Windows 7 Report Card - Available Technology inc.

There was one rule that remained consistent in these cases, however; get in trouble at school, get in trouble at home. Sent to the principal's office? Expect worse at home. The natural reaction, then, was to conceal all wrongdoing in the hopes that no one at home would uncover the infraction. This always made things worse, because the teacher / principal without fail seemed to have my parents on speed dial. Then the omnicient parent had only to lay the trap for the unwary. "How was school today?" You either say "Fine!" and hope no one had spilled the beans, or confess and throw away the slim chance that you could get away scot-free.

This always ended up the same way, at least that's what I lead me own kids to believe.

Report cards, however, were usually a time to rejoice. If things looked good, you got an ice cream cone, or a trip to the bowling alley. Luckily, I didn't get too many bad report cards, so many times they were invaluable for redeeming past infractions and making up lost ground.

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As adults, we are still measured and graded, but with fewer spankings. But few people depend more on a good report card than Bill gates and his company, Microsoft.

Everyone has been waiting for the answer to the latest question in the computing world, which is "What do you think about Windows 7? Should I upgrade?" OK, let's find out if Mr. Gates gets a dollar for the ice cream truck or gets a trip to the woodshed.

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The Good:

Windows 7 is smaller and faster.

Each new version of Windows since Windows NT has seen more and more features and functionality crammed in to add value and give people a reason to upgrade. Windows Vista introduced several worthy features, but also added a dozen or more that no one really wanted and just served to slow everything down.

With Windows 7 less is more. They left in the good stuff and took out the filler. Many of the additional features are still available, but they must be downloaded and installed rather than removed if you don't want them. Vista was kind of like getting a pizza with everything on it and having to pick off everything except the cheese.

No More Nagging!

Probably the biggest complaint about Vista was that everytime you perform a task Windows popped up and asked "Are You Sure?" The user was left feeling like a 35 year old who lives at home and Vista is the overbearing Mother telling you at every turn that having pie at 2am isn't good for you.

This is called User Account Control or UAC and is a security feature designed to keep your computer from performing functions without your permission. Viruses and trojens take advantage of this frequently and UAC stopped it. Unfortunately UAC was more than a little annoying.

Windows 7 introduces the "Action Center" where you can go to see the things that need attention, or easily turn off all the notifications.

Scotty, we need more Power!

It hasn't been talked about much, but Windows 7 breathes new life into older laptops. Laptops have been reported to gain up to 30% more battery life after 7 is installed. That's 30% more time to use your computer on battery than Windows Visat or even Windows XP.

True XP compatibility

Windows 7 offers true Windows XP compatibility . . . because you can run XP on top of Windows 7! 7 uses "Virtual PC" to run a full blown copy of Windows XP in a window on top of your Windows 7 desktop. Have an app that just won't work in anything but XP? Then run it in XP! XP compatibility mode lets you run both XP and 7 simultaneously. It's not perfect, but in our field tests it has solved some serious compatibility problems.

New Features:

New things that I like:

Windows 7 runs well on older systems
The new taskbar is much more intuitive and useful
The backup utility is great. Much better than XP or Vista.
Image Burner - Burn cd or DVD disks from image you download
The "Gadgets" are much more useful than the old "Sidebar"
Built In Password Manager
Great parental controls
Home group makes home networking automatic

The Bad:

There are always two sides to the coin, so what don't we like about Windows 7?

Limited Upgrade Options.

If you have Windows XP, you'll have to either upgrade to Vista first, then Windows 7, or format and reload from scratch. This can be a real pain, having to backup data and find drivers for your computer that work with Windows 7. If you already have Vista, the upgrade is fairly painless. I recommend going the hard way and starting from scratch because reloading on a fresh partition will ensure that no remnants of your old software (or old viruses) are hanging around to cause trouble later.

Where did the hardware support go?

One thing I noticed was that support for certain hardware is conspicuously absent. For example, I installed Windows 7 on a laptop that previously had Vista installed. The network adapter worked in Vista, but after installing Windows 7, it no longer worked. After some research, I found thatthe device is not compatible with 7 and will have to be replaced. Why would Windows Vista support the device, but a newer OS would not? I can't answer that, but luckily these incidents have been fairly uncommon. It looks like the only motivation for not including support for your older usb and pci devices is to force you to upgrade.

Feet-dragging hardware manufacturers

One of the reasons that some hardware doesn't work is that even now, 5 months after Windows 7 was released, many manufacturers of computer components have not written drivers for Windows 7 to work with their hardware. this could be because the "driver signing" process, through which Microsoft requires that a driver go to be "certified" is unnecessarily complicated, and as a result manufacturers don't bother on older hardware.

Can't revert to the "old look"

If you don't like Windows 7's new look, there isn't much you can do about it. Vista allowed you to revert to the Windows XP look, so the new interface didn't offend the sensitive user. In Windows 7, they throw you into the dee end and say "swim!"

The Verdict

Ever since Windows Vista was released, I have never felt that there was a compelling reason to ecourage clients to upgrade. Windows 7 makes me feel a bit better about the upgrade options.

Despite the complaints that have been heard by new users, Windows 7 has had a shockingly successful debut. There have been fewer serious issues than either Windows XP or Windows Vista when they were released.

If you know you have software that is at least 5 years old and will only work with XP, you should probably stick with it. Windows XP will be supported until 2014, so you have some time to make the transition. Most users, however, use Microsoft Office and a web browser. if you fall into this category, consider the upgrade to Windows 7 and take advantage of the new features. It looks pretty sweet too!

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No matter what I may or may not have gotten away with in school, I don't feel a bit of guilt about suggesting that you upgrade to Windows 7.

The new version of Windows is Bill gates' way of saying "We may have messed up in the past, but I want to make it up to you." Check out windows 7 at Microsoft's Windows 7 Site before you decide to let him out of the dog house.

As for me, maybe I should give Kevin Beaman a call . . .