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Thu, Nov 13, 2008 10:54 EST

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Posted by: Shane ONeill in News Topic: InfrastructureBlog: Eye on Microsoft
Current Rating: |
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
Mr Randall Kennedy has an exterme negative bias for all things Microsoft, As has been expressed in the multitude of reader feedbacks posted on the exact same story you got your quotes from. In effect, Mr Kennedy is expecing Windows 7 to fail before it has even reached Beta stage. If you look around, you will see that most level headed reviewers of the upcoming windows 7 build take a fairly positive attitude towards the changes Microsoft has proposed in the new OS so far. They do not go as far as to do performance benchmarks, which Randall chose to do, since they know that an OS in such early stages cannot constitute a baseline to compare the final build from.
We must wait and see what happens, but the future looks good for Microsoft if the generally positive attributes of the OS (like faster boot up time) come to fruition in a mature release when Windows 7 ships.
If you blame someone (Randall Kennedy) for being extremely negatively biased towards all things Microsoft, the least you should do is not publish such comment anonymously, so readers can also check your own credentials and possible bias...
I would agree with the assesment from the second blogger.
I would also like to note that I would rather hear the issues of the OS from someone who has taken a hard look at MS from a opposing bias because MS will not tell you what the issues or updates or changes to the OS will create. It is a checks and balances approach. The same goes for the national liberalized media, if you want the whole story you have to look at several different media outlets both biased and unbias and read between the lines.
Personally, the OS scares me a little. It seems to be nothing more than a large OS re-write Service Pack like XP SP3. Which by the way made XP outstanding.
I had hopes that when I tested the beta it would be different than the terribly tweaked XBOX OS called Vista. It did have some nice fixes for some of the Vista issue but also did not improve the underlying performance much at all. The TCP stack has been tweaked to the max even before Vista in XP. The great "Caching and Prefetching" the nteork stack does is a little disconcerting.
All in, check it out for yourself. For the enterprise, wait for SP1.
M$'s slapped on 64 bit strikes again. If you have ever dealt with a Windows 64 bit system you will fully agree that M$ has no clue about how to upgrade thier OS to 64 bit while maintaining compatability. After dealing with multiple 64 bit Vista and Win 7 systems, I have to say that I see no inherent benefits and so many compatability issues that it makes it almost useless. I ended up buying a mac, and if you really want a hassle-free next generation computing experience I would recommend you do the same. It does everything better, and anything that is not compatible with that you need can be easily added on with a virtual XP OS.
While these reviews are not stunning one thing is. After running MSFT's own compatibility program if find that "7" will not run any and I mean ANY of the programs I now have on my XP. I would need to spend close to $700 for the upgrades to each of the most used programs as for instance Quicken 2009! A one year old program needs to upgrade to a 2010 version. How is this a good thing for the consumer.