Windows 7: Release Candidate 1 Preview
by Ryan Smith and Gary Key on May 5, 2009 11:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Systems
First Impressions
As far as first impressions are concerned, the view around the AnandTech office has been positive for Windows 7. Gary is ready to replace Vista with Windows 7 on all of his systems if he had the time (and money), meanwhile Ryan's impressed but not convinced that Windows 7 will be worth the upgrade cost considering that it's a much smaller change than was Vista. Thus far anyone using it as a drop-in replacement for Vista has had no trouble adapting.
Hardware compatibility has been a bit hit-and-miss however, and this is something that ideally will improve before Windows 7 goes gold. Windows 7 has taken a strong disliking to a JMicron JMB363 controller on a P35 board we have, hanging on initializing the controller when it's in AHCI mode (JMicron's own drivers solve the issue). Another box, an Athlon 64/K8T800 system pulling HTPC duty, has not fared so well with Windows 7. It's corrupting recordings, something that Vista does not do. Everything else has not been an issue, with newer video drivers usually being the only thing necessary after installing Windows 7.
Briefly, Microsoft has mentioned that they expect Windows 7 to be more power efficient on laptops than Vista, but so far this hasn't been something we've been able to corroborate. We suspect that better drivers will be necessary to extract any power efficiency gains out of Windows 7, so this is something that will require revisiting once Windows 7 ships.
Compared to previous first-edition release candidates such as Vista RC1 and XP RC1, Windows 7 is in a class of its own. While XP's RC1 was okay and Vista's was problematic, as best as we can tell Windows 7 RC1 actually lives up to the name of "release candidate." We haven't found any immediate bugs and the performance is great. If Microsoft were to resolve our hardware compatibility issues, they could probably get Windows 7 out the door right now with most people none-the-wiser that it's the same build Microsoft is calling the first release candidate.
The one thing we're waiting to hear back on at this point is how it's received by the XP diehards. Obviously a significant goal of these public releases is to finally convince the owners of modern computers to get off of XP and switch to a 6.xx release of Windows by giving them a chance to try Windows 7. Windows 7 resolves some of the complaints XP diehards had about Vista, but not all of them. The question is if it's going to be enough.
Ultimately, with Microsoft throwing Windows 7 RC1 out to the masses, we can't think of a good reason not to try it. Based on what we've seen thus far, it's looking like Microsoft will hit all of their technological goals with Windows 7. As for their marketing goals, with the high quality of RC1 they'll likely hit all of those too.
Looking forward, the assumed timetable for Windows 7 means that it won't just be competing against previous Windows versions, but other operating systems too. Apple's Snow Leopard is still scheduled to ship this year, likely towards Christmas along with Windows 7. Apple has been extremely secretive on Snow Leopard, although we do know that it's going to have a much greater focus on under the hood improvements rather than straight up features, which could make for an interesting battle between the two. Meanwhile the various Linux distributions are always coming out with new editions, so the likely competition for Windows 7 will be Ubuntu 9.10 and its ilk.
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Adul - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link
MS cash reserves are actually around $26.3 billionsnookie - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link
Apple's stock is dramatically higher and they have much more cash in reserve. Xbox sure in hell was designed to be profitable on both hardware and games and neither is. Microsoft knew they would lose money the 1st few years but nothing like this. It's been a total disaster for them financially.Investors are bullish on Microsoft? Well a lot of them aren't. Microsoft lost half its value in 2008. Half.
Q9 has not been dismal for Apple. Biggest 2nd quarter ever in the middle of a recession. i guess that must be because of their commercials though....new iPhone coming up in June which will sell as fast as they can make them and Microsoft can't even get that blind, crippled, and dumb Windows Mobile out the door. This is a company in dire need of new leadership and middle management. Instead their answer is to rant and rave and piecemeal out development to whichever country is cheaper this week? Sound like a long term formula to success to you?
chewietobbacca - Thursday, May 7, 2009 - link
You're kidding right? Apple's stock is higher but their market cap is worth $60 billion less because share prices don't mean sh!t. Apple has fewer shares out there hence each one is worth more, but MSFT is still worth 60billion more than AAPL, and if MSFT goes up to $24 a share again, it'll be worth even more.Patrick Wolf - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link
Psycho...Jjoshua2 - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link
That's good to see its performance is good in general, and its gaming is consistently higher as well. Posting from Windows 7 on my Wind Netbook FTW :)Any pricing news? I hope there's a great student rate.
griffhamlin - Wednesday, July 15, 2009 - link
"gaming perfs constistently higher" ???are you kidding ? the song remain the same ...
samspqr - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link
the main reason I hate vista is because it's not XP: everything looks different, I can never find what I'm looking for, so getting used to it would require an effort that doesn't seem to have any compensating advantages (I don't like fancy UIs -I still use the W2K look- and I don't really play games anymore)then, about windows7, I still feel it's just a re-spun new SP for vista, with a UI revision, and the only reason it's getting better reviews than the original vista is that some time has passed, so there are better drivers, and you're testing it on much more powerful hardware
now, that Wind comment makes me wonder...
may even I fall on this one?
we'll see
cyriene - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link
I never understood how XP users say they "can never find anything in Vista."I'm not Windows expert, but after using my new laptop with Vista for 3 hours I knew where over 95% of the things and setting are located. And mos tof them are in the same place as XP for that matter. Control panel is the same... Start menu slightly different, but similar enough to figure out in 5 seconds. Plus if there is something you're looking for, the Vista help search actually ...HELPED me find it! I was actually suprised how well the help works. Also, if that failed a quick Google search is all it takes.
I don't feel MS should make ever OS exactly the same with everything in the same place. It makes sense for some things to move, and it isn't hard to find them if you take 5 seconds to do that.
dmpk - Saturday, May 30, 2009 - link
I agree. I think it is easy to find stuff on Vista with a little bit of playing. The transition is same as that from Windows 98 to Windows XP...piroroadkill - Thursday, May 7, 2009 - link
I completely agree. If you can't find something in Vista and you're used to XP, it's either so unused that it was removed, or you're just not trying, at all.