Is Windows 7 for you?

“From today, when we say Windows we’re talking about Windows 7,” announced Jeff Putt, Windows Consumer Lead of Microsoft Australia last week. And with that, Microsoft formally buried Windows Vista at their Sydney Windows 7 launch.

We won’t miss Vista – it was slow, clunky and irritating to use. Like Microsoft’s previous OS disaster, Windows ME, it was a hybrid of new and old technologies that managed to satisfy few users.

Vista’s poor reputation effectively broke the upgrade cycle where businesses and consumers replace their computers roughly every five years. Rather than taking their chances with Vista, PC owners decided to stick with their ageing XP boxes.

So Windows 7 is being held out as the saviour of the computer industry as Microsoft’s customers are expected to rush into long overdue upgrades. Some commentators predict the new operating system will reinvigorate PC sales that have been battered worldwide by the global financial crisis.

The reality is probably a bit more complex. There’s no doubt the combination of the global downturn and customers putting off computer purchases hurt the industry, but to expect a surge of sales may be optimistic.

Most computer users are a cynical bunch who have heard all the hype before and won’t be rushing out to buy anything just because some bloke on the web tells them it’s the greatest thing since WordPerfect 5.1. The days of crowds waiting to buy the latest operating system are long gone, at least in the PC world.

While it isn’t worthwhile queuing up on a cold morning for Windows 7, the new program is a vast improvement on Vista. In a hopelessly unscientific experiment, I installed a complimentary copy of Window 7 Ultimate supplied by Microsoft on my wife’s cranky, Vista supplied laptop.

The results were good. Boot up time was reduced by 34% to 55 seconds while Internet Explorer loaded twice as fast and Word 2003 documents opened a whopping 300% faster.

For the record, the machine isn’t exactly a powerhouse, being an Acer Extensa 5220 Celeron 2GHz CPU with 512Mb of RAM – exactly the sort of machine that should never have been supplied with Windows Vista in the first place, which was part of Vista’s problems.

So my experience with Windows 7 has so far been favourable. If you have been through pain with Vista, it may be worth upgrading, although you will probably find driver and software problems won’t be solved by the new program.

For XP systems it almost certainly isn’t worth the upgrade to Windows 7 as the process requires a fresh install, substantially increasing the cost, time and risk involved in making the move.

Overall, XP machines are best replaced outright as many are well past their retirement date as owners have held off being forced into buying Vista machines.

If upgrading or buying Windows 7 systems is on the horizon then you should start preparing now. Get a few Windows 7 machines and test them in your office – monitor how they go with your critical line of business systems, check they connect properly to your network and start getting familiar with the quirks and differences in the new system.

While Windows 7 isn’t flawless, Microsoft have learnt from the mistakes they made from Vista, it is faster and so far seems less irritating and more stable. If you are struggling with Vista, or your Windows XP systems are on their last legs, the upgrade will probably be worthwhile.

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Paul Wallbank is a writer, speaker and broadcaster on technology issues. He founded national support organisation PC Rescue in 1995 and has spent over 14 years helping businesses get the most from their IT investment. His PC Rescue and IT Queries websites provide free advice to business computer users and his monthly newsletter has over 3000 subscribers.