Windows 7: Release Candidate 1 Preview
by Ryan Smith and Gary Key on May 5, 2009 11:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Systems
7?
Microsoft has been no stranger to unusual names. We scoffed when they named XP, and we scoffed again when they named Vista. However Windows 7 sets a new level of bewilderment. Depending on how you wish to count your Windows versions, you can come up with an order that makes Windows 7 the 7th version of Windows - counting the NT kernel desktop releases is one such example - but ultimately the list is as arbitrary as the name.
With the exception of NT4, Microsoft has always made at least two versions of Windows per major kernel, with the second releases being a refinement of what came before rather than a massive rearchitecting. Win98 refined Win95, WinXP refined Win2K. And Windows 7, as it turns out, refines Vista (even if MS wants to get as far from that name as possible). Windows 7’s kernel is recognized by Microsoft as version 6.1, and Vista was 6.0. While it’s true that kernel version numbers can be equally arbitrary, in this case it’s an appropriate number.
As Vista’s refinement, Windows 7 doesn’t bring with it anywhere near the level of change that Vista brought. With Vista we saw a new networking stack, a radically new video driver model, the moving of audio completely into software, UAC, and more. Meanwhile Windows 7 includes a number of new features, but nothing comparable to Vista’s great overhaul. If you’re a feature warrior looking for something big like Vista, you’re going to come away disappointed. If you’re looking for a smoother transition however Windows 7 should meet those expectations.
And for the name, clearly it’s a bad choice. The return to some kind of version numbering scheme is actually rather nice – it’s normally less arbitrary than a name and leaves no confusion about what order things come in – but to use a version numbering scheme you have to be consistent. Unless Microsoft intends to skip a kernel version number so that Windows 8 runs on the 8.0 kernel, this is only going to get worse as time goes on. It also has the interesting distinction of being harder to search for; “Win7” is a character too short for many sites that require a minimum term length, and “Windows 7” will be read by most software as two separate terms which can be pulled from anywhere.
So it may sound petty, but Microsoft could have picked something more sensible than Windows 7. (Ed: On the other hand, it still is less arbitrary than most CPU and GPU names)
Moving on, we have the matter of the different editions of Windows 7. Microsoft has not completely clarified this matter so we’re going to need to revisit this when Windows 7 finally ships, but they have given us enough solid information to accurately talk about the important bits.
The biggest news is that the Ultimate/Business/Home Premium schism has been resolved with Windows 7. When WinXP Home and Pro were split into more versions, the “everything including the kitchen sink” edition of Windows that was Pro and became Ultimate also became really, really expensive compared to the other editions. The problem was a combination of pricing and how Microsoft decided to split up features and at the same time carve out an extremely high-end niche. Users on Home Premium couldn’t get Remote Desktop. Users on Business couldn’t get Media Center and the built-in MPEG-2 codec. Meanwhile Business was priced higher than Home Premium, but it wasn’t a superset of Home Premium. Ultimate offered everything, but it also included a number of Enterprise features that were useless for even most users. Ultimately power users who wanted something similar to WinXP Pro (mainly, remote desktop and file encryption) were left in a pickle, and everyone else was confused on what edition to get.
With Windows 7, all editions have once again become supersets of other editions, going from Starter to Ultimate. Furthermore, Business edition has been renamed (back) to Professional to reflect this change, and with the return to being a superset of Windows Home Premium it regains its multimedia abilities. For all intents and purposes, Professional is once again the power-user and business user edition. The difference in turn between it and Enterprise/Ultimate has been reduced to BitLocker, Virtual Hard Disk booting, and some other associated enterprise-level features.
This change also marks a collapse in how many versions of Windows 7 are on the retail market. Only Home Premium and Professional will be widely sold at retail and shipped on OEM computers. Enterprise continues to be for volume use, and Home Basic has been demoted to just “emerging markets.” The unknowns at this point are where Starter and Ultimate will best fit in. There is some concern that Starter will find its way onto netbooks in developed markets in order to meet the kind of OS prices that such a cheap computer demands, however we can’t imagine such a castrated OS going over well with users. Previously it has been limited to the cheapest of the cheapest computers in emerging markets.
Meanwhile Microsoft is calling Ultimate a “limited retail and OEM” product, which we take to mean it won’t be sold on store shelves and instead would be limited to specialty retailers like Newegg, and pre-installed on few if any systems. There’s clearly going to be a need for a non-volume license edition of Enterprise (which is the role Ultimate fills) but Professional significantly reduces the practical value of it. Ultimate may very well end up being the pirate edition of Windows 7, because right now there’s even less going for it than what’s going for Vista Ultimate. Hopefully Microsoft will clarify this before Windows 7 launches.
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Bmadd - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link
I see the graphs, i see the new features and i honestly cant be the only person who doesn't want to change from my Vista x64 install? Can i? i got a dual core and 4gig of ram, a dash of tweaks and moving the pagefile and everything loads within a second of running. I personally dont see how going from vista to 7 for me can be a thought when there gonna give me the only thing i care for in 7 and thats DirectX11 and the new aero features. Thanks MSSazar - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link
Why not?It's free to use and try. If you don't like it, go back.
I have switched both my HTPC and my main rig to Windows 7 simply because it is a more efficient way for me to work. The homegroups sharing features is miles better than the old, archaic sharing method and the new Media Center interface is fantastic.
Also, Windows 7 loaded up all the drivers I needed by default, including both of my Hauppauge TV Tuner drivers and it just worked.
I see a lot of naysayers nit-picking, which is fine. However, I have yet to see anyone point out anything meaningful that should disuade people from either using Vista or Windows 7.
Btw, for me, the biggest selling feature, beyond the vastly improved 10 foot interface in MCE, was Aero Peak. Can't go back to Vista now without that functionality :)
Bmadd - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link
Well i have never really used gadgets, widgets and such. There not for me like myspace and twitter aren't for me. I would hate to change to win7 after setting me vista install up so nicely only to not like it and have to spend time getting it back to the sleak thing it is at the moment.Perhaps i will download the RC and just keep it there till Win7 is released and drivers are all sweet, install RC on a new hard drive and go from there but i am fair to pleased with my current vista install to consider changing
papapapapapapapababy - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link
not a single feature that i want or even care about. how about a good competent fast image viewer? more drm? giant icons? no classic ui? terrible. just give me a smaller, faster, stronger and more efficient xp or gtfo ms.TonkaTuff - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link
Microsoft should count themselves very lucky that Apple remains uninterested in being the OS for everyone and restrict themselves to the premium OS and hardware market.Yeah Snookie Im sure apple holds themseves back from over 90% of the O/S market based on there morals and lack of interest in making more money. What kind of deranged fanboy are you? Comments like the one above show how brainwashed some of you looney tunes are becoming.
It really is scary and you should seek professional help.
A comment in the article really hit the nail on the head,
MANY PEOPLE SAY THEY HATE VISTA BUT FEW CAN ACTUALLY SAY WHAT THEY HATE ABOUT IT.
Yeah Vista had issues when it first was released, it was a major step from the XP O/S but that was 2 bloody years ago. Ive been running Vista on my Gaming rig and my Work Laptop and a server/seed box and in 12 months I havnt had 1 crash that was the O/S's fault, Not one crash, not one BSOD, probably 4 or 5 freeze ups that had to be end tasked in 12 months on 3 systems numbering well over a 1000 hours of use, not even XP could claim to be that stable.
Like any O/S it has its annoyances, they all do (yes snookie even your precious mac).
Do I expect Win7 to be much different from Vista? No not really, I expect it will be a dressed up and refined version of Vista.
Why would Microshaft do such a thing, they just want more money, why not release it as a service pack for Vista?
BECAUSE THEY HAD TO CHANGE THE NAME AND MAKE IT OUT TO BE DIFFERENT FROM VISTA BACAUSE OF ALL THE LEMMINGS OUT THERE THAT HATE VISTA BUT DONT KNOW WHY THEY HATE IT!!!!!!!!!!!
End of rant.......Snookie you sir are a sychotic applemac fanboi, get help for god sake.
squeezee - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link
Microsoft has said to developers (at PDC at least) that Direct2D and DirectWrite along with the rest of DirectX 11 functionality will be available on windows Vista.fendell - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link
Has anyone tested Windows 7 and Ventrilo (any version) over some time?It's the only thing that keeps me on 64bit XP at the moment, because ventrilo has this weird behaviour on windows 7 where it suddenly doesnt recieve data for 2-5 minutes, then suddenly gets everything at once, this is veery frustrating and in fact raidbreaking in wow ;)
nycromes - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link
I have also used Windows 7 RC for WoW raiding and have had no major issues. Ensure you are running it as an administrator. I had a few issues before doing that, but none like you are describing. I am using a USB microphone and a standard soundcard speaker combination with no issue.vectorm12 - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link
I use ventrilo for wow a couple of times per week, at times for hours without any issues on build 7077x64(correct me if I'm wrong, found on piratebay.org btw). However I do use a USB connected wireless Microsoft headset(looks like the 360 one but grey) which might have some impact as it works like a second soundcard.snookie - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link
If you think XP is the best OS ever then you haven't used very many. It is archaic."The biggest news is that the Ultimate/Business/Home Premium schism has been resolved with Windows 7."
This is a pretty amazing statement seeing as how it took a further paragraph to partly but not fully describe what all the versions are for.
The Start Menu remains a horrible user interface designed by committee. Just awful.
Windows 7! Now with even more DRM!!!
UAC is an attempt to place responsibility for security too much on the user which is why it was so intrusive. A certain amount of user action is reasonable but UAC went far beyond that.
WTF, why does IE 8 take up so much space with its headers? Seriously Microsoft do you have no idea at all about usability? Slapping a ribbon interface on a simple text processor is just dumb.
Mail, Calendar, and Movie Maker might as well have been removed because they suck. But their removal points out even more how Microsoft needs its own version of iLife.
ISO implementation is so Microsoft. Half-ass as usual.
Why does Windows 7 need a disk defragmenter in 2009? No other modern OS does.
Virtual Windows XP? Is this a joke? Probably won't run on older machines which is where it is needed most and even more headaches for desktop admins for configuration and administration.
Why would you do performance testing on an SSD drive which very few desktop boxes have these days?
Looks like Windows 7 will suck on laptops as much as Vista does. Not good news since so many notebooks are sold these days.
My recommendation to Corporations is that for the 95% of users who need basic functionality they replace Windows entirely with a locked down Linux of some form. Many that I have worked with are considering this very thing and I have no doubt the Windows 7 will hasten this decision. XP requires far too intensive support ( yes i know your handbuilt game tower never has to be rebooted with XP, sure it doesn't).
Microsoft should count themselves very lucky that Apple remains uninterested in being the OS for everyone and restrict themselves to the premium OS and hardware market and that an unrestricted Linux desktop is still to complicated for most users. more and more companies are providing their high end IT Architects and Developers with Macs and they are happily snapping them up. I have seen this at Cisco, Oracle, Motorola, and may others. When Visual Studio using .NET developers would rather use a VM on OS X t do their development there is something very wrong and I'm seeing a lot of that.
The authors really do not understand the relationship between development tools, threads, the kernel, and processor usage.