Windows 7: Not perfect - but ready for prime time

While Windows 7 solves most of the qualms about Vista, the new OS still has plenty of room to grow, says Quocirca's Clive Longbottom.

The much vaunted Windows 7 is now among us, and consumer pre-orders look strong.

However, the long term issue for Microsoft is not whether new and existing machines in the consumer space are based on Windows 7 but whether the more conservative commercial space finally begins to make the move off the old, venerable and seemingly indestructible Windows XP.

So far Microsoft has wisely done things differently from Vista.

Firstly, Microsoft took a different approach to how Windows 7 has been launched. Not only were alpha versions provided to hyper-techies but beta versions were made available to anyone who wanted them - and this has meant that Windows 7 has been pretty exhaustively tested in a large number of situations.

Whereas Windows Vista suffered from a lot of problems around device support, Windows 7 has a far greater capability in this space, and the need to search continuously for drivers for less common devices has pretty much gone away.

Secondly, Microsoft has listened. The biggest issue for many organisations with Vista was that existing apps just didn't run on it: using 'compatibility modes' didn't help, and the thought of having to replace an application that worked fine under XP made Vista a no-go for many. Another deal-breaker: the need to upgrade around 30 per cent of the hardware assets to be able to cope with Vista's bloated resource requirements.

Windows 7 has been released to the public - to what response?
(Photo credit: Screenshot credit: Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)

Microsoft provides a decent approach to compatibility in Windows 7: not only do you get all the compatibility modes (which may or may not work) but you also get the opportunity to embed a full copy of XP into the Windows 7 environment - a platform for running older applications on.

Even when we look at the hardware needs, Microsoft has managed to turn in a decent hand here. Whereas around 30 per cent of existing hardware wouldn't run Vista when it came to market, we're now looking at 10 per cent or less of existing hardware being unable to run Windows 7.

Scalability up and down has been improved too. Netbooks can run Windows 7 with little problem, and it is likely that the 64bit version of Windows 7 will constitute a larger proportion of installs, so making better use of available, cheap memory resources.

Why upgrade?
The basic reasons for upgrading to 7 remain essentially the same as with Vista - but with a little more emphasis behind them. XP is an aging architecture and maintaining security is becoming an issue. Microsoft cannot change the basic underlying security model, and as such, the main approach to security in an XP environment has to be by layering on security products from third parties.

Windows 7 builds on changes to the security model introduced by Vista. Much coruscated as Vista has been, the improvements to the security model were good - but not good enough to make it the only reason to move over.

Third-party security will undoubtedly still be required for Windows 7 but the resultant platform should have fewer weak links, should require less in the way of resources and be far more manageable for centralised control systems than Vista or XP. With Microsoft moving XP into sunset support mode, the move towards an alternative platform does become more of a requirement.

Cost
But surely the cost of the new operating system is an issue? For those on the Microsoft Software Assurance licence agreement, this cost is a non-starter: with Software Assurance you already have the right to the new licences. If on Select, then there will be a cost involved - but this will not be anywhere near the retail prices which are seen by many as being a little off-putting.

Quocirca has also found that although the interface for Windows 7 is quite different to XP, the amount of training required for users is not high - especially if they have been using Vista in the home environment.

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