Is it Time to Upgrade? Windows 7

Windows XP has become the burger and fries of home computers everywhere. It’s arguably become the staple operating system the world over. This is not a question of challenge to Microsoft’s competitors, but Microsoft’s subsequent Windows versions.

Windows Vista, to say the least, did not go according to plan. It wasn’t what people expected at all. Well, maybe in terms of power-especially reflected in graphical capability and design-but in exchange performance suffered. Memory usage and processing time in Vista was way more than it was in XP, and this is to run programs that should perform basically the same things on either Windows version. Driver compatibility issues arose left and right, and overall the switch to Vista was not worth what one would get in exchange. But this was in Vista’s initial release, roughly more than three years ago, was it?

Now, Vista has indeed improved, but first impressions did last for this Windows release, as the initial seeming revulsion XP lovers had remained, improvements notwithstanding. And now, Windows 7 is out, and is basically an upgrade of the not-so-loved Vista. How can an XP user even consider switching to just yet another Vista ‘improvement?’

Well, to be fair, 7 is indeed a very good improvement of the core concepts behind Vista. Memory use and processor strain for example, is way better in 7 than it is in Vista. Though the look and feel is the same, 7 uses less memory and processing power to do the same things Vista does. That alone all but eliminates one of the worst hurdles Vista had to overcome. Comparing XP to 7 is like comparing XP to 1998, at least in design and graphical interface. Though of course remnants of the past remain in 7, its style and looks definitely win over previous Windows versions.

Aside from processing and memory, 7 improves Vista’s User Account Control or UAC. Again, one of the main annoying things about Vista. In 7, UAC is still there, but is far less annoying and distracting. This is true for the notification area-far less notification balloons about the most insignificant things would distract you from your work in Windows 7. And that’s more than anyone can say even for Windows XP. The start menu and taskbar are also way improved. The whole taskbar acting as a quick launch tool where you can pin your program shortcuts to. You can even rearrange the icons of the running programs by dragging them to where you want to be in the task bar, plus the grouping of similar tasks have become more streamlined both graphically and functionally.

One drawback is (if you can consider this a drawback) since 7 works on the Vista concepts-that is to say drivers, firmware, and the works-that means whatever wouldn’t work for Vista probably wouldn’t work for 7. But it’s probably time to accept the truth: anything that doesn’t work for Vista is probably outdated. Considering that, Windows 7 is …