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WINDOWS 7 - A FIRST LOOK

Brian Grainger

brianATgrainger1.freeserve.co.uk

Windows 7 is the next release of the Windows operating system. This article gives my first impressions of the system after having a play with it at my local ICPUG group. It has been somewhat delayed in the writing owing to the almost weekly announcements about what will finally appear, pricing and special offers.

Windows 7, the successor of Windows Vista, was first slated to appear in 2010. With Microsoft's well known ability to miss deadlines this probably meant that it would appear in 2011! However, a number of things happened that turned this schedule on its head.

First and foremost, Microsoft Vista was not the success it was supposed to be. Yes, Microsoft trotted out impressive sales figures but who was actually using it? Business had no interest whatsoever. When Windows XP was discontinued and Vista did not sell Microsoft dreamt up a scheme whereby one could buy Vista and downgrade to use XP!

By early 2009 support for Windows XP was supposed to be discontinued. This date was extended and in fact support has only very recently been discontinued.

The second unexpected happening for Microsoft was the arrival of the small cheap computer or netbook. Initially, the only way that these cheap machines could be produced was by not including Windows. The hardware restrictions, caused by the price, meant that Vista was not suitable so the machines appeared with various versions of Linux - Xandros for the Asus EEE range, Linpus for the Acer Aspire range, etc. Microsoft were caught with their trousers down but they responded by suddenly making Windows XP available again, so long as certain restrictions were adhered to. There is a lot of talk that this reaction was the original intention of Asus, Acer and the rest. They appeared to be sucking up to the Linux community but in reality they wanted Microsoft to play ball with them and provide a cheap version of Windows. Whatever the politics of the situation it meant that Microsoft's new operating system had to cater for this new class of machine.

It became pretty clear in late 2008 that Windows 7 development was being accelerated and, despite Microsoft denying everything, the new OS was expected to appear before the Christmas 2009 spending spree. As 2009 progressed we have been treated to a beta version released on the internet to anyone who wanted it and finally a release candidate version. The beta had a limited lifespan, (it stopped working after a period), but the release candidate is supposed to work for a year (after the full release). Clearly, Microsoft are making every effort to persuade us all that Windows 7 is good. Rod, the tester at our ICPUG club, has since reported that it has asked for registration but I have not seen this behaviour reported anywhere else so assume Rod has upset something along the way.

For the purpose of our review Rod installed the Windows 7 release candidate on a fairly bog standard laptop. It had an AMD processor and 1 GB of memory. Earlier in the year it was found wanting when we tried to install Vista. There were virtually no problems with Windows 7. The install process was fairly painless although we found that sound was lacking after the process. We suspect that this was due to some incompatibility with a TV card, rather than an inherent problem with the sound drivers.

Following the install of Windows 7 Microsoft Office was installed so that we might see how real world applications would perform.

After all the installation a quick look at the basic OS desktop view showed that it looked rather like Vista. I was particularly interested in the boot process - to inspect the capability for hijacking it in order to boot Linux! After some difficulty in trying to view system files in Windows Explorer, (more of that later), I eventually determined that the boot process was also similar to Vista.

We fired up Word and Excel to create some documents and spreadsheets and the system was surprisingly nimble. It seemed that 1 GB and this processor was up to the task. We also looked at some photographs through the in-built viewer application and the detail was incredibly clear.

With this somewhat limited application test it was clear that Windows 7 was going to be OK and perform much better than Vista ever did. We never got to see any of the User Access Control messages that plagued Vista - but then we were probably not doing much to upset Windows in this regard.

The only problem we noted in this limited test was my need to see system files in Windows Explorer. With Windows XP the default is not to see System files, (so that you cannot accidentally delete them?). This default can easily be changed by going to the Tools -Options menu item and changing the view options. I tried the same with Windows 7 and failed miserably. The interface had changed to make it impossible to find what I wanted. I solved the dilemma by looking at a help file and clicking a link within that. However, I don't want to open up a help file every time I want to look for these options.

It seems to me that Microsoft are moving away from menu systems. The Windows Media Player has been devoid of one for some time. The latest version of Office has what is called a 'ribbon' interface. Now Windows 7 appears to lack menus in Windows Explorer. Personally, I do not like this change. The interface seems to be geared to non technical people - to the detriment of the techies who have to help them when they get in a muddle!

The next question that occurs is how suitable is Windows 7 for running programs designed for Windows XP? If an XP program does not work out of the box then Windows 7 has an XP compatibility mode. However, it does this by running a virtual machine with a copy of XP running in it. Not sure how this will impact on the resources required or the speed of execution. The XP compatibility mode is not available in all versions of Windows 7 and it is a separate download available from the Microsoft web site.

This leads on to the next question. How many versions of Windows 7 will exist? Microsoft call a separate version an SKU (Stock Keeping Unit) and Windows 7 has 6 of them!

Windows 7 Home Basic is intended for emerging markets (i.e. those that cannot afford a real version). An entry point version of Windows for a full PC specification. The aim is to provide something to stop these markets choosing Linux instead of Windows.

Windows 7 Starter is intended as OEM only and for a quite specific restricted hardware set. This is primarily for netbooks, with Microsoft wanting to c control the hardware that makes up a netbook. Again this aims to snuff out the Linux alternative. Originally, this version had restrictions, most notably that it would only allow a maximum of 3 applications to run simultaneously. This restriction has been removed from the final release. It remains to be seen whether there are any other restrictions in the final release.

Windows 7 Home Premium is the main consumer edition.

Windows 7 Professional is the main business edition. Unlike Vista, the Professional version will be a superset of Home Premium - so multimedia capabilities that were missing from Vista Professional will be available with Windows 7 Professional. Microsoft says the Professional version adds extra security but doesn't explain how this is achieved.

Windows 7 Enterprise edition is the version for the large business enterprise and includes such things as Bitlocker security at the file system level.

Finally we have Windows 7 Ultimate version - which Microsoft openly say is for the enthusiast who wants every facility that Windows 7 has to offer. You need a fat wallet though!

At one point it was thought that Europe would have another 6 versions, without Internet Explorer, to satisfy the European Commission who have found Microsoft guilty of uncompetitive behaviour. However, I don't think Microsoft ever intended this to happen and just at the time of writing this section Microsoft have announced that Europe would get the same as everyone else, (including IE), but when they first connect to the internet they will be offered a browser ballot screen so they may choose to install a browser from a Microsoft set of alternatives (based on current usage). The EU have yet to say whether this is OK. Quite frankly, it is a farce. No non-technical user is going to change the default setting of IE are they? My own personal feeling is that the choice of browser should be made at first startup and only that one gets installed. Perhaps IE is still so integrated into the operating system that Microsoft could not allow this to happen.

We now come to pricing.

UK full retail prices have been fixed as follows:

Notes:

1. All prices are actually 1p below those quoted in the table above.

2. There is NO upgrade option from Windows XP. You must do a clean install. (Dual boot is possible).

Prior to the release of Windows 7 various special prices for pre-ordering have been available and very popular they have been too. Home premium was available for £50 and Professional for £100 (less the 1p of course). This offer was due to expire on August 14th at the latest.

Microsoft have announced a Family Pack licence which allows a customer to upgrade to Windows 7 Home Premium on 3 PCs. Only US pricing has been announced ($149.99). I expect the UK price to be £150 (less 1p) - so its sort of buy 2 get one free!

The latest batch of prices to come from Microsoft is those for upgrading between different versions of Windows 7. This entails buying a licence and then receiving an upgrade key. I have no further details at present. Whether this means all versions are available from the original disk you buy and then you unlock them with the key, or whether it involves further downloading I am not sure.

Prices are as follows, again rounded up by 1p:

We now come to the final question - Will Windows 7 be a success?

I believe it will in the technical market. From what I have seen in the release candidate it is stable and has none of the annoyances of Vista User Access Control. The way the release has emerged has resulted in a slowly building head of steam, set to explode on the release date, just in time for the Christmas spending spree. Recession or no recession, everyone spends at Christmas!

The enterprise community has already given up on Vista. Windows 7 is effectively the 3rd version of Vista, after Vista and Vista Service Pack 1. Enterprise always regards the 3rd version as the bug fixed release so, provided nothing crawls out the woodwork, enterprise will put Windows 7 on its upgrade path and we will see Windows XP finally ditched.

The one market that is hard to answer for is the consumer non technical market - those like your relatives who finally bought a PC and got internet connected. What motivation is there for them to upgrade from XP - which requires a full version or, more likely, extra money on a new PC? I don't know. Until the killer app that will not run on Windows XP appears they have no incentive at all. I'm sure Microsoft will think of something. Perhaps the next version of BBC iPlayer/Facebook/Skype will not run unless you have Windows 7. We know how this market works. We have to keep updating just to stay in the same place.

Vista was sold on the premise of XP with better security. This was a good reason to upgrade. I was most excited to hear that Vista would allow Internet Explorer to operate in a sandbox as, in my opinion, this is the best way to secure Windows on the internet. Unfortunately, the sandbox required User Access Control to be activated and the implementation of User Access Control was an absolute disaster - so everybody turned it off. Nothing has been said about sandboxing IE in Windows 7. If it can be done then maybe this is the killer app. There will be less reliance on antivirus and other malware combating software, along with its interminable need to keep updating, if we can keep the internet isolated in a sandbox away from the hard disk file system. I know my relations would be happier if they could avoid the anti-malware software that I demand they run!

Windows 7 - Bother Free Browsing?

That slogan has a nice ring to it, if it's true. Just remember Microsoft. I thought of it first and copyright it - but I'm sure we could agree on a royalty fee for usage, say 1p per copy of Windows 7 sold!

It is now just 11 days away till the launch of Windows 7 and this section expands on the above with the very latest information gleaned from the web.

First off - my problems with accessing the menus on Windows Explorer. According to advice on the web the menus might not exist but the shortcut keys still do. Consequently, it may be worth pressing the ALT key and seeing if a menu appears! I don't have access to Windows 7 now to try this but I have seen an article on the web confirming this. The same article mentions that you can make the menu permanent by using the Group Policy editor. This, however, is not available in the Home version of Windows 7. I suspect this forces a registry change so hopefully registry editing is still available in the Home version!

The next update concerns the Windows XP compatibility mode. As mentioned above this is a separate download and only works on certain versions of Windows 7. I can now confirm that you will require Professional version or higher. With these you will get a functional Windows XP SP3 in a virtual machine with 512MB of RAM. Apparently it is possible to get Windows XP compatibility mode on a Home Premium version but you have to set up the virtual machine yourself. Also, you need a copy of Windows XP and, according to reports, it cannot be the copy on your machine! It must be completely uninstalled first. However, all you gamers out there who are thinking of running your games in XP compatibility mode must think again. The virtual machine does not support 3D graphics!

The other important news for those wishing to run XP compatibility mode is that your computer must have a processor that is capable of hardware virtualisation, a BIOS that supports it and the functionality turned ON. With Intel processors they must support VT (virtual technology) mode. Sony have these processors in their current range of Vaio laptops. However, the BIOS does not support it so anybody with a Sony Vaio must give up hope of XP compatibility mode. Sony have said they did not enable the BIOS because they were very concerned that enabling VT would expose the systems to malicious code that could go very deep in the Operating System structure of the PC and completely disable it. They have also said that selected laptops in the future will have the VT mode turned on. To be fair, there have also been reports that they are looking into an update to allow people with older machines to access the technology but, to date, I have not seen a report of it being made available.

On the browser front the EU have, just this week, given approval for Microsoft's approach of installing IE but subsequently having a ballot screen to choose browser alternatives.

The final piece of news is the marketing strategy for Windows 7. Microsoft have encouraged early advance purchasers of Windows 7 to hold a Windows 7 Launch Party in the week from October 22nd, the official launch date. Party holders will get a special free Windows 7 Ultimate edition signed by Steve Balmer along with balloons, etc. to make the party go with a swing. It remains to be seen if the Windows 7 launch grips the nation as much as that for Windows 95 did. I suspect not but, thanks to our member Jim Scaife, ICPUG Stevenage have changed the date of their October meeting and will be hosting a Windows 7 launch party on launch day. How sad is that?

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