As of the 22nd of October 2009 all Windows Vista computers will be obsolete! Yes that is right, Microsoft is replacing Vista after two years of dismal reviews, performance headaches and compatibility issues.
But after 2 years of suffering headaches and acupuncture to relieve the tension Vista caused, will those loyal Vista users be rewarded with a special offer to upgrade to Windows 7 and get out of the Vista doldrums? Sadly, no. The pricing structure for Windows 7 upgrades offer no relief for sufferers of Vista. If you are in the U.S. you would have been able to pre-order an upgrade to Windows 7 Home Premium for USD $49.99 or Windows 7 Professional for USD $99.99, and you will not be able to get your upgrade until the end of October.
One positive is that the launch will be global, 22nd October worldwide will be the launch of Windows 7.
But has Microsoft fixed the problems that existed from Vista? Surprisingly yes, for the most part. The typical “are you sure, you are sure, you are sure?” type messages that annoyed and frustrated anyone sitting within a metre of Vista have suffered through are gone, actually, it is the simplest install of Windows yet, and like the install of Apple Mac OSX (Leopard), it practically takes care of itself. So no more hunting for drivers to get your sound or video cards working properly, even webcams and mp3 players are a simple matter of plug and play.
But to achieve this there is many things missing. The boffins at Microsoft have removed the sidebar from the right of the desktop and replaced it with floating gadgets, which are the same as the Vista gadgets, however you are able to move them anywhere on your desktop, which you could also do in Vista. No more desktop video scenes as your background, these have been replaced by pre-packed themes in Ultimate, which allow you to choose a theme from 5 – 6 pre-installed packs, it is nice however, that they have made the effort to not only change the background image, but also the Aero window colour and sounds associated with it.
The Start bar is the most obvious change from Vista. The usual list of open programs and windows that you have on your XP or Vista computer have been replaced by smaller more intuitive icons. You can hover over these and get a miniature live preview of the open programs you have running without clicking on them. This is fine if you have 10 Internet Explorer windows open and you want to find your Google search you were just using. However basic functionality like clicking on those icons to drop them down into the Start bar no longer exist. So with the good comes the bad.
No more My Documents, you will have to get use to looking in your libraries folder, which is suppose to make home networking easier.
No more Outlook Express or Windows Mail, in fact there is no mail client pre-packaged with Windows 7, this is a problem as we help so many people to setup their email accounts, this will become very troublesome as to get to mail client on Windows 7, you will need to download Windows Live Essentials, which includes MSN Messenger, Windows Mail, Photo Gallery and some other things no one will use. I can see Mozilla being very happy with this as it will encourage people to look for mail clients, and it is easier to download and install ThunderBird Mail Client than it is to get the Windows Live Essentials pack.
But is it worth your 350-odd hard earned Australian dollars to invest in Windows 7 Ultimate? Probably not. From first impressions Windows 7 is vastly superior to use and easy to install than Vista, but as this is as much as a change to Windows as we saw from Windows 98 to XP, I would wait to see what happens after launch before investing that sum of cash on a Windows backpedal from Vista.
As a 50% Apple Mac, 50% Windows user myself I can see the benefits for home users to look at investing in an Apple. For home use, they are brilliant, easy to use, easy to setup and you can still run Word and Excel on them! Not only that there is only one version of the operating system, there is no such thing as Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional Basic, Professional Premium, and Ultimate. Apple users can happily say that every one of them has the Ultimate version of Mac OSX, one version for everyone. There is something to be said for companies that save you the time and effort of having to choose the right one for you.
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