First Look: Windows 7 Shapes Up as Microsoft’s Best OS Yet

Good news, everyone! If you’ve been stuck in a time loop using Windows XP, which is nearing eight years old, or Windows Vista, which is just annoying, you can finally break free: Windows 7 is almost here. Microsoft delivers a slickly designed, vastly improved OS that will warp you to the world of today. This upgrade is big, and it’s hugely recommended for Microsoft users.

When we say big, we mean really BIG — so we’re not going to bombard you with an epic overview covering every single aspect. Rather, today we’ll guide you through an early look at some major new features and enhancements we tested in the almost-final version released last week. And in the weeks leading up to the Oct. 22 launch of Windows 7, we’ll continue posting our impressions, testing more features of the OS on various types of hardware.

We’ll start with interface, move on to performance and usability, and then we’ll conclude with the “funner” stuff. Let’s begin exploring, shall we?

Revamped Interface With Improved Presentation
Upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7 will be like ditching your old Toyota Camry for a sexy, new Nissan GT-R. Everything from the typography to the icons, and from the toolbar to the windows, has been refined with some extra detail, polish and shadows. Finally, Microsoft creates a clean, modern look that competes with Apple’s finely designed Mac OS X Leopard.

To accompany the new look, there are three new features that make the Windows 7 interface pretty groovy: Aero Peek, Aero Snap and Aero Shake. They’re window-management tools, similar to Apple’s Exposé in Mac OS X. Aero Peek is the most significant: When triggered, the feature displays outlines of all your open windows behind your active window; each outlined box contains a thumbnail previewing its corresponding window to help you choose.

Aero Snap (see screenshot above) is pretty cool, too: Drag a window to the right side of the screen, for example, and Aero Snap will automatically adjust the window into a rectangle that takes up the entire right side (same happens if you drag to the left). And Aero Shake is a cute feature: You click and hold onto a window and give it a shake, and any visible windows behind it will disappear (minimize, not close).

A major change appears in the main toolbar glued to the bottom of the screen. Rather than clutter the bottom of your screen with annoying rectangular tabs, your open applications are instead contained in a small square displaying only the icon of each active app. With AeroPeek activated, you can also preview thumbnails of the activity of apps by hovering over their corresponding taskbar icons. That’s certainly a welcome change now that many of us multitaskers enjoy running a multitude of apps at once

If Internet Explorer 8 is your browser of choice, there’s a bonus: Hovering your mouse over the Explorer icon, you’ll be able to preview all the tabs you have open in a stacked view, letting you go directly to the tab you wish to browse.

Then there’s the Start button at the bottom left corner — a feature Windows fans have grown to love. It’s very similar to the old one, functioning almost exactly the same. The main difference is the addition of a gradient to give it a fresher aesthetic. As for functions, a very useful addition to the Start menu is a search bar that instantly appears at the very bottom. This will make finding and launching files a snap.

Performance and Usability
You’ll immediately notice Windows 7 feels a lot faster than its predecessors, and that’s because memory management has been smartly re-engineered. In older versions of Windows, every application you have open is sucking up video memory, even if the windows are minimized. This isn’t the case in Windows 7: The only windows and apps using video memory are those visible on your screen. Windows users are accustomed to closing applications to boost performance, but that’s going to be unnecessary with Windows 7.

Smoother performance would be a waste if usability weren’t improved, too. Windows 7 won’t disappoint. Remember in Windows XP when you hooked up an external hard drive and it was unrecognized, requiring you to search the web to find that stupid effing software driver? Windows 7 includes up-to-date files, which should automatically recognize your device, and in most cases it’ll “just work.” If, for some reason, Windows 7 isn’t compatible with your attached device by default, it’ll search a database for you in an attempt to find a file to install.

Similarly, Windows 7 tries to streamline networking of peripherals, such as printers and scanners, with a feature called HomeGroup. Let’s say you’re running Windows 7 on computer B in your household, and computer A is the one hooked up to a printer in another room. If computer B is on the same network as computer A, Windows 7 will search for the printer driver on computer A and share it with computer B. The same networking feature will also allow you to share folders and files between networked computers. There’s a catch to this seamless networking: HomeGroup is an exclusive Windows 7 feature. So if your other machine is running the Mac OS, or Linux, then forget about it.

There are also some annoyances that will remind you, “This is still Windows.” When plugging in a thumb drive, for example, Windows will ask you what you want to do with it: Play audio, play a movie, or open the folder to view its files. It’s a thumb drive, for God’s sake: Recognize it and just open the damn folder! After receiving such notifications you can tell Windows 7 to automatically perform one of the aforementioned functions when a specific type of device is attached (see screenshot at right), but we wish the OS would just know what to do.

We also found the software-compatibility checker to be kind of lame. For example, when we downloaded TweetDeck, a .air file which requires Adobe Air, Windows 7 didn’t recognize the file extension and offered to do a search for compatible software. That search did not discover Adobe Air — a pretty popular format — so we were disappointed.

“Funner” Stuff

Microsoft improves on the entertainment experience, too. Windows Media Center gets a utilitarian makeover that looks a tad like Apple’s Front Row (and we’re not complaining). The revamped program makes it easy to browse your movies, photos, music and so on by tapping a few keys. Nice big thumbnails display previews of your media to make your collection look nice and perdy.

A feature we have yet to test (once we get the proper hardware) with Windows Media Center is the new media-streaming capability. If you have a Wi-Fi enabled TV, you’ll be able to seamlessly stream your Windows Media Center content onto the television set. This should make piracy a blast.

So will Google Chrome OS be any better? Is it going to be a useful alternative or just another way for Google to pull more people into Google's suite of online products like Google Docs, Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Reader?

There are still a lot of questions out there about this new OS, but here are the top five questions on my mind.

Is Google Chrome OS really practical for anything more powerful than a Mobile Internet Device (MID)?

When I first read Google's announcement for Chrome OS, two products immediately came to mind: Crunchpad and the rumored Apple tablet. To be honest MIDs are the only plausible reason I can see for wanting to use this OS. Google says Chrome OS is designed "to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds." The company also says that for applications "the web is the platform" not the OS. In other words, this OS isn't for running Microsoft Word or other desktop apps.

That's a problem in my view. Sure Google Docs is a great application for typing up a basic document, but it is far from the powerful tool that Microsoft Word is. So while Google says this OS is ideal for netbooks, I don't see why you would want to handicap yourself by using a less-functional OS on a piece of hardware--like a netbook--that has a nearly full-sized keyboard and a good processor. Google also says the OS can be used on desktops, which could be ideal for a public Internet terminal, but for the home user? Forget it. The only plausible use I can see for Chrome OS on your home computer would be under a dual-boot scenario to get on the Web quickly without waiting for Windows or OS X to startup. That's a similar scenario another cloud operating system, Good OS, was also envisioned for.

Will Chrome OS keep Microsoft up at night?

Don't make me laugh. Chrome OS is about as much a threat to Microsoft as a mosquito is to a bear--assuming the mosquito doesn't have Malaria that is. It's hard to envision Chrome OS significantly impacting a full-featured OS like Windows. Microsoft and Google aren't even on the same page when it comes to defining a cloud OS so they're unlikely to compete in that arena either.

Microsoft's cloud OS, Azure, is a "scalable hosting environment on which developers can build and host their applications." In other words, Azure runs on servers not home PCs, and is a tool for businesses that want to build Web applications and services. Google, on the other hand, is advocating Chrome OS as a solution for the home computer.

Google says virus free. Really?

Here we go again with another company building the myth of a virus-free operating system. The fact is you just can't build an operating system that is fully immune to malware and viruses. Yeah, yeah, I know you've owned a Mac for the last 10 years and have never had one virus, but when you owned a Windows machine it was always down for maintenance.

We've all heard that story, and we all know about the Mac vs. PC security argument. Believe it or not there are Mac viruses out there; it's just that Mac malware is so scarce that it's highly unlikely you'll ever come across one, but a Mac is far from being perfectly secure. Don't forget that Safari running on a Mac was the first Web browser to go down at this year's PWN2OWN competition at CanSecWest. The truth is a computer's security is primarily dependent on a security conscious operator (you) and a hacker's reluctance to discover security compromises for that machine.

The same principle will apply to the Chrome OS. It's highly unlikely we'll see viruses for the new OS since it will start out as a such a niche product anyway. However, if Google's new operating system somehow gains widespread appeal, you can bet on seeing viruses and other malware tailor made for Chrome OS.

Will Chrome OS-powered devices be cheaper?

If Android is any guide, I'm not sure we'll see Chrome OS devices being that much cheaper. I can imagine we'll see netbooks and MIDs with 3G or 4G capability, making it a perfect fit for carriers looking to branch out beyond cell phones. So you're likely to find subsidized Chrome OS devices, that are in fact cheaper.

But if you buy a device straight out, how much cheaper will it be compared to a Windows machine? Google will probably make Chrome OS available to hardware makers in a similar method to its Android platform for mobile phones, which means it will be free with some subtle restrictions based on the licensing agreement between Google and the manufacturer.

But if Android is free how do you explain the fact that Android devices have such high full retail prices? To give you an idea of the difference consider that the out-of-contract retail price for the Android-powered G1 $399.99, while the recently released Windows-powered Samsung Jack costs $349.99. For fifty dollars less, the Jack has arguably greater functionality than the G1, and you get a maximum of 16 GB of expandable storage, versus the G1's 8 GB. As for the newest Android-powered phone, the myTouch 3G, I expect it to have a comparable or even higher no-contract price than the G1, but we won't know for sure until the myTouch launches later this summer.

It may not be entirely fair to judge the cost of Chrome OS based on Android prices, but I'm just saying there's no guarantee that Google-powered devices will be cheaper than their Windows counterparts.

Will you be able to download Chrome OS like you would any other Linux build?

Common sense says yes, but notice that Google didn't mention anything in their announcement about downloading Chrome OS straight from their site. Google's blog post focused primarily on making Chrome OS available through third-party manufacturers. I'll take a pass on this one until Google makes their intentions clearer.

Chrome OS must search for a niche

Google's announcement is very interesting, and Chrome OS is another indication that Internet-focused devices are becoming more important to hardware and software developers. That being said, I'm still not convinced the world is ready to jettison their desktop-centric computers and reach for the clouds. I guess we'll know for sure when the first Chrome OS devices hit the market in the second half of 2010.

Connect with Ian Paul on Twitter (@ianpaul).

(http://www.pcworld.com/article/168039/five_questions_about_google_chrome_os.html)