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.