Pensacola Computer Help Technoblog

I was reading and interesting article about someone who already hates the new Windows 7 because they are a die-hard XP fan: If you love Windows XP, you’ll hate Windows 7 . In the article, someone who has tested the new Windows 7 Beta tells about what they hate. Thankfully the author of the article goes on to point out why the things that are hated are in fact some of the greatest improvements in Windows. One of these being how the new Search feature works. This is one of the most misunderstood and often unused features in Windows Vista, and every time I show someone how it really works, they are amazed. A lot of Vista’s problems are due to a couple of factors, the main one being that when Vista was first released, there just weren’t enough hardware drivers for it, and as a result a lot of older hardware just wouldn’t work – and this pissed people off. Of course, this led to Vista getting slammed in the press, and what followed was a huge number of people hating Vista without ever really trying it.

Hopefully Windows 7 will not suffer the same fate. While I personally love Vista and have been using it well before it was officially released, I am looking forward to some of the new and improved features in Windows 7. The nice thing about Windows 7 is that it should easily run on hardware that is running Vista now, and in fact it may very well run on some older hardware that doens’t run Vista very well.

While XP was ok when it first came out (although if you were there, you will remember how people screamed that their Windows 98 hardware and software had so many problems trying to run on XP), XP is old, it was never designed for the applications and rich media internet that we experience today. Nor was it designed to deal with the numerous security threats that are out there today. While Microsoft is still issuing security patches for it, it just isn’t as secure as it needs to be, especially if you do anything on the internet. There is also the fact that as time goes on, there will be less and less manufacturers that will release XP drivers for new hardware, as well as less new software that will be supported on it.

I am currently one of the limited number of official Beta Testers for Windows 7, and as the testing progresses I will be writing up some of my opinions (limited somewhat by my Beta Tester agreement with Microsoft). What I can tell you now is that Windows 7 looks to be a great operating system, and for those who have held off moving to Vista from XP, when it is released I will probably highly recommend it to all those people who haven’t upgraded yet.

Microsoft recently released a pre-beta version of the next version of Windows (named Windows 7) to a select group of developers, and I must say that so far it is looking pretty good, especially considering it’s pre-beta state. While Vista has certainly had its share of people who ’say’ they don’t like it (mostly because of trying to run old software or hardware etc), Windows 7 aims to take some of the annoyances from Vista and make it more user friendly.

Starting with a less intrusive version of user access controls (those annoying pop-ups in Vista, that actually help protect your computer), and moving to better file management, an improved back-up program, and a host of other interface improvements, Windows 7 is looking like it will be the Vista that Microsoft hoped for originally.

Although a final release date has not been set, we can probably expect to see Windows 7 hit the market sometime late next year – stay tuned for more information as we dig into the new Windows 7