Forgive me – I did not deliver this on promised time (blame midterms and Sound Tribe Sector 9 playing at House of Blues last night). I find myself questioning the redundancy of this article, as numerous review compilations have already been posted in the weeks leading up to the release of 7. But I did say I would, and all those compilations only make my job easier.
So what’s the real word on Windows 7?
Pretty freaking great, it looks. Microsoft has not only been able to correct all that went wrong with Vista, but has gone the extra mile to make Windows 7 stand out as its own operating system, not just one that fixes what should not have been broken.
The Good
Gizmodo’s review, titled “You Can Quit Complaining Now”, says that “Windows 7 is the biggest step forward in usability since Windows 95.” They break down some of their favorite features – a vastly improved user interface (as a Mac user, the Windows UI has always been my absolute least favorite part of dealing with XP/Vista) and making the computer all around faster and tighter. Engadget says mostly the same things – “Where Vista felt like a sprawling mess, Windows 7 has patched up the holes and feels like a tight, unified mechanism.”
The New York Times takes three key issues in Vista – slugishness, hardware requirements, and nagging – and writes how they have all had some major overhauls. It is fast, virtually anyone with any computer can install it (standard edition requires only a gigabye of memory and a one gigahertz processor), and it no longer flips out over nonexistent security threats.
The Bad
Out of issues with security, Microsoft has chosen to ship Windows 7 without many of the key features preinsalled – Moviemaker, Calendar, Photo Editor, E-Mail (for a time, it was going to ship in Europe without a browser – outrage overturned that decision). Microsoft simply assumes that people will just re-download them from the Internet themselves. It’s definitely an annoyance. And everyone seems to come to the general consensus that (in the words of the New York Times) “Windows 7 is still Windows. It’s still copy-protected, it still requires antivirus software and its visuals still aren’t consistent from one corner to another.” So don’t expect anything groundbreaking or new from the operating system, just a solid, much-needed, and welcome upgrade of all the old stuff.
