Windows 7 might just change Microsoft's luck

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Let us cut to the chase. Will the next iteration of Microsoft's dominant operating system be any good? After spending a couple of weeks playing around with the beta version of the software, our verdict is that yes, it will be. But why? Windows Vista was a marketing and public relations disaster.

Vista, which was code-named Longhorn , was delayed by over a year and many people who bought machines with the Vista Capable logo on it were horrified to see that Windows Vista barely managed to work on their hardware when they upgraded from Windows XP.

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It must be understood that Vista was the first operating system the Redmond-based behemoth launched after the advent of social media blogs, MySpace, Twitter, Facebook, Digg and the like. Technology blogs and websites took no time in shredding Vista.

But the fact is, if you have a new computer (with dual-core processor and at least two gigabytes of memory), and not a Netbook, Vista works quite well. The integrated search function on Vista is brilliant if you, like most people, have files spread all across your computer.

Microsoft Windows 7 in six versions!

Features of Window 7

1. The beta build of Windows 7 has a surprisingly clean desktop. Then again, so did the initial XP desktop.

2. The Windows Experience Index score on the machine we tried 7 on was not that great, but the OS still worked fine.

3. The Internet worked fine most of the time, but Explorer 8 did have some teething troubles.

4. The Ribbon interface that debuted on Office 2007 makes it onto software tools such as MS Paint .

5. We liked the tabbed display on the taskbar, an improvement over Vista!

Quick takes

When will Windows 7 launch? Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, did not let on but we think Windows 7 could be in a PC near you by September-October this year. The earlier the better.

And how much will it cost? Software pricing is one of those decidedly non-transparent things, but if you are a consumer, don't expect prices of hardware to shoot up post-launch thanks to Seven's sticker price. Upgrades from Vista might be pricey though, costing upwards of Rs 5,000 per machine.

How many versions of Windows 7 will there be? Honestly, we do not know, but we would advise Microsoft to keep it three versions at the most a Netbook edition minus fancy graphics, one standard consumer edition and an enterprise version. As they say, Keep It Simple, Stupid!

And what about Touch-Screen surfaces? Well, we didn't have a touch machine to try Seven, but the operating system will have support for a multitude of touch capabilities including Multi-Touch .

So, this is really better than Vista? Yes. No PR screw-ups, lighter on the hardware, it is a good OS. At least, the beta version is. This is what Vista should have been.

So what is the really pathbreaking, most awesome feature of Windows 7? We looked for it but didn't find any over-riding visible feature that was out of the ordinary. Surely, there are some subtle changes to the interface from Vista, but Windows 7 looks a lot like the version it has replaced.

Yes, the software integrates with what is known as the cloud a lot better Windows Live SkyDrive and Microsoft's photo sharing service. This will in all likelihood lead to howls of protest from the Europeans and Google.

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The main change, therefore, is under the hood. The biggest complaint about Vista was that the software was a piece of bloatware (useless software) that gobbled up system resources. Also, given that most computer makers also install their media software and other random pieces of pointless software, Vista crippled many machines early on before the hardware managed to catch up. From all indications, Windows 7 seems a lot lighter on the hardware and comes with a lot of the cool graphical stuff turned off when you fire it up.

But Windows 7 is probably still far from perfect, and that the best hardware to run it is yet to be made by Intel, AMD or Nvidia. So much so that the Windows Experience Index that judges how good your machine is for Vista has been only rated till 7.9 (since the processor/memory/video card combination that can score 10 is still far from being made).

We tried Windows 7 on two machines: a standard HP Office Desktop, which scored 3.9, and a Sony Vaio laptop, which did better with 4.5. In fact, some benchmark software tests conducted by technology trade journals on Windows 7 showed it to be actually slower than Vista on high-end rigs.

The fact is that when Seven does get launched late this year, according to the Microsofties we know hardware will be far more capable. Four core processors will be mainstream and eight core processors should be coming in. Standard memory on a decent machine will go up by 4 to 8 gigabytes. Seven seems primed for that sort of hardware and may avoid the disaster that had accompanied the Vista launch.

But the first post-Bill Gates operating system launched by Microsoft might have another ace up its sleeve. The success of little machines such as the Eee PC from Asus has given birth to the light Netbook category, which is exploding. Most Netbooks run Windows XP because Vista will cripple them.

But Netbooks are going to get bigger, beefier processors in the coming months, even from cellphone processor specialist ARM. Windows Seven has actually been tested on some of these machines and seems to work slow, but it works, which is more than can be said for Vista.

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Facing competition from a rising Apple, which has been making inroads with machines running their OSX, and the surprisingly good Ubuntu distributed by South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth, Vista has had a tough time. But Seven might just change Microsoft's luck. They may have laid-off 5,000 people, but when it comes to operating systems they have managed to improve their public relations efforts compared to the Vista days. Oh, and hopefully, they are on their way to creating a decent OS as well.