Windows 7 has a 'bioluminescent' boot

Microsoft has described the thinking behind the new Windows 7 boot animation, with the company stating that words like "bioluminescence", "organic", "humble beauty", and "atmosphere" were part of its conception.

In fairness, first impressions do last, and the Windows 7 animation is certainly an improvement on the Vista version.

But the explanation for the changes will almost certainly raise a smile with anyone who's ever run into marketing nonsense, or worked with/at Microsoft

"From a design perspective, we know that the visual presentation of a feature plays a key role in the user's perception of performance and quality," blogs Karen Wong on the Engineering Windows 7 blog.

Just 'blueskying'

"Our objective was to make Windows boot beautiful and was inspired by our Windows 7 personality of light and energy; and the way these forms reveal themselves in nature became our design palette. Words such as "bioluminescence", "organic", "humble beauty", and "atmosphere" came up frequently in our brainstorming sessions.

"We know that in isolation these might sound a bit corny, but this is all part of the overall goals of Windows 7."

Outside of the nonsense, it sounds like a good deal of engineering has gone into improving the boot up process although there has been confirmation that the OS will not support custom boot sequences.

"We know many of you might be asking if you could include your own animation or customise this sequence. This is not something we will support in Windows 7," adds Wong.

"We've talked about and shown a great many "personalisation" elements of Windows 7 already, such as the new theme packs which you can try out in the beta. The reasons for this should be pretty clear, which is that we cannot guarantee the security of the system to allow for arbitrary elements to be loaded into memory at boot time."