Microsoft demos successor to Vista, Windows 7

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By Philip DiStefano

If there’s one thing non-techies know about technology right now, it’s that Windows Vista is not being received all that well by consumers. At first, it seemed Microsoft’s answer to this problem was spending $300 million on advertising to try and change the outlook on Vista, and though Microsoft’s recent demonstration of Windows 7 at their Professional Developers Conference may not change Vista’s future, it certainly makes the future of the Windows line as a whole look a lot better.

Windows 7, which is scheduled to be released sometime in late 2009, will contain many user interface and feature changes, while retaining the new and much more reliable and secure core of Windows Vista. Judging from Microsoft’s presentation at the conference, they’ve been paying attention to what users didn’t like about Vista and have taken into account lots of little things, like what percentage of users have their taskbar on the right side of their screen and have made changes based on such information.

The taskbar, formerly a textual interface, will now focus on using icons instead. Users familiar with Mac OS X’s Dock will recognize the concept quite easily. Hovering over an icon shows you a preview of the window for that application, and clicking on the preview will bring up that window. “Scrubbing” over an application’s icon in your taskbar will make all other applications transparent so you can see only the one whose icon you’ve scrubbed over.

User Account Control – the security feature new to Windows Vista that prompts users to Cancel or Allow for administrative functions – is also much more customizable than it was in Vista, and thus, hopefully much less annoying. When Vista was launched, User Account Control was one of its worst received new features, if not the worst received.

Window management is also much improved. If you drag a window to the top of your desktop, it automatically maximizes the window, and dragging it down restores it to its previous state. If you drag a window to the side and off of your desktop, it automatically tiles to 50% of that side of your screen.

Microsoft has made sure that Windows 7 will be a great operating system for laptops, as many changes take into account the smaller screen size of laptops and how valuable the desktop real estate is. It’s also more functional for laptops, too. Connecting to a wireless network looks like it will be easier than ever, as you can do it right from the icon in your system tray.

Speaking of the system tray, it has been reworked to only show important icons and to annoy users far less with balloon tip notifications – the yellow messages that pop up from the system tray telling you information about a current problem or process or whatever else. Microsoft has also ditched the quick launch bar, as well as the sidebar – letting gadgets go anywhere in the desktop.

Many of these features and changes put Windows Vista to shame, and consumers will be happy to know that judging by the preview, Windows 7 is what Windows Vista should’ve been and maybe a little more. If you’re currently sticking with XP, it looks like it might be time for you to upgrade when 7 comes out.

Originally Published: Issue 711 - November 5, 2008

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