Windows 7 is (not) Vista

Microsoft recently posted the final release candidate (RC) of Windows 7. This is expected to be the code that will go to manufacturers for new PC’s being sold after the October 22nd General Release.

I installed the Vista final RC back in 2006. Sadly I only used it for maybe a week. At that point I realized that “Release” was not the right term for Vista.

By now the history of Vista’s release is well documented on the web. A major change to the Hardware Driver architecture for Vista left most manufacturers scrambling at the last minute. Vista released at the end of 2006 with the final GA release in early 2007. Almost everyone who upgraded were deluged with bugs for the first half of that year. People compared Vista to Windows Me, which was not a fair comparison. The core architecture of Vista, based on the XP kernel, was very stable. As driver manufacturers caught up the news started to get out that Vista was actually a pretty good upgrade to the Windows platform.

But the damage had been done. Too many people knew someone with a bad experience. Microsoft was actually running ads that basically said “Vista isn’t as bad as you’ve heard.” Not a great way to sell a product.

Fast forward to 2009. With the bad taste of the original Vista release starting to fade, Microsoft was already promising a new Windows version which would make good on their promises for a better OS experience. Even more astounding, Windows 7 would release at the end of 2009, less than three years after Vista. Compared to the five plus years of development for Vista, Windows 7 seems to almost appear out of thin air.

And the good news is, it is a much better OS than Vista. Which is weird, because it is Vista, with a bunch of new features and fixes. Many people are calling it Vista Service Pack 3, and I would find it very difficult to argue with that view point. Windows 7 is a much better OS, but it is also Vista at it’s core which is why it is so much more stable. Rather than starting everything from scratch, Microsoft used the existing kernel and drivers and just reworked the user experience.

The key to the stability for Windows 7 is that the primary goal of the design was to make sure that “if it ran on Vista, it runs on Windows 7.” Hardware drivers that work with Vista work with Windows 7. Applications that run well on Vista run well on Windows 7.

By using the things from Vista that worked, Microsoft made sure that the new OS would have a firm foundation. By making simple but well thought out changes, they have created a product I think they can be proud to put the Windows name on.

This year you won’t see ads saying “Windows 7 isn’t as bad as you have heard.” With the release of the Release Candidate that you can use well into 2010 they have basically said, “Windows 7 is as great as people say it is, but don’t believe what you hear try it for yourself. We’ll even waive the price for the remainder of the year.”

For now I agree it is better than Vista, mainly because it isn’t trying to be something entirely different. I think that was the big mistake that Microsoft made when they tried to make a big break from XP. They forgot that XP was the most stable, and most successful Windows OS around and all the customers wanted was “a better XP.”

In a couple of days I will share my experiences with Windows 7. I’ll talk about features I like, features I am still trying to figure out, and give my predictions for the future of Windows 7.