Windows 7 RC: Microsoft Gets It Right

I know, I know. I am a Linux guy. I run Ubuntu on my main machine, I am studying for my RHCE, I believe in open source. But I have to be honest about something.

Windows 7 is really, really good.

Microsoft released the Release Candidate last month, and I installed it on a spare partition to try it out. I was expecting to use it for ten minutes, scoff at it, and go back to my Linux terminal. Instead, I have been genuinely impressed.

The Vista Problem

To understand why Windows 7 matters, you need to remember how bad Vista was. And I do mean bad.

Vista was slow. It consumed absurd amounts of RAM just sitting idle. The User Account Control popups were so annoying that most people's first action after installing Vista was to figure out how to turn them off, which defeated the entire purpose of having them. Driver support was a mess at launch. Software compatibility was spotty. The Aero interface was pretty but sluggish on hardware that should have been powerful enough.

I remember helping a friend install Vista on his laptop. It had 1GB of RAM, which was a reasonable amount at the time. Vista used most of that just for the operating system, leaving almost nothing for actual applications. The machine crawled. He went back to XP within a week.

Vista was so unpopular that it became a running joke. "I am a PC and Windows 7 was my idea" is basically Microsoft admitting that Vista was a failure and they needed to start over.

What Windows 7 Does Right

Here is what surprised me about the Release Candidate.

It is fast. On the same hardware where Vista struggled, Windows 7 boots quickly, responds snappily, and generally stays out of your way. Microsoft clearly optimized the resource usage. The system requirements are lower, the memory footprint is smaller, and the overall performance is noticeably better.

The taskbar has been completely redesigned, and I have to admit it is clever. Instead of showing a text label for every open window, it shows icons that you can hover over to see thumbnails. You can pin your frequently used programs to the taskbar so they are always accessible. It combines the old Quick Launch bar and the taskbar into one unified element. Simple idea, well executed.

UAC has been toned down significantly. It still exists, which is good from a security perspective, but it no longer pops up every time you breathe. There is a slider that lets you choose how aggressive the warnings are. This is the kind of compromise that Vista should have had from the start.

Aero Snap is a small feature that I find surprisingly useful. Drag a window to the left edge of the screen and it snaps to fill the left half. Drag another to the right edge and it fills the right half. Instant side-by-side view. I have been doing this manually in Linux for years with tiling window managers, but having it built into the OS in such an intuitive way is nice.

The Desktop OS Landscape

It is an interesting time for desktop operating systems. You have three serious contenders, each with their own philosophy.

Windows 7 represents the "fix what is broken, polish what works" approach. Microsoft is not trying to reinvent the desktop. They are taking the core Windows experience that billions of people know and making it better. Faster, prettier, less annoying. For most people in the world, this is exactly what they want.

Mac OS X (currently at 10.5 Leopard, with Snow Leopard coming later this year) represents the "design-first" philosophy. Apple's operating system is beautiful and cohesive in a way that Windows has never quite matched. But it only runs on Apple hardware, which means paying Apple prices. For a student on a tight budget, a MacBook is a dream, not a realistic purchase.

Linux (Ubuntu 9.04 just came out) represents freedom and customization. You can make it look like anything, do anything, run on anything. But it requires more technical knowledge, hardware compatibility can be hit or miss, and mainstream software support is limited. I love it, but I understand why my non-technical friends do not want to deal with it.

Why I Am Not Switching

So if Windows 7 is this good, why am I not switching?

Because the things I love about Linux have nothing to do with what Windows 7 improves.

I love the Linux terminal. The ability to chain commands together with pipes, to automate anything with shell scripts, to have complete control over every aspect of my system. Windows 7 still has the same old Command Prompt (cmd.exe), which feels like a tool from the 1990s. PowerShell exists and is apparently much better, but the Linux shell ecosystem is decades ahead.

I love package management. On Ubuntu, I type apt-get install firefox and Firefox gets downloaded, installed, and configured automatically. Dependencies are handled. Updates are centralized. On Windows, you still download installers from websites, click through wizards, and manage updates for each application separately. It is 2009 and this feels archaic.

I love the open source ecosystem. If something does not work the way I want in Linux, I can read the source code. I can file a bug. I can, theoretically, fix it myself. With Windows, if something does not work, you submit a feedback report and hope Microsoft cares.

Most importantly, my career path is taking me toward servers and infrastructure, not desktops. In the server world, Linux is king and getting more dominant every year. AWS runs on Linux. Google runs on Linux. Facebook runs on Linux. The skills I am building with Linux system administration are directly applicable to the biggest, most interesting infrastructure in the world.

Credit Where It Is Due

But I want to be fair. Microsoft listened to the criticism about Vista. They clearly went back to the drawing board and asked, "What do people actually need from their operating system?" The answer was: something fast, something stable, something that does not get in the way. Windows 7 delivers on all three.

For the vast majority of computer users, people who want to browse the web, write documents, watch videos, play games, Windows 7 is going to be excellent. It is the operating system Vista should have been.

And competition is good for everyone. A better Windows pushes Apple and the Linux community to improve. A better Mac OS pushes Microsoft and Linux to improve. A better Linux pushes everyone. We all benefit when operating systems compete on quality rather than lock-in.

The Interesting Part

The most interesting thing about the current OS landscape is that it might not matter as much in a few years. As more applications move to the web, the operating system becomes less relevant. If your email is Gmail, your documents are in Google Docs, and your music is streaming, does it matter whether you run Windows, Mac, or Linux underneath?

Maybe the future is not about which OS wins. Maybe the future is about the OS becoming invisible, just a thin layer between the hardware and the browser. Chrome OS is not a thing yet, but I would not be surprised if Google goes in that direction.

For now though, I will stay on Ubuntu. But I will happily admit that Windows 7 is the best thing Microsoft has made in years. Well done, Redmond.