This week Microsoft have made the Release Candidate of Windows 7 available for download so it won't be long now before a full release date is announced and machines start shipping with this new operating system. (You can get the RC here if you have a spare machine to try it on http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/) .And once it is established, Vista will have been and gone almost as quickly as Windows ME, although Microsft are encouraging us to continue with Vista upgrades if they are already planned. I for one am hoping that Windows 7 will finally fulfil the promise of Vista without all the technical upheaval that has surrounded the introduction of their current offering.
We are promised that Windows 7 will upgrade directly from XP, so even Microsft have recognised that the business uptake in particular of Vista has been very poor and most organisations have not ventured as far as running Vista on any desktops if they can avoid it.
We are promised that Windows 7 will upgrade directly from XP, so even Microsft have recognised that the business uptake in particular of Vista has been very poor and most organisations have not ventured as far as running Vista on any desktops if they can avoid it.
We are promised a smaller footprint, by which they mean it will require less resource than Vista or even XP - which can only be a good thing and means that compatability will be less of an issue.
And we are promised a system that is graphically drifting more and more towards the Mac desktop look and feel, with full floating gadgets and a taskbar that is transparent showing just the Icon of the application running. It also has a preview feature to help you quickly select between mulitple documents.
As usual there are a lot of promises, but Microsoft learnt a lot from the Vista release (OK I know we've heard this one before) and will be looking to ensure the uptake of Windows 7 is far more succesful. I'll be testing it at K-meson labs and will post again with a more detailed report but for now, ignore the Microsoft plea to carry on upgrading to Vista and wait a few months for this!
We are promised improved networking and a revised approach to the UAC (User Account Control) so the system will not constantly prompt users for permission to run updates etc.
And we are promised a system that is graphically drifting more and more towards the Mac desktop look and feel, with full floating gadgets and a taskbar that is transparent showing just the Icon of the application running. It also has a preview feature to help you quickly select between mulitple documents.
As usual there are a lot of promises, but Microsoft learnt a lot from the Vista release (OK I know we've heard this one before) and will be looking to ensure the uptake of Windows 7 is far more succesful. I'll be testing it at K-meson labs and will post again with a more detailed report but for now, ignore the Microsoft plea to carry on upgrading to Vista and wait a few months for this!
