I know a couple folks who’ve been playing around with the Windows 7 beta, and everyone seems to agree: even as a beta, it mops the floor with Vista. Win 7 appears to be to Vista as 98 was to 95—namely, a giant bug fix, fine-tune and cleanup; and it looks like Microsoft is doing a good job of that. Perhaps the best news is that
Windows 7 also cuts down on annoying warnings and nag screens. Microsoft notifications have been consolidated in a single icon at the right of the taskbar, and you can now decide under what circumstances Windows will warn you before taking certain actions.
Unless, of course, it’s this:
In my tests, even the beta version of Windows 7 was dramatically faster than Vista at such tasks as starting up the computer, waking it from sleep and launching programs. . . . Windows 7 is also likely to run well on much more modest hardware configurations than Vista needed.
That said, neither of these things is likely to draw the most attention; the big notices will be reserved for its big new feature:
The flashiest departure in Windows 7, and one that may eventually redefine how people use computers, is its multitouch screen navigation. Best known on Apple’s iPhone, this system allows you to use your fingers to directly reposition, resize, and flip through objects on a screen, such as windows and photos. It is smart enough to distinguish between various gestures and combinations of fingers. I haven’t been able to test this feature extensively yet, because it requires a new kind of touch-sensitive screen that my laptops lack.
For my part, I don’t care about that (right now, at least); I’ll just be happy to have an OS that doesn’t silt up so fast, and isn’t stubbornly determined to nag me to death.