USABILITY

If you are coming from XP, Windows 7 holds in store a smooth and glossy experience to make navigation and multitasking much easier. Users of Vista will sense this may have been the fun look and feel Microsoft was trying to achieve with its previous operating system before losing its nerve and reverting to a more corporate design.

Aero Peek

This new feature is at the heart of the user interface enhancements and seeks to dispense with the need to constantly maximise and minimise active programs. Aero Peek provides impressive translucent graphics allowing you to peer through multiple windows to obtain an overview of all open documents and applications. This may sound like chaos - but it’s effective chaos.

Aero Shake

Following in the vein of Aero Peek, this function allows you to minimise all applications other than the one you are currently working on by taking the active title bar with your mouse and giving it a hearty shake.

Aero Snap

Here is a new way of working with windows allowing applications to be quickly maximised or set to fill half the screen by dragging them to the top, the far right or the far left. The result is very impressive and makes tasks such as side-by-side document comparisons much easier.

Wallpaper

Windows 7 is packed full of dreamy psychedelic backgrounds that bring creative overtones and the refreshing look and feel of a modern multimedia system to round off some of the corporate cornerstones such as improved security and system stability.

Task Jumplists

Jumplists are new pop-up menus that appear when you right click Explorer or Browser icons to speed up your search for common tasks or frequently accessed items. Opening your favourite websites and recently used files will be much quicker than it was with Vista.

SYSTEM & SECURITY

Improved usability features are not merely cosmetic because they can deliver real productivity gains to the user. But business owners will also be pleased to learn that Windows 7 has made great progress in the more traditional areas of system operability, security and resilience.

Performance

Many users will remember their old XP machines grinding to a virtual halt when Vista upgrades were first loaded but Windows 7 will not require any extra horsepower. This time around, Microsoft has produced a streamlined operating system as well suited to the increasingly popular netbook computer as the powerful office desktop. Indeed, reviews have reported how well Windows 7 runs on five and six year old Pentium III systems with 16MB video cards.

Compatibility

In the first few months following its release, many Vista users ran into compatibility issues with software applications and drivers. This is not expected to be the case with Windows 7 since Microsoft has now centralised the delivery of drivers and manufacturers have been more forthcoming in supplying them this time around.

Security

Microsoft has made great security strides with Windows 7 which will enable it to put up a strong fight against competing operating systems. Its new firewall policy is more robust with bidirectional filtering and it contains a vastly improved VPN technology for remote workers. Microsoft has also bowed to demands for less intrusive User Account Controls. These are the messages that continually pop up in Vista to ask your permission to run or install unknown applications. Windows 7 now allows you to simply adjust its (or maybe your own) level of paranoia.

Install/Boot Up/Shutdown

Perhaps the most basic of functions – load the software onto your machine then start it up and shut it down at an acceptable speed – but Microsoft has listened to the Vista critics and produced a stylish lightweight system which can deliver real performance gains.

OUR VERDICT

To label Windows 7 ‘the new Vista’ is to do it a great disservice. It’s everything that Windows Vista tried and failed to be and is faster, leaner, better looking and – above all – more stable. Our conclusion is that Windows 7 goes where Vista feared to tread and succeeds.