Will Windows 7 Replace XP and Vista?

This article is written by a guest author Mukesh Jha, a USA based IT Support Tech. This week, Microsoft came up with its latest operating system, Windows 7, in the market. The previous launch by Microsoft, Windows Vista, was disliked by most of the users. People are in a dilemma whether to go for Windows 7 now or is it too early. I installed Windows 7 recently on my computer and personally I am also interested to know a bit more about this much hyped operating system. In this post, the author intends to compare the last three operating systems by Microsoft – Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 – and presents his opinion. Before I stop, let me thank Mukesh for writing this article for the readers of this blog. Please welcome him as he prepares to take over.

Microsoft, the undisputed leader in business productivity software, has almost enjoyed a monopoly in the market of operating systems for personal computers. This week, on October 22nd, Microsoft launched its latest version of operating system called Windows 7. According to many, Microsoft’s last venture, Windows Vista, was a failure thanks to the reasons like poor marketing, faster battery drain in the laptops, higher system requirements, missing drivers, poor overall performance, missing file system like winFS and so on. Windows Vista could get a share of less than 10% installation on the corporate computers. Microsoft itself did admit that Vista was not a success after all. Now we are entering into the age of Windows 7 but the question is “Will Windows 7 Replace XP and Vista?” I am going to share my opinions with you all with the help of this post.

After a great success of Windows XP, Vista came up. Unfortunately Vista was unable to replace XP and couldn’t come even close to XP if we talk about its share in terms of use. Still 60% of the businesses are using XP environment because they believe that it works best for their working needs. There are quite a few companies still using Windows 2000 that’s because there are some particular applications which may not be compatible with XP but other than that most companies use Windows XP. Besides this, the world seems to be in love with Windows XP. People want to keep it in market especially after their experience with Windows Vista, and this makes Vista look even worse. There are some reports about people reverting back to XP after finding the drawbacks of Vista.

Windows Vista is out for quite some time now. Vista originally came carrying a goal to replace XP but failed to leave even its own footprint. I have encountered very few instances of a company using it in their work environment. To many, Vista is nothing better than a piece of junk. Vista is being used mainly by either home users or those who use the computer for their home/ personal use because they do not have a choice other than using it. Here in the United States, most of the outlets like Best Buy, CompUSA, Circuit City, Wal-Mart, Sams Club, Costco etc. were selling computers with only Vista preloaded (before Windows 7 was launched). When People ask to uninstall Vista, they charge some additional money ($99.00) to remove Vista and put XP back on (except for some Vista ultimate users who had an option to get their operating system down- graded for free). The percentage of people who don’t know anything about an operating system despite of using computer for a long time is fairly high even now. For people who fall under this category may not have any issues either by with XP or with Vista. So basically Microsoft is forcing people to buy the computers with Vista pre-loaded. This way, Microsoft still making profit whether you take the computer as it is or even if you ask them replaces Vista with XP at additional $99.00. Let’s forget the Vista here but do keep the XP in mind and let’s move towards the new innovation, Windows 7.

Windows XP has been the best operating system for almost a decade now but is it the turn for Windows 7? Many People say that Windows 7 seems to be nothing more than some polish applied liberally to the Vista Aero theme. I would say, please do not jump into this conclusion so early, because windows 7 seems to be a complete replacement of Vista and much better than Vista in terms of performance. Windows 7 is more than just spin. It's stable, smooth, and highly polished operating system introducing new graphical features, a new taskbar that can compete handily with the Mac OS X dock, and device management and security enhancements that make it both easier to use and safer. Importantly, it won't require the hardware upgrades that Vista demanded (at least Microsoft claims it). The reason behind this is partially because the hardware has caught up, and partially because Microsoft is eager to make Windows 7 accessible to as many people as possible.

Microsoft is offering six versions of Windows 7: Starter, Home Premium, Professional, Ultimate, OEM, and Enterprise. The three versions that Redmond will be promoting most heavily are Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate, although Starter will also be available to consumers. Windows 7 will support both 32-bit and 64-bit systems. The bare minimum requirements for the 32-bit include a 1GHz processor, 1GB RAM, 16GB available hard-disk space, and a DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver. 64-bit systems will require at least a 1 GHz processor, 2GB RAM, 20GB of free space on your hard drive, and a DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver. A touch-screen monitor is required to take advantage of the native touch features. Do note that some users have claimed to have limited success running the Windows 7 beta with less than 1GB of RAM, but that's not recommended.

Comparing Windows: XP vs. Vista vs. 7
	Windows XP	Windows Vista	Windows 7
Minimum hardware	Processor: 300MHz	Processor: 1GHz	Processor: 1 GHz
	RAM: 128MB	RAM: 1GB (32-bit), 2GB (64-bit)	RAM: 1GB (32-bit), 2GB (64-bit)
	Super VGA graphics device	Support for DirectX 9 graphics device with 128MB of memory	Support for DirectX 9 graphics device with 128MB of memory
	HD: 4.2GB (for SP3)	HD: 20GB (32-bit), 40GB (64-bit)	HD: 16GB (32-bit), 20GB (64-bit)
Interface	Luna theme	Aero theme	Aero theme
	Introduces task-based windows options	Introduces transparent panes, window animations, live thumbnails of running programs	Supports slideshow backgrounds, RSS and theme packs
	Skinning possible but difficult	New desktop sidebar supports gadgets	Introduces Aero Shake and Aero Snap
	Desktop Cleanup Wizard automates removing old icons	Supports touch screens	Desktop gadgets can be placed anywhere
			Supports multi-touch on touch screens
Explorer	Replaces tree navigation by default with task pane	Task pane integrated into toolbar	Support for federated searches and libraries
	Improves image handling	New breadcrumb navigation	Virtual folders aggregate content from local and networked drives
	Offers thumbnail previews and group views	New metadata display
	Supports some metadata	Improved icon resolution
		Some documents can be edited from the preview pane
Start menu	New layout	Added search box	Taskbar jumps appear in the Start menu and replace the right column when viewed
	Devices and some Control Panel options appear in menu	All Programs folder changed to a nested format	Documents, Pictures, Music buttons now link to their libraries
		Configurable power button	Control Panel options have been integrated into search results
		User profile picture
Taskbar	New look	Refreshed look	Interactive mouse-over preview panes
	Hideable icons in System Tray	Alt-Tab hot key now shows preview thumbnail of program	Replacement of the Quick Launch bar with pinned programs
			Program-specific jump lists based on pinned programs
			Aero Peek for mouse-over desktop viewing
			Revamped System Tray
Devices	Introduces Universal Plug-n-Play	Debuts portable device API, designed to communicate with cell phones, PDAs, and portable media players	New Device Stage provides a centralized, unified window for managing all aspects of printers and portable devices
	New driver library allows for downgrading drivers when necessary	Introduces Sync Center for managing data synchronizations
Misc.	Introduces context-menu CD and DVD burning from Windows Explorer	Built-in drive partitioning	Expands Windows Explorer disc burning to include ISOs
	Supports multiple versions of a single DLL to prevent programs from overwriting each other	More powerful screen-capturing tool	Introduces XP Mode
	Introduces Hibernate and Sleep modes	Hybrid Sleep and better configuration options for more nuanced power management	Expanded options for disabling components
	Remote Desktop for accessing a computer from another location	User-based file-type associations	Can search text in scanned TIFF
	Fast user account switching	Previous Version automatically backs up changes to individual files	Additional power-saving features for laptops

(source: CNET)

The good: Strong design and Microsoft don't always go together, but they do in Windows 7. Users might take a while to get used to the new taskbar and Aero Peek, but they're a pleasure to use.

The bad: Performance is still hit-or-miss in Windows 7. At the ripe age of seven, Windows XP still performs better in some categories.

The bottom line: Windows 7 is more than what Vista should have been, it's where Microsoft needed to go. How much damage Vista did and whether Windows 7 is enough for people to finally abandon Windows XP are questions that nobody has the answers to right now. (source: CNET)

I have recently installed the Windows 7 on my computer. The first impression of this looks okay to me and I would encourage users to install it. It looks like the operating system consumers have been waiting for. Microsoft claims to have fixed most of the problems that were in Vista and believes that Windows 7 is the future of Windows brand of operating systems.