Windows 7 review: like Vista, but good

The first thing you'll notice about Windows 7 is that it looks like Vista. It also works like Vista, in the sense that it has the same plumbing underneath, except for a very welcome graphics upgrade to DX11. However, it works much better than Vista, and most of Vista's annoyances have either been removed, or (mostly) can be changed so the system works the way you like. It takes personalisation to extremes.

Sharing is an important part of Windows 7. It has a HomeGroup feature that makes it very easy to set up a home network and share things. It only works with Windows 7 machines, which I expect will sell a few family packs of Windows 7 (three copies of Home Premium for £149.99).

Right-click a photo, for example, select Share, and this gives you four options: Nobody, HomeGroup (Read), HomeGroup (Read/Write) and Specific People. "Plays to" lets you display a video, for example, on a different PC.

If you dig into Windows 7 you will, of course, find numerous relics from the past, going right back through Windows 95 to DOS.

There are lots of inconsistencies that still need cleaning up.

Windows 7 is a long way from being perfect, and it's not an essential upgrade if you're happy with XP. But nor is there a real reason to avoid it. Windows 7 is simply the best version of Windows you can get.

Windows 7 It’s like Vista, only less annoying

Today, Microsoft will start official downloads of the Windows 7 Release Candidate. It's the last-planned release of Windows 7 before Microsoft sends the polished code to OEMs and starts boxing up the bits as product.

Installation was smooth on a Dell M1330 laptop loaned by Microsoft for Windows 7 testing. So it should be - this machine has 3GB RAM - but a common complaint in Windows Vista's early days was that even powerful machines became slow and unresponsive. Windows 7 really is faster. For example, a post on Microsoft's Engineering Windows 7 blog explains how synchronous calls in the Windows Graphics Device Interface (GDI) can cause "a frozen desktop anywhere from 100msec to several seconds".

A better Vista: welcome to Windows 7

Jump Lists, which appear when you right-click a taskbar icon, are now more useful because more applications support them. Control Panel, for example, now has ten jump list shortcuts.

An online ID links your windows account with an online provider, which currently means Windows Live but could be extended. You can then stream media over the Internet to roaming home group members. Spotify strikes me as easier and more reliable.

Under the Hood, Windows 7 is Vistas's twin

At Microsoft's recent Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in Los Angeles, the air crackled with anticipation. On the heels of Vista, arguably the biggest disaster in Microsoft's history, Windows 7 was about to be revealed. A blast of fanfare, and Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie took the stage to pull the wraps off the new desktop operating system--which would deliver better performance, an improved user experience, and some nifty media-sharing features. The crowd salivated at the chance to play with Microsoft's latest and greatest.

Note: For a look at some of PC World's Windows 7 coverage to date, see:

•"A Tour of Windows 7 Beta" (video)
•"Windows 7 First Look: A Big Fix for Vista"
•"OS X Snow Leopard vs. Windows 7"
•"Microsoft Redefines the OS: Azure and Windows 7 Explained"
•"Microsoft Plans a Stripped-Down Windows 7"
As Windows desktop blogger for InfoWorld (a sister publication of PC World), I was drooling, too. When I got my hands on the Windows 7 "pre-beta," distributed right there at the show, I immediately installed it and began running tests. For PC World, I did an analysis of the changes (or lack of them) that consumers might see. For a deeper dive into my Windows 7 tests, check out Windows 7 unmasked on the InfoWorld site. The more I dug into Windows 7, the more I became convinced that I was dealing with an OS that was a slightly tweaked, nearly baked revision of Windows Vista.

Bottom line: So far, Windows 7 looks, behaves, and performs almost exactly like Windows Vista. And it breaks all sorts of things that used to work just fine under Vista. In other words, Microsoft's follow-up to its most unpopular OS release since Windows Me threatens to deliver zero measurable performance benefits while introducing new and potentially crippling compatibility issues.

In fact, the kernel in each major new version of the Windows OS has spawned a different, typically higher number of threads. So when I examined Windows 7 and found a nearly identical thread count (97 to 100) for the System process, I knew right away that I was dealing with a minor point-type of release, as opposed to a major update or rewrite.