Should you wait for Windows 7 before buying a new PC?

Tim Anderson from The Guardian certainly does think so. According to him...

Windows Vista has a mixed reputation at best, whereas Windows 7 is impressive even in its current preview form: the public beta will be made available tomorrow and most observers expect it later this year. Traditionally, canny users hesitate before installing a new version of Windows, preferring to wait until the first service pack. The counter-argument in this case is that Windows 7 is itself a kind of service pack for Vista, adding polish and fixing its more annoying features without changing so much that applications no longer work. Early tests of the just-released Beta 1, as seen in the build leaked on the internet last month, suggest that performance is better than either Vista or XP on the same hardware. Whereas Windows XP is the version that will not die (living on through the explosive growth in netbook sales), Vista will vanish in an instant once 7 is available.

Yet, even though it will pay to wait for Windows 7, Vista is better than its reputation. Windows Server 2008 shares the same kernel as Vista updated to Service Pack 1, and is well liked. Vista's problems began when Microsoft rushed its initial release. Many device drivers were either not ready or poor quality, some launch machines were underspecified ( still the subject of a class action against the company), while others were laden with too much unnecessary third-party software. Two years on, at least the fi rst two of these problems are fixed.

Still, the difference with Windows 7 is that Microsoft has focused on usability, whereas many of the changes in Vista were for security or engineering reasons, and either delivered little visible benefit to users or were actively disliked. An example is Vista's User Account Control (UAC), which throws up a dialog every time you make a system change: potentially useful for guarding against malware, but to some an intolerable interruption. Windows 7 makes UAC quieter while preserving most of its benefits.

The most obvious new feature in Windows 7 is in the taskbar – which, like Apple's OS X Dock, can be used to launch applications as well as to show what is running. The Vista sidebar has gone and gadgets now live on the desktop. Home networking is easier to set up, media sharing is built in and there are sensible defaults for users joining work laptops to home wireless networks. Libraries in Windows Explorer let you merge content from several locations. There is also support for touch control for devices with no keyboard.

In the end, it is not new features that will make or break Windows 7, but whether it delivers a smoother, faster, more pleasant experience than its predecessor. Signs are it will. Underneath, though, it is the same old Windows. To sum up: Windows 7 is Vista done right, no more or less.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/

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