The intangibles are all there. Boot times, even on my MacBook, are nearly as fast as Leopard. Within the OS, everything is quite snappy. There really isn’t any of the sluggishness I experienced in Vista. When I open Chrome, it opens. It’s refreshing, especially when compared to Vista. Also, I look at the system resources, and Windows 7 is buzzing along at a mere 25% of RAM used, with a browser and IM client open. That’s really impressive. Altogether, it’s really a huge step in the right direction for Microsoft, and I really hope they can carry this success through to release. 90% of the world uses Windows, and it’s about time that Microsoft gave them something that works more often than not.

That said, I haven’t tried going through some of Windows’ usual pains. Networking, on the surface at least, has improved, with the wireless icon in the taskbar now no longer completely useless. Compatibility with hardware I also have not tried, but Vista SP1 seemed to have fixed many of the issues, and I expect that Windows 7 has kept that up.

For those of you who haven’t really looked at Windows 7 yet, here’s a run-down of some of the new features.

New Taskbar

This is where the biggest change in Windows 7 happened. The new taskbar is very similar to Mac OS X’s dock, as you can pin elements to it to keep them there, and the programs show up as icons rather than strips.

click for larger version

Programs pinned to the start menu but not open, like Mail in the screenshot above, still appear, just like in OS X. Open programs are given the glass frame, and the active program is given a semi-opaque shine. If there are more than one window open for any given program, like Windows Explorer above, the glass frame reflects that. When you mouseover a tile, or click on a program that has multiple tiles, it shows you a preview of the open windows. Mouseover one of the previews and it hides everything on-screen temporarily except for that window. Click it, and it becomes active. It’s smooth and, albeit not immediately useful, it doesn’t get in the way. It’s very much eye-candy, but, again, it’s not distracting, and it won’t annoy you.

They also fixed up the right side of the taskbar. The best change here is the option to hide not only the icon, but also notifications. Finally, all the annoying notifications from Windows about your computer not being protected and other pop-ups that may show up can be hidden with an easily accessible option. In the week or so I’ve used Windows 7, I haven’t seen one annoying, needless notification – but only after I turned hid the Windows notifications. Of course, the default still has them popping up sporadically, but the ability to hide them creates an almost OS X-like atmosphere.

Mouse gestures

In preparation for touch-screen displays going mainstream, Microsoft has seen fit to include several mouse gestures that, ostensibly, are meant to be touch gestures. When you drag a window to the top of the screen, it maximizes instantly. Drag it back down and it returns to the same size it was before. Drag a window to either side, and it instantly fills up half of that side of the screen. The normal left click functions on the taskbar can all be activated with a click-hold-drag upwards. One can argue that these functions are nearly useless, as they replicate easily accessible functions, but they’re very fast, so there’s nothing really wrong with having them.

Windows Explorer

Not much has changed since Vista, which is a bad thing. Mac OS X’s Finder is still several steps above Windows Explorer in terms of utility and aesthetics. Windows Explorer feels like a raw fossil in the midst of a modern OS. Many of the dialog windows around the system are also the same as before. There really is no comparison between a Windows Properties dialog and a Mac OS X Get Info dialog.

Closing

I haven’t really gone in-depth into Windows 7, only really touching on some of the more visible, tangible new features. I only hope that Microsoft continues to make Windows 7 slicker, quicker, and more usable; they’re already halfway there. Windows is now beginning to reach a parity with the ease-of-use and simplicity of Mac OS X, seven years after OS X’s introduction.

I still won’t use Windows over Mac on a regular basis, but Microsoft has definitely got something good with Windows 7.

1. Drop the old technology.
Microsoft’s products are mired in the past and old technology. Vista remains on the NT kernel – released in 1993 – and still uses NTFS – also released in 1993. Microsoft just can’t expect to compete with faster, more secure, and more modern alternatives in Apple’s Mac OS X, which runs on a modern HFS+ file system and is based on an open source UNIX core. Windows Mobile looks and feels like ancient technology next to recent offerings from Blackberry and the iPhone. Internet Explorer consistently falls behind the competition in modern speed ratings. Microsoft needs to re-evaluate its product refreshes and make them more significant and more innovative. Each step forward must be a real step, not a crawl. What Microsoft truly needs is to:

2. Take some risks.
Microsoft’s offerings are frequently too conservative. If the XBOX 360 hadn’t been released a year early, it’d be competing with Sony’s PS3 for last place. Ultimately, it suffers from being the middle child. It’s not as family-friendly or as affordable as Nintendo’s Wii, yet it’s not as technologically advanced as the PS3. It falls into the netherworld of being neither, and thus has been last in sales for most of 2008. As for Windows, there really is only one solution. Start over. Microsoft has plenty of money to either hire a new team of experienced engineers, or break off a small piece of its Windows 7 team to begin a new operating system based on new technologies. It’ll have to maintain a legacy system to run NT processes, but the core of the operating system must be new. Microsoft spends too much money and too much talent trying to wrangle a modern operating system out of fifteen-year-old technology. Take a risk. Start over. It’ll only make Windows better.

3. Tame the OEMs.
Microsoft relies on OEMs to deliver their overwhelming lead in the home desktop market. Yet it was OEMs that created most of Vista’s problems at release. The Vista Capable fiasco tore down customer confidence and set Vista back severely. Apple’s Mac OS X can promise the smooth and powerful experience it’s known for because it controls the specifications for the machines that run the operating system. Microsoft’s traditional issue has been a wide range of specifications. However, a quick glance at the websites of popular low-price OEMs such as Dell or Gateway shows that the minimum machines match the minimum machines released by Apple. Intel Core 2 Duo chips and 2 GB of RAM are commonplace even among $400-$500 products. Microsoft needs to work with the OEMs to establish a minimum. Place restrictions in the license in terms of technology. Microsoft has the power of the license, and it needs to use it in way that doesn’t trap the OEM, but makes it mutually beneficial. The success of the OEM is tied to Microsoft’s success, and Microsoft must make that clear.

4. End the over-extension and establish focus.
One of Microsoft’s major problems is over-extension. It has attempted to push itself into too many markets, many of which are now dominated by focused competitors. Mobile phone OS is dominated by Symbian, Mozilla Firefox is rapidly eating away at Internet Explorer in the browser market, Nintendo’s monthly sales far outstrip XBOX 360′s, Google is the clear winner in online search, and the list goes on and on. Microsoft is not the leader, nor is it even second, in almost every market outside of the desktop operating system. Microsoft needs to focus its efforts, and maybe trim down its offerings in failing markets. It doesn’t need to be in the media player market. Expand the Zune into a multimedia portable console and bring it in line with the XBOX 360. It may be difficult to dump one of Microsoft’s many tentacles, but Microsoft needs to slim its offerings and focus them.

5. Cater to the niche.
Mac OS X has done remarkably well among the technophiles, the bloggers, the ones who make their voices heard on the internet. For the average user, the price, availability, and familiarity of Windows make it the attractive choice. However, with the growing ubiquity of the internet, more and more average users are beginning to turn to the internet for information, and once there, they run across the posts and articles written by the blogosphere. Microsoft needs to create hype and buzz among that niche. It needs to release attractive products that are attractive to that population, because they are gaining more power and influence over average consumer.

Microsoft ultimately needs to get off its crumbling throne and revitalize their business. They are slowly falling behind technologically and are in danger of losing relevancy in the fast-paced world of technological innovation. Microsoft has the money and the power to reverse their direction. They just need to be unafraid of failure.