Wise on Tech Hacks, scripts and ideas for the refined geek.

Windows 7 is Good

Quite simply Windows 7 is really, really good. So good, in fact, that it finally gives my Mac a run for its money. Its a maturation of Vista -- eliminating many of the annoyances, while introducing some great new ideas -- but still not going after some of the more ambitious technologies that were dropped from Vista by the time it was released. In short, this is a cleaned-up Vista -- not a whole new OS.

Still, there are a few things new that are worth the learning curve... and maybe a couple that they probably could still stand to improve.

Good

• The new Taskbar is fantastic. If the Mac OS Dock and the Windows XP Taskbar had a baby, it would look like the Windows 7 Taskbar.
  It does take a bit to get used to, but I think most people are going to love it. Just like in OS X, your favorite applications get left on the bar -- whether they're running or not, they're sitting there waiting to be invoked. This drastically reduces the number of times you have to dig into the Start Menu to find something you use all the time. Running applications are shown on the Taskbar as before -- in place if you'd already had them there, sequentially if not. They can be re-sorted while running, and the icon indicates if there's more than one window open. Aero Peek lets you look at each of those windows to decide which one you want to bring to the top.
• On a related note, the WinTray is being re-vamped. This is the list of icons next to the clock on your Taskbar. The new behaviour isn't enforced by Windows, so its up to application developers to change how their app runs, so this transition will be slow. But the eventual goal is to reduce clutter in the WinTray. The application icon in the Taskbar is now the source of notifications and contextual controls. Right clicking on a properly implemented Taskbar icon will invoke the application's menu of actions, and the icon itself can change to a "needy" color to get your attention.
  Some icons will still belong in the WinTray but, as in Vista and XP, you get control of what ones show up.
  If you're used to looking for status notifications next to the clock, this is going to be an adjustment. I've already missed a few IMs because I wasn't watching my Taskbar icons -- and this is maybe my first complaint. The "needy" state is shown with a fairly subtle orange glow. It looks pretty, but its not nearly as attention-grabbing as the bouncing/badgeable Dock icon in OS X.
• The Control Panel continues to get cleaned-up, and that's always a good thing. But I've never liked how Windows, by default, hides control panels into categories. This introduces a "beginner" and "advanced" mode for the Control Panel, which is a UI no-no. Just make the default UI better, guys!
• Networking is really cool now. Apple's use of ZeroConf is insanely great, and I wish everyone would implement it, but Microsoft has done a fantastic job of a more brute-force auto-discovery. It finds all sorts of devices on my network, and then uses the Internet to look up more information about them. Vista had a similar feature, and it was cool, but Windows 7's is even cooler.
• Libraries are a little awkward, but I think they're a step in the right direction. Most people don't actually keep all their documents in "My Documents" and most people don't actually keep all their pictures in "My Pictures." Libraries let you mark any folder as belonging to the Documents/Pictures/etc... library, automatically indexing them for fast searching and easier retrieval from the Start Menu. Even network shares can belong to a Library, as long as their set-up for offline use.
• Boot times and wake-up times are much faster than Vista. We have a small laptop with a slow hard drive. With Vista, waking up from sleep was painful. We'd open the lid, have a meal, and by the time we were finished it would be ready to use. In Windows 7 boot is noticeably faster, wake is exponentially faster.
• Actually, everything feels snappier in Windows 7. Apparently, it doesn't benchmark any better, but they've moved more of the UI processing to the GPU, allowing the system to feel more responsive, even if its working hard in the background. Mac OS X made similar moves starting in OS X 10.4, and Vista did make a big deal of GPU use, but with Windows 7 they really seem to have gotten it right. I use my machine hard, and its very rare that the UI ever feels blocked or sluggish.
• There are other cool features buried in Windows 7, but I predict that the average home user won't be touching them any time soon: media streaming is pretty cool, but you have to have a pretty Microsoft-centric household for it to be useable. Media sharing continues to improve, as does the Media Center, but these are somewhat niche features at the moment.

Not As Good

• Networking is still frustrating. If your network provides a happy, simple path to connecting, you won't have any issues with Windows 7. If you need to do any advanced configuration, you'll be frustrated that, yet again, getting to the actual Network Connection properties is even further hidden from you than in Vista. Its great that things have been simplified, but sometimes I want to right click on the connection and manually change some settings. Windows 7 seems determined to make that difficult. No other OS does this, and Windows shouldn't either.
• They've removed a lot of the cruft that used to come with the OS. This is generally a great idea, but I miss a couple things. For one, there's no Mail client that ships with Windows. None at all. You're supposed to go download Windows Live Mail. I understand why they did this, but sometimes its handy to have a quick and dirty mail client built-in. Similarly, Vista introduced a Calendar app, and Windows 7 discarded it. Calendaring in OS X with Apple's built-in iCal is wonderful, supported system-wide, integrated well with all their apps, and supports open standards for publishing and subscribing. Vista's Calendar seemed like a tentative step in that direction, but then they abandoned it in Windows 7 and offered no alternative -- save for Microsoft Outlook. One might be led to think that they were wary of doing Calendaring right at the OS-level because it might cannibalize sales of Microsoft Office.
• The Start Menu continues to be a pet peeve of mine in Windows. I like the concept -- in fact, I usually adjust my Macs to have a Start Menu-like folder in the Dock -- but I absolutely hate the way Microsoft insists on organizing it. Even if you try to re-organize it, apps will put themselves back where Microsoft thinks they should go. This is not unique to Windows 7, but I sure wish they'd fix it.
  There are some improvements here though -- with pinned apps now being able to expose pop-out menus of recent documents, even if they're not running.
• Windows Media Player. Really, does anyone understand the UI on that app? I launch it to watch movies, and close it as soon as the movie is done, because just looking at the interface gives me a headache. Also, why can't I hit spacebar to Play/Pause my show? Why do I have to fumble around for the mouse, then acquire the relatively small Play button?

And that's it... that's all I can think of that bugs me. Over-all Windows 7 is rock solid, super stable (Explorer crashes on me maybe once a week, but starts right back up where I left off.) I've yet to see a blue screen, or have driver issues. In fact, they've drastically improved driver handling, and I don't think I've even once had to look in Device Manager (although a friend trying to install on a slightly older machine has reported some headaches, so YMMV.)

For the install itself, I did a clean install, rather than an upgrade from Vista. Upgrades are supported, but clean is so much better. The whole thing was pain-free, took less than half-an-hour, and left me with no concerns about whether or not I'd configured everything right. In fact, it was quite like an OS X install -- just point at the drive you want it on, and let it rip. No questions asked, it just works.

If you're running Vista right now, you need to go Windows 7.
If you're running Windows XP on newer hardware, you need to go Windows 7 to get the most out of your machine.
If its an older machine, and its running XP well, maybe you should just stick with what works. But when you're ready to upgrade, you'll want Windows 7.

In short, Windows 7 is for everyone. Maybe you don't need it today, and I wouldn't throw out a Mac for Windows 7, but the two OSes really do stand shoulder-to-shoulder now, and I'm happy to have Windows 7 in my technology family.