Windows 7 - The Definitive Review

After Vista’s less-than-stellar reception, it’s a surprise to see that Microsoft’s latest operating system introduction has been met with critical praise around the world. Most early testers have not found anything major to complain about in the beta versions and even the final release of Windows 7, which has been circulating privately for some time.

And now, it’s the moment of truth — We bring you our verdict after spending more than a month with this final version of the successor to Vista (as well as XP, which many users have not given up despite its age). While it's clear a lot of effort has gone into making sure old mistakes are not repeated, there is a lot more to consider than just the hype.

Improving all the basics

Windows 7 is satisfied with fewer resources than those required by Vista: Microsoft recommends a 1 GHz CPU and 1 GB of RAM. The company has learned a lot from the mistakes made during the Vista launch: many teams of developers sat in their laboratories with everyday PC users and kept a close watch on them while they were working, as described in several blog posts that they have published. With this knowledge, they have tried to optimize Windows’ handling. A few annoying things that users have had to struggle with for a long time have been eliminated, and new integrated functions like Aero Snap and Aero Shake on the desktop allow for entirely new ways of window management. You can now minimize windows and call them up again with mouse gestures, e.g. a simple shake movement, or can also tile windows to half the screen with a familiar drag and drop.

Installation: The goal of making Windows 7’s installation quicker and easier has largely been met. The process is entirely graphical and doesn’t need much user intervention. You can set up your network during the process so you’re ready to download the latest updates as soon as installation is done.

Taskbar: The new taskbar is the most obvious change, designed to make window management faster. It’s more powerful, since it lets you launch programs and see previews of open windows, but the changes will take some time to get used to. Text labels are gone by default, and the bar shows only an icon even if you have opened multiple copies of one application. When you hover the cursor over this icon, Windows 7 shows a live preview of the window contents complete with trendy Aero glass effects. Multiple open windows are shown as individual thumbnails in a horizontal bar, and programs can use their button space to show notifications such as file copy progress or error messages.

The former Quick Launch bar is therefore merged into the taskbar, which unfortunately makes it confusing to see which programs are actually running and which are not. Applications can be pinned so they are always on the taskbar whether running or not. Moreover, the familiar positions of your icons can sometimes change without the user realizing it. And you cannot just drag documents or media files onto the icons of applications to make them open instantly in those applications anymore. Luckily, the customization options let you turn on text labels, but you can’t disable all the new modifications.

Desktop: The ‘Show Desktop’ icon in the Quick Launch area, which has been a familiar fixture, is no longer there. Instead of that you can call up the Aero Peek function using a new button at the end of the taskbar, even beyond the clock. If you hover over the button with the mouse, transparent outlines of all open windows are displayed, so you can see the desktop through them. This kind of transparency effect does not necessarily consume your CPU power, since Windows 7 can accelerate it completely on the graphics card.

Aero also includes a snapping effect which lets you drag windows to the top or edges of the screen to maximize or tile them respectively (and the [Win] key can be used for loads of new shortcut combinations, including all the Aero Snap features). There is no demarcated sidebar for gadgets, which are still there, and can just be dropped anywhere on the desktop. Themes make it easy to group settings for wallpaper, sounds, and Aero glass color and opacity. And the OS finally includes the ability to rotate the wallpaper at adjustable intervals like a slide show.

Notification area: This has also been cleaned up; the most important change is it will show only system icons by default, i.e. the battery status, volume, network, and security alerts. All others are lumped into a flyout menu unless you specifically allow them to be displayed.

Jump lists: One of our favorite new innovations is the introduction of Jump Lists, which are program-specific context menus that replace the usual right-click context menus for icons in the taskbar and entries in the Start menu. They display lists of files frequently (or in some cases recently) opened with that application, but you can also pin your favorite files onto program icons, such as songs on your media player or bookmarks on the Web browser. Once you have done this, the Jump List becomes a practical feature that saves time and clicks. Applications such as media players can include playback control buttons, and future software releases will incorporate more such functionality to allow for quick controls and manipulations.

Libraries: Designed to help you cope with the ever-increasing mess of files, libraries act as virtual folders which aggregate your default ‘My Documents’ contents with any other locations on your hard drive(s). For example the ‘Videos’ library can show the contents of the ‘Videos’ folder as well as your movie collection on another hard drive and your shared home videos on an external storage device or networked PC.

You can even sort and organize libraries by file metadata including the date they were created, the artist, album, genre, length, etc. This makes it possible to manage and share all media files centrally. Libraries aren’t just virtual though, you can save files to them and they will be placed in the default folder for that file type. As an added advantage, Windows Search indexes the libraries automatically. If you are searching for files that are stored there, Windows 7 shows you the results in a split second.