We put Windows 7 through the paces in our detailed review. Is it better than Vista? How does it compare to Mac OSX?
It’s finally here. Nearly three years after Microsoft unleashed Windows Vista unto the world, crippling otherwise competent computers with obscene system requirements and feature bloat, Microsoft has returned for redemption with Windows 7, otherwise known as “what Vista should have been.” Though not as revolutionary in appearance as its predecessor, Microsoft has promised a slew of long-awaited refinements, including better performance, a powerful universal search, and better driver and hardware compatibility. We popped our freshly minted RTM copy of Windows 7 into the favorite office testbed – HP’s Firebird – and put the new OS through its paces to see whether Redmond can deliver on its promises when Windows 7 hits the streets on October 22.
Check out our Window 7 video review.
Installation
Not surprisingly, the installer for Windows 7 looks uncannily like Windows Vista’s: pop in the disc, navigate through a few questions about where you want it installed, then let it grind out the rest. Amazingly, it took only 17 minutes after finishing up the brief question period to landing on the Windows 7 desktop – a pretty impressive feat.
After launching for the very first time, Windows 7 transparently dealt with all our Firebird’s hardware except the video card, which we had to right click on under device manager and ask it to pull new drivers for. After a short automated search and install process, we had month-old drivers on the machine without so much as having to open a browser – though we did find slightly fresher drivers on Nvidia’s site.
The New Desktop
While Windows 7 retains the same glassy window style, icons and many other holdovers from Vista, more users will immediately notice that the taskbar has changed dramatically. Most notably, Microsoft has stripped out the clutter. A slightly taller taskbar now accommodates large, squared-off icons (rather than rectangular labels) in the bar, making it in some ways similar to Mac’s OS X dock. Every open program gets an icon, but you can also pin your favorites to hang out on the bottom even when they’re not in use, similar to the quick-launch area in previous Windows. This helps reduce the visual untidiness that comes from stringing out program titles in the taskbar itself. And really who needs them? If you do decide to revert to the old ways, Windows 7 will allow you to turn off the icon-based system, and also shrink the taskbar back to its original size.
New and improved Windows 7 taskbar
Since icons alone don’t tell you what’s going on with your desktop at any given time, Microsoft has implemented its new Aero Peek feature to fill in the necessary details. Hovering over any icon (or clicking if you’re in a hurry) will show the separate thumbnails for each window within any given program, like different Firefox windows, along with labels (Yahoo, Digg, Downloads, etc.) above them. Hovering over a thumbnail will take the details a step further by hiding every window and showing just the one in question to clarify which you’re dealing with. You can also right-click on any of the taskbar icons to get Jump Lists, which are basically shortcut lists pertaining to the programs. For instance, IE will present shortcuts for your last visited sites and tasks, like opening a new tab, while Windows Media player
will let you pause or skip forward through playlists without actually opening it to full screen.
Hover over any icon to view thumbnails
With many users now sporting enormous widescreen monitors, Windows 7’s new “snaps” feature turned out to be one of the most unexpectedly smart additions to make the most of all that real estate. Grab any window, drag it to the right or left edge of the screen, and it will automatically resize to half the screen. This makes it easy to browse on two screens at once to compare, type in Word with a browser window next to it, and so on. When you’re done, dragging the window to a new position automatically returns it to the old size. Additional options for snapping (akin to those the freeware AllSnap offers) would still be appreciated, though.
Windows 7 new snap feature
For those who immediately look at a Windows desktop and want to get to work making it their own, Microsoft has made that easier, as well. The new personalization menu features a wide array of attractive built-in themes, plus the means to switch them up by swapping backgrounds, screensavers, and even picking a custom color from a mixer for menus and using a slider to determine its opacity. This isn’t quite a WindowBlinds level of customization, but it’s easy, and 99 percent of users will probably be thrilled with the results.
Windows 7 personalization options
A revamped device management window takes much of the confusion out of connecting new gadgets. Simple devices like hard drives, thumb drives and webcams will mostly be automatically detected, and show up under this pane alongside other connected items like mice, keyboards and Wi-Fi adapters. Although we didn’t witness it in our demo, manufacturers will also be able to customize the windows with specific images and custom interfaces.
Windows 7 device management
Windows 7 desktop search
Performance
Though an impressive basket of extras went a long way in smoothing over our Vista misgivings, the real test came when we broke out the stopwatch and measured frame rates. After all, bells and whistles don’t go very far when they slow your computer to an unbearable chug. (We’ve learned that, right Microsoft?)
On paper, you wouldn’t really expect any major difference, based on the system requirements. Both Windows 7 and Vista demand a 1GHz processor, 1GB of memory, and the required hard drive space has swelled from 15GB to 16GB. That said, needing the same hardware can be considered progress when computers continue to get faster and cheaper every day. Any new machine on the market today should be able to handle Windows 7.
Racing both operating systems against each other on boot-up times proved that system requirements don’t mean everything. Windows 7 took us from our dual-boot menu to a working browser window opened on the desktop in 45 seconds. Vista did it in one minute and five seconds. That’s some significant progress.
Though we don’t have an actual metric to prove it, we can also attest – based on the impression of every DT editor who tried Windows 7 – that it definitely feels faster. Windows open and close quicker, menus snap open without delay, and that dreaded spinning wheel of blue that indicates the system is busy has been all but banished.
Game Time
Of course, the real test for Microsoft will be winning over gamers, an audience that almost universally shunned Vista for its negative impact on performance. When you’re dealing with audience willing to rip open their computers and cool them with water for an extra ounce of performance, all the glassy windows and widgets in the world just don’t matter.
And they won’t be disappointed this time around. Microsoft has vastly improved gaming performance with Windows 7. As you’ll recall from our HP Firebird review, the machine seemed to struggle with both MotoGP and Crysis at 1080p resolution when running Vista. Both games were technically playable, but in both cases we had to trim back other settings to get the smooth frame rates that make games enjoyable and fun to play.
Running the same games on Windows 7, we encountered no such issues. Same system, same games, same settings – no stutter. The big firefights that brought the Firebird to its knees in Crysis went over without issue, and MotoGP 08 played – with all settings maxed out – without a hiccup. Benchmarks didn’t really seem to bear out any improvement, though. Running 3DMark06 produced a score of 12,266 3DMarks, which is incredibly close to our original 12,297 from Vista. But we know a difference when we play it.
The Junker Test
Windows Vista notoriously strangled older PCs, but with the reputation for performance Windows 7 had started to garner, we couldn’t help but test it on the same aging, nearly-broken laptop we turned into a home media server. With a Pentium 4 processor and paltry 512MB of RAM, it wasn’t even technically over the minimum requirements, but we went ahead and pushed anyway. After installing new firmware for the DVD drive to get it to load, it miraculously worked. Unfortunately, it’s no substitute for Windows XP. Where XP could go from power button to desktop in 30 seconds on this machine, Windows 7 hit a much longer one minute and 23 seconds. It also seemed a bit more sluggish on the desktop, but to be fair, just idling ate up 44 percent of our RAM, so a rather inexpensive memory upgrade would probably improve performance significantly. We also have to give it credit for finding most of the drivers we needed on its own, including some notoriously finicky ones for an old Linksys PCMCIA card. Gamers need not apply, but for surfing, typing, and some light Solitaire, it actually worked. Will Windows 7 replace XP as the OS of choice on aging computers? Probably not. Will it work in a pinch, even on machines that shouldn’t even be able to run it? Unlike Vista, that answer is yes.
Dell Inspiron 5150 junker running Windows 7
Still a Few Hiccups
Despite otherwise shining experience with Windows 7, we do feel obliged to report a few zingers it sent us during our days of testing. After changing themes, for instance, we found that the taskbar icons no longer worked until we reopened the windows. We also had Launcher.exe crash the first time we ran MotoGP 08, and some older software forced us out of Aero mode and into Windows Basic mode since it lacked support for it. So it goes. These are all minor inconveniences, and none of them significantly diminished our experience, or held us up from accomplishing anything important. Our biggest hang-up actually came from the wireless mouse included with HP’s Firebird, which sporadically stopped working every 10 minutes until we turned it off and on again.
Conclusion
With OS X Snow Leopard, innumerable different flavors of Linux and now Google’s own ChromeOS lining up to challenge Microsoft’s superiority in operating systems, its stranglehold on the market has never seemed more precarious. But let Windows 7 lay rumors of an OS coup d’état to rest. Like an old fascist dictator, Vista is officially dead and buried, and its successor is one you can actually warm up to. Microsoft has not only atoned for Vista’s grievances with vastly improved performance and fewer nags, a number of old standbys that no one was complaining about (like the task bar) have been reimagined and made better at the same time.
Pros:
- Painless installation
- Quick boot times
- Reimagined, clutter-free taskbar
- Vastly superior gaming performance
- Some users will still crave more customization
- Windows XP still outshines on older systems
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