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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Gary Key - Thursday, May 7, 2009 - link
Actually, the public release of the 8.612 betas work fine with the HD 4770. AMD made a couple of changes right before they were posted on the site. :)CSMR - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link
Best source of information on Windows 7 by far. Nice work!ssj4Gogeta - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link
In the article you said that the "Jump Menus" have their roots in OS X? Not at all. They've been their for years. The only example I can think of at this time is Winamp. It had a "jump menu" in Windows 98 for controlling playback.Axell - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link
Well, this is actually Windows 7 Release Candidate. There won't be a second RC, so it's "Release Candidate" only, no RC1 like the title and text suggests.vectorm12 - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link
Just for the sake of argument.Ever thought about how long it usually takes for MS to actually make their OS:es work well? Doesn't anyone remember what a abysmal OS XP was before SP1 let alone SP2(which in my opinion was the point where I felt confident enough to upgrade from win2k). I'm starting to wonder if people have actually forgotten how much they where complaining about XP before SP1&2 or if they just don't want to remember. What about the security vulnerabilities that still plague XP? The fact that both Vista and Win7 improves on these seem to have been lost in the quest to keep XP alive.
After all do you hear Apple users complaining about 10.5.6 being significantly slower in many respects than 10.4? The fact that 10.4 in my opinion had a bunch of features lost in 10.5 that where really useful doesn't seem to bother them half as much. In the end I think this whole discussion has become more of a "hey I'm cool for bashing Microsoft and Vista rather than keeping an open mind and actually seeing the improvements they make"
How long did it take for Microsoft to make windows 2k a better OS than NT4.0 besides the USB support (which for the first couple of years was more or less pointless anyway).
Windows 95 and RC2 and so on. I mean it usually takes years for MS to actually make a OS superior to the older version.
What sets Windows7 apart from Vista in my opinion is just that.
Windows 7 may as well be a dressed up/optimized/"insert random comment" version of Windows Vista. Sure they could have made major GUI changes and feature updates to Vista through service packs etc but the fact is that when people hear or think vista it usually equals "dog turd" or worse and usually that is because it's become cool to bash Vista. In my opinion I wouldn't hesitate to run Vista SP1 on our studio computer where I work but unfortunately most of the software required for production purposes require specific software configurations which means Vista isn't supported other than in the latest releases.
The name change is a chance for people to try what in many ways is a vastly improved OS without having that association in mind when doing so. Sure Windows 7 is still more bloated and in certain areas probably slower than XP because of bloated code/new functions etc but the fact is Microsoft has actually taken a lot of great functionality in vista and(most likely taken inspiration from Mac OS in certain areas) and improved upon it even further.
I for one want a Microsoft OS for my gaming computer. I can't be bothered running Linux and wine just to play WoW and run the Adobe suite. Given the choice I'm going for Win7 rather than XP or vista, it's safer, I've got performance to spare and there's nothing wrong with a little eyecandy to make things look more exciting.
Macs are fine but to be honest I don't like OS x THAT much to pay the premium.
Linux works perfectly on my work computer and on the servers I run at work or on my laptop that I use to surf the web.
leexgx - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link
apart from some drivers XP has allways worked well for me (+ i was behind an router so RDP basid worms was not an problem),Vista is slugish and bloted for the most part and it allways will be as thay not port stuff to vista that are makeing windows 7 run far more smoother,
i have loaded win 7 onto an amd64 3000+ 2ghz, 2gb ram, it works well there is One small bug not sure why but it thinks i got 16gb installed in an socket 754 socket lol, but lists 2gb useable (at least Win7 now Shows Both numbers useable and installed as on SP1 for vista that was an joke hideing useable ram) need to report that to MS but not sure where i submit that
Lexington02 - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link
:face palm:You have 32 bit and that is not MS's fault for 32bit portion, it is pure math. Also 64 bit will always be slower than 32 bit on the same specs. Think about it, 64 is twice as big as 32 bit...
Bmadd - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link
If any of that was refering to my post my Thanks MS was for giving me the features i wanted and not having to go to win7. Not that they make bad products. I love the one ppl "hate" the most. PS xp needs to be laid to rest, pleaseiAURA - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link
I'm in the same boat as the above poster, all I will get from W7 is a "funner" GUI and DX11, but hey, there's still tons of game being released as DX9 games.ssj4Gogeta - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link
DX11 will be released for Vista as well.