known to be quite unstable but this one manages to cling on to the exception list. The final version seems to be interesting as the final version is generally better than Beta and a lot changes during that transition.

Looks pretty good till now without breaking a sweat. Windows 7 is here to salvage something of what Windows Vista made of mess off. Not only features and designs but a whole lot of performance improvements. Windows 7 seems quite ready for Netbooks. Interesting how Microsoft redesigned the kernel to use lesser memory and resources and then built the whole Vista code on it with new things too. Haven't got a chance to review the Touch features of 7 but will surely cover it up sometime later with a review. Ubuntu, the Linux OS which had been hailed as the Windows killer is now facing the heat from Windows 7, the Linux killer. It will be a good competition in the days to come and hoping Microsoft would not disappoint us at all. Since we have good things so much, why not talk about the bad part. So here it goes for the small group of XP users.

Some Reasons why a group of XP users won't like 7

• Since 7 is based on the same driver model as Vista, it is deemed to suffer from driver incompatibilities although users upgrading from Vista will have no issues with this problem.
• Vista was known to be bloated because it had Aero and since 7 hasn't changed much there, XP users with low system specs are in for a huge disappointment but the Basic theme works fine on low end PCs.
• Since XP users with low system specs won't get the benefit of all the features and top-notch performance, they would rather stay put with XP instead of upgrading.
• Upgrade from Vista to 7 is allowed but not from XP to 7 which is in my view a huge omission. That means an XP user wanting Windows 7 will either have to be ready to get the Hard Drive wiped clean or perform a Dual-boot which an average guy with little computer knowledge is not expected to know.

Well here's my Windows 7 review. Many points are important for Microsoft to consider while getting ready to prepare the final package. Windows 7 is surely a step forward in reviving the image of Microsoft among Corporates and Tech critics. But a lot still needs to be done. Whatever they have come up with till now is pretty good and hope that this just gets better. Good Luck to Microsoft for coming up with a neat final package. Till then, I will enjoy using the Beta and take loads of opportunities to toy around with it.