Eye on Microsoft
About this Blog:
This is Shane O'Neill's blog about Microsoft's corporate strategy and its various software and services — the good, the bad and the ugly.
Windows 7 Reviews: Radically Different Early Opinions Surface
The first reviews of the Windows 7 pre-beta are worlds apart in their assessment of Microsoft's upcoming replacement to the Vista operating system.
In fact, I haven't seen this much disagreement since the last Obama-McCain debate.
Take, for instance, the reviews this week by our sister sites, Computerworld and InfoWorld. On one side of the street (Computerworld's Preston Gralla), you have a generally sunny review stating that Windows 7 (which Microsoft expects to ship in early 2010) shows great promise and is a step up from Windows Vista on nearly every level. But it's chilly on the other side of the street, where Randall C. Kennedy of Infoworld expresses disappointment in Windows 7, saying that Microsoft has merely "slapped an upgraded UI onto an already discredited OS platform and fools nobody."
Kennedy's review is deeply technical and more geared toward enterprises than Gralla's. He goes way under the hood to compare system and process metrics of both versions of Windows. He concludes that Windows 7 and Vista consume similar amounts of RAM and are "virtual twins" when it comes to performance. He also forecasts compatibility problems with Windows 7, as he found driver compatibility problems and "an endless loop of failed installations and mandatory reboots" in his testing.
Though Microsoft has said publicly that Windows 7 uses the same kernel as Vista and will not be a major overhaul, Kennedy still gives the Windows 7 pre-beta no points for innovation. Time and again, Kennedy writes that Windows 7 is just too darn similar to Vista and that any changes from Vista are superficial interface adjustments.
Some consumers might be pleased with a cleaned up UI, Kennedy says, but for enterprise IT shops it's not enough.
"There's little in Windows 7 that IT shops will find compelling. Most of the new features are targeted squarely at consumers, which is the same formula that got Microsoft into trouble with Vista," Kennedy notes.
In closing, Kennedy predicts that Windows 7 will "deliver zero measurable performance benefits while introducing new and potentially crippling compatibility issues."
Ouch. How do you really feel?
Gralla of Computerworld comes at his Windows 7 review from a different direction. Sure, Windows 7 may mimic Windows Vista, but that's OK, he says. He declares upfront that massive changes are not needed and "there are enough changes to make [Windows 7] far more than a juiced-up service pack."
Gralla did not take a shovel to the kernel and count execution threads like Kennedy, but he does do a thorough analysis of key Windows 7 interface changes and new features such as the revamped UAC (User Account Control), Libraries for organizing files and folders, expanded search, and improved home and wireless networking.
The most talked-about interface tweak, the new Taskbar, was not built into Gralla's pre-beta. Neither were touch-screen capabilities.
Microsoft says that Windows 7 will support all hardware that Vista does. Gralla found this to be true in the pre-beta. It recognized all the hardware on his laptop, including the wireless card, a laser printer and a DVD burner. He also touted improved multimedia in Windows 7 that doesn't rely only on Windows Media Player, and said that Windows Backup, a widespread failure in Vista, is now quite useful.
Gralla found that, "Windows 7 is a more functional, more efficiently designed operating system than Windows Vista, with far more attention paid to the user experience."
Kennedy, on the other hand, only sees ugliness behind a pretty interface. "Frankly, Windows 7 is Vista, at least under the hood," he writes.
I don't think it's reasonable to make conclusions about an operating system based on a pre-beta version. Most early reviews praise
Previous Post: Microsoft's Windows Live Hotmail Redesign Met with Wrath from UsersNext Post: Is Windows Vista 'Capable' or Culpable?
Most Discussed Posts
Cloud computing has emerged as one of the most significant game changers to hit the technology landscape in the past 20 years. With this massive expansion of the cloud, the perception of the IT organization is shifting from a utility player to a change agent. This eBook breaks down five ways progressive organizations are using cloud-based IT Management solutions to help drive innovation and become more strategic, including: adding visibility and analytics, speeding up time-to-value, lowering costs, improving prioritization, and providing a blueprint for future cloud deployments.
Read the white paper to see how IBM helped Citigroup deliver new services and enhancements to their 200 million customers faster.
There are 3 ways to modernize legacy applications: rewrite completely, acquire packaged solutions or migrate existing code. This paper explains why it's best to migrate and how IBM® Rational® software can help.
Accommodating specific lines of business can result in a hybrid ecosystem of applications and servers. The resulting complexity of this architecture makes for an environment that is costly to maintain and difficult to change when addressing new challenges.
This whitepaper will help you to define a mobile device passcode policy. Security managers must attempt to reconcile two opposing goals. They must: 1) create a passcode policy that is strong enough to protect the device if it is lost or stolen, while: 2) not annoying users with needless length or complexity.
This whitepaper, authored by The Radicati Group, looks at the key reasons organizations should consider moving to a cloud-based archiving solution. Email archiving solutions enable organizations to store, monitor, and collect electronic data exchanged by their users to comply with internal policies and regulations.
ATERNITY will showcase a 30-minute demo on how Fortune 500 companies are leveraging its award-winning FPI Platform to deliver a user-centric approach to Proactive IT Management.
For businesses to move forward and tap into the ever-expanding universe of Internet users and network-enabled devices, it's critical to learn how to make the transition to IPv6. Learn the critical steps your organization must take to make a seamless transition-and keep your business world connected.
Learn how IT teams can protect against spear phishing tactics. Harry Sverdlove, chief technology officer of Bit9 offers a frank discussion about spear phishing - the most common technique used in today's advanced attacks.
Learn how to build a solid business case for your migration to Red Hat Enterprise Linux so you can run leaner, innovate faster, be more flexible and own the New Now.
Social media isn't about you; it's about everything around you. As you consider how your customers want to communicate with you, social media is something that can't be ignored. But what should your strategy be? Is social media "just another channel?" What kind of a plan makes sense for your contact center and for your customers? Join our experts as they share their insight and research results.
Hardware tokens were a popular method of strong authentication in past years but the cumbersome provisioning and distribution tasks, high support requirements and replacement costs have limited their growth. The additional log-in steps that hardware tokens require and the resulting user frustrations have limited adoption and make them impractical for larger scale partner and customer applications.
Sponsored Links
