Why Windows 7 Will Save Microsoft
I was doing some thinking over the past few weeks and I came to a realization. Windows 7, with all of it’s improvements in performance, new features, and more streamlined development process, will actually save Microsoft and redeem them from the whole Vista crash. So I decided to write up WHY Windows 7 will tromp every previous Windows version and why we should pay close attention to it.
In order to properly get everyone up to speed, first I must take you back to 2003, back to when Microsoft was all about the “Longhorn Vision” and what it will mean for the end user. Microsoft was promising everyone an amazing world where you would be able to accomplish almost anything with this amazing new operating system. The demos were absolutely breathtaking, but unfortunately, most of these demos were nothing more than smoke and mirrors. In reality, the physical code that was Longhorn, was an absolute train wreck. The builds were horribly unstable, and it looked as if the vision would come crashing down like a house of cards, and in August of 2004 it did just that. Microsoft set off to reset the codebase and restart Longhorn from scratch. Normally this wouldn’t have been so bad, except they decided to remove many of the promised features, and 2 years later they delivered Vista, a half baked release and something that didn’t even come close to the original Longhorn that we all wanted to see. Vista was plagued by driver issues, performance issues, and stability issues. It got off to a very bad start with the press literally throwing it under the bus, and to this day the mere mention of Vista in a crowd makes people cringe. Granted, a lot of the issues were fixed in SP1, but not enough to make people want to switch, many bugs that were reported during the beta still remain in Vista to this day.
With Windows 7, Microsoft realized it needed to change things radically. Jim Allchin had retired from his post as chief of the platforms division, and Microsoft brought in Steven Sinofsky under the new title “Vice President of Windows and Windows Live.” Steven has a reputation of driving releases that are on target, meet deadlines, and most importantly, deliver results. Steven’s first order of business was to re-organize the whole Windows division in order to streamline the development process and ensure a quality product at any point in the build process. He instituted a series of code quality checks, wherein NOTHING is allowed to check into winmain unless it meets a stringent quality standard for stability and function, something that really did not exist during Longhorn/Vista development. The purpose of this is to ensure that almost any Windows 7 build plucked out of the winmain lab will be stable enough for regular usage.
The second part of the policy change, and the one that I might not fully agree with, is his disclosure policy. During Longhorn/Vista development, Microsoft was extremely open about the process. The public literally had an open window to look in on Longhorn development and see how things were going. The problem with this though, is that the public also had a bird’s eye view of the failures, the feature cuts, and the pushing out of the half-baked Vista. I do think that Steven went a little too far with his non-disclosure policy, but looking back I really can’t fault the man. He managed to keep Windows 7 development under wraps long enough to genuinely surprise all of the PDC attendees that saw the first public demonstration. The fact that we were seeing real working code, and not some director demo was also extremely satisfying.
And finally, the third part of the policy change, and this one is actually rather profound. Steven wants Microsoft to promise, and then deliver exactly what they promised, and so far they appear to be doing just that. And dare I say it, Windows 7 is MUCH closer to the original Longhorn vision than Vista ever was. If you honestly think about it, Longhorn had many conceptual features that appear in current builds of Windows 7:
- New, Animated boot screen: During the Longhorn project, there were concepts for a new, high resolution, animated boot screen. This feature was later pulled from Vista, although it could be enabled (minus animation) with a boot loader hack.
- New Taskbar: During Longhorn development, there were many UI concepts going around for a new taskbar that would rethink the way the user deals with tasks and launches applications. In Windows 7, the new taskbar (codenamed superbar) delivers on that goal. It unifies the quick launch and running applications, gives nice visuals of open tasks, and generally streamlines the task management experience. I think this is a huge step forward for Windows, and a much needed change after 14 years of little change in this department.
- Federated Search: In Longhorn, Microsoft wanted to implement WinFS for easy file searching and data management, but they also wanted to enable this functionality over the network. In Windows 7 this will become a reality with the new federated search feature. This new feature allows users to search over the network or on websites with little to no code changes on the server side. Pretty cool if you ask me.
- Castle: In Longhorn, a new networking feature (called castle at the time) was being worked on that would easily allow people to network their home PC’s and share and stream information over the network. In Windows 7 this feature is back in a functional form under the name “Homegroups”. Homegroups allow a user to create a network of Windows 7 with extreme ease. Gone are the days of pulling out your hair trying to create a networked environment of XP or Vista machines in your home.
- New Explorer Views: In Longhorn there were many new explorer view ideas, and while not all of them appear in 7, one major one does. The stacking view. This view allows you to stack files by date, author, and many other filters. This view especially shines with pictures. Want to sort your pictures by month taken and have them stacked? Easy.
- Device Stage: One of the concept features in Longhorn included a new way to visualize the connected devices on your PC. Windows 7 really delivers here with the new device stage feature. It allows for a much more visual experience specifically tailored to your device that allows you to see information and perform tasks all in one easy to use location.
Windows 7 comes with even more on top of all of that. It comes with new additions to Aero, such as Aero peek, Aero Shake, Aero Snap just to name a few. These features really make the experience of using Windows a whole lot better. Aero snap is really useful when viewing multiple documents and you want a side by side view. Aero Peek is great when you want to get a quick look at the desktop or a specific window without minimizing everything, and Aero shake is nice in touch based applications as a quick way to un-clutter the screen.
The bottom line is Microsoft really set out to change perceptions and fix the problems that plagued Vista. And so far they are doing a very good job of that with Windows 7. Current builds of Windows 7 are amazingly fast, driver support is better than Vista, even at this early beta stage, and the stability is absolutely unbelievable. I have been using Windows 7 as my primary operating system for a while now and I have absolutely no intentions of going back to Vista. Actually, you couldn’t even pay me to go back to Vista at this point. In my view, Windows 7 will be the operating system that breathes new life into Microsoft, and revitalizes the Windows and PC community as a whole. Apple, get ready to meet your match, you’re not going to be able to poke fun at this release, it’s probably going to trump Snow Leopard too.
Well done sir.. well done.
I couldn’t agree with you more. They did amazing things to Windows 7 as far as I can see, making it really promising. The stability it already has even during beta’s is great. I’m looking forward to see Win7 in my hands!
Do you realize, the out of your 6 bullets, half are technically eye-candy? I’m not saying I don’t agree with what you have said, but I say that on other reasons that eye candy.
Outlandish,
I am well aware that half of my bullet points are eye candy, but the reality is that from the perspective of the average user this is just as important, if not more important than anything else. Hence why I felt it was worth highlighting UI components as well.
I am an happy Vista user but I am sure that with all the improvements (real and only perceived by XP users) Windows 7 is going to save Microsoft.
Good points in your article!
I have had great success running Windows 7 on my laptop. From the looks of it, it appears to use less battery than Vista did but I haven’t really timed how long the battery lasts on a single charge. I have not yet decided to make Windows 7 my primary OS on my desktop yet, but will do so when Windows 7 goes gold.
Honestly, I don’t feel much difference between the Longhorn and the Seven development process. The main difference is that the dev process of Seven takes place behind the curtains of Sinofsky’s mouth kept shut. With Longhorn, we as consumers could easily talk about the pros and cons of the new OS because we got an idea of what was going to change and what was to be included into Longhorn. Of course, many promises/features couldn’t be included, and we all know that story of the development restart etc. Seven is, nevertheless, only an evolution of Vista, bringing in one (!) really promising new feature namely the Superbar. Everything else is a Longhorn derivate built by (now) finally completed code, features that have been planned and been completed half-way during Longhorn. Microsoft has had enough time to complete the code started in Longhorn, they have had enough time to really deliver the promised features. That’s nothing great, and more importantly, nothing new. Seven will not “save Microsoft” more than Vista did, as it was a good start indeed, but suffered from driver incompatibilities and bad press, as you’ve written, and – of course – suffered from bugs and bad code/features, eg. the Explorer can’t-remember-view bug and so on. And I mean – it wouldn’t have taken that much to fix that, would it? Two Service Packs didn’t make it better; at last, I hope they will deliver the over-promised features that were started with Longhorn in Seven. At least, Seven can’t fail due to drivers as there are plenty for Vista that also work with its mere evolution, Seven.
Thanks,
I have a pc waiting for the first public beta release of windows 7 to try the performance developing on VS 2008. Hope it will be stable enough to keep it on presentation pc’s!
regards,
Seb
Nice! Well done, really enjoyed reading it.
I have to agree Windows 7 looks a lot like the old Longhorn ( I still miss the sidebar) however one of the main goals with Longhorn was make Windows able to do a lot of things from movies to burn ISO images.
ISO support is back in 7 however by removing parts like Windows Movie Maker, Windows Calendar, Windows Mail, Windows Contacts, Windows Meeting Space and more things “under the hood” Windows 7 is now forcing the users to get Windows Live to get some of those things back.
Lets say Microsoft wanted to Vista the first step for the users to use and make HD Video without additional software, with Windows 7 that is now out of the question.
Unless Steven is planning to bring back Windows Movie Maker 3 lots of digital media for end users will be removed.
As far I can see Windows 7 is good however as funny and odd as this may sound Windows Vista works better than Windows 7 on Atom computers.
I tried to install the public build on this Acer Aspire one with 1 GB on ram LDDM card and 1.6 Intel Atom.
7 installs but no boot screen
Can’t install Windows Live
Can’t install Wi-Fi drivers.
Can’t Install Office 2007.
While Windows Vista installed without any problems just like 7 but it was able to do everything 7 didn’t.
Why I say this, Windows 7 is supposed to have support for newer hardware (part of Longhorn Vision) as well as new software.
Atom wasn’t on the scene when Vista or SP1 was released and Windows 7 is supposed to but it just doesn’t like it.
Anyways, I agree Windows 7 is more like the old Longhorn the real Longhorn.
But Microsoft is removing a lot from Windows and adding things that not everyone will use or will ever know about.
I mean with Vista, Microsoft had to call it Mojave and then people started to see what Vista was able to do.
If the same people upgrades to Win7 they will be looking for things that are gone now.
Not a good thing , maybe they didn’t promise those things before, however putting Vista on the spotlight on what it can do and then making a version that WONT do it out of the box I think is not a good thing to do.
Users are tired…the trust that users have in microstf OS is diminishing…consistency has never been a strength in microsoft which is not a good thing…you as a developer may know these stuffs but wat about your non-geek friend that only uses PC to surf internet
Microsoft do not need “saving”. Try buy a new PC without Vista.
Cuanto te pago Microsoft ?
Chris123NT said:
>I am well aware that half of my bullet points are eye candy, but the
>reality is that from the perspective of the average user this is just
>as important, if not more important than anything else. Hence why I felt
>it was worth highlighting UI components as well.
it’s not the avarage user, who decides whether a OS is going to be
successful or not. It’s the bussiness customer. Just take a look at
vista – “eye candy” everywhere, still a disaster. Because the most
business customers stick to xp (for good reasons).
If windows 7 should save MS (i don’t even think they need to be saved –
still the most used OS today) they will need a little bit more, then few
eye-candies.
“…the press literally throwing it under the bus…”
I would like to have seen that.
Not disputing your main premise, but Microsoft hardly needs saving. They have so many streams of income. This doesn’t mean they don’t have problems, but they constantly “surprise” the market. MS is one of the surest bets in today’s economy.
The stacking view is already in Vista’s explorer.
what about stability and performance (the main problems of Vista)?
Although someone has already pointed out that many of the improvements are simply eye candy. I believe this is key to Microsoft’s success in the future. Look at how Apple turned around their company with design and usability with first the iPod and now the iPhone. Microsoft have recognised this and realized that it’s those little things that look better and feel better that will win people over.
I like your post, i for one don’t think of going to Vista because of the stabeness of the system. also the visual effect that 7 give you.
Spot on, dude!
I’ve played games on Windows 7 (steam games) and they work really nice (I play in window mode) and even though using the Aero theme might take away a lot of power, I never notice it, I run my settings in game like theones I used on XP, and it works a lot better on Win7 Beta actually!
I think its not financial that concerns Microsoft but its reputation as leader in desktop computing technology…
I would really like to see a new and performant I/O scheduler in Windows, finally. The one in Windows XP breaks down if it needs to do two things at a time, or if I/O and CPU usage are concurrent. Vista doesn’t seem any better to me. Linux seems to perform a lot better in this regard, for a long time. At least my Linux-based web server never lets me feel its I/O load, no matter what I’m doing with it (like crawling hundreds of MB of compressed log files). That’s why I can only recommend Linux for a (file) server, never Windows. I don’t need federated search (I have organisation to find my stuff) or a stacking view in a file manager that I’m likely not going to use again (there’s more efficient alternatives). I need power at the core, it must run efficient not beautiful alone.
Let’s see whether Windows 7 can improve the situation here. If not (that would be 2 failed OS in a row), I have my doubts that Windows will remain the most-deployed OS in the long run. Linux has greatly improved while Microsoft was in hibernate mode, and it’s making its way onto the desktop.
So, let me understand. These features will save windows and beat snow leopard.
1. Animated startup screen. Hmmmm, this always made my work day better. I guess if you see your startup screen 20 times a day this is important. Does anyone rememer what ours looks like???
2. Federated search (spotlight) over a network (spotlight)
3. New views. A stacked view(stacks & smart folders) coverflow. Hmmmm
4. Aero shake. I guess this is a shaky window? I can’t see how I ever lived without that.
5. Homegroups (bonjour and sidebar) makes networking super easy (though you can only do it at setup, and can’t be on a business network or 5 other caveats I saw from a beta install and need to know another password)