Windows 7 Milestone 3 was shown off today at the Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles and we've already nabbed a copy for a hands on Windows 7 review.
But if you just want the details in an ultra-fast read, then here's what you need to know in seven quick sentences.
1. Windows 7 doesn't have the big architectural changes of Vista - or the compatibility problems - so all your stuff that works with Vista should work fine with Windows 7.
2. Windows 7 doesn't nag you like Vista does - many notifications are banished to a control panel, you get to approve icons before they show up in the system tray and you can choose which UAC prompts you want to see, or turn them off altogether.
3. Windows 7 uses Jump Lists to put what you're most likely to want to do at your fingertips by showing recent and frequently used documents, so if you click Internet Explorer in the Start menu or taskbar you can view a list of recently visited websites, for example.
4. Windows 7 makes home networking easier with a feature called HomeGroup, which offers a simple wizard-driven approach to network connections and file and folder sharing, while it also makes it easier to get connected to Wi-Fi or 3G networks by using a menu that lists all the access points that pops up right from the system tray.
5. Windows 7 won't feature Windows 7 Ultimate Extras (they're dead!), or the native Vista accessories that are duplicated as Windows Live tools - stuff like Mail, Photo Gallery, Messenger and so on will be downloadable in 'wave three' of Windows Live.
6. Windows 7 will run faster than Vista, according to the Windows Performance team, which says that "if a system runs Windows Vista it should run Windows 7 faster and a notebook that runs Vista should get better battery life on Windows 7".
7. Windows 7 will run happily on netbooks, according to Microsoft's Steven Sinofksy, who says the Windows 7 team is "really quite pleased internally with performance of Windows 7 even on what we today consider to be low-end netbooks; the ones that run with an Atom processor, the ones that have a gigabyte of RAM."
Got a bit more time and want to read our full Windows 7 review? Go for it, it's got a lot more info in it you should know about.
Your comments (2) Click to add a new comment
schuylercat
October 29th 2008
2. Mr. Douglas, this is all very interesting (marketing BS) and helpful...for the half-dozen people on the planet who USE Vista. Note the reason we'll even have a Windows 7 release at this time is due to the fact Vista was resoundingly hated and went un-purchased. Remember?
This article is not "the skinny, without the fat." I appreciate your work, but why bother? I want to read 7 quick sentences that compare Windows 7 to XP, not Vista. I have never loaded Vista on any of my computers, I don't care about Vista, and comparing Windows 7 favorably to Vista right now simply confirms all the reasons I didn't bother with it in the first place. May as well compare Ubuntu to, well, sausage - there's no need.
So...can we make that comparison?
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pete_l
October 29th 2008
1. It doesn't take 7 sentences, just one: Vista Mk2.
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