Technology Advisor

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If you have any connection to the computer industry then you have probably heard the news that Microsoft is going to release the next version of the Windows operating system on October 22, 2009 called Windows 7.  However what may not be so clear is what this means to you and your business and should you upgrade.   Making the decision to upgrade to Windows 7 involves many factors:

· Is it better than Vista and what new features make upgrading worthwhile?

·  Will all of my old software still work?

·  Does it require purchasing new hardware?

While I cannot possibly provide enough information for you to answer all of these questions in this blog entry alone, I can give you a rundown of some of the key points about the Windows 7 release that you should find useful in your decision making.

Is it better than Vista and what new features make upgrading worthwhile?

When Windows Vista came out there were two issues that caused a lot of user frustration.  The first was the lack of supported device drivers.  This was mostly a result of Microsoft changing how device drivers had to be developed for Vista.  Now that most of the hardware manufacturers have had time to update their products’ device drivers for Vista this should not be such a pain point for Windows 7 since it has the same device driver model as Vista. The second user annoyance that came along with Vista was the User Account Control (UAC) which was added to Vista for security reasons.  While Windows 7 will still contain the UAC, it has been improved to lessen the number of interruptions and many applications have now been updated to correctly work with UAC so that users don’t need to be interrupted.

As with every new release of the Windows operating system, Microsoft has made some changes to the user interface in Windows 7.  The most noticeable UI changes in Windows 7 involve the Taskbar, JumpLists, and the Ribbon control.   And the first change you will notice after booting Windows 7 for the first time is the new look and feel of the Taskbar, which now lets you rearrange your icons as you like, “pin” your favorite programs anywhere you want, and will present you with thumbnail previews.  Most of these new UI changes in Windows 7 focus on making you the user more productive by reducing the number of steps its takes to access some piece of functionality.  The best example of this is JumpLists which provide a way of surfacing application tasks or destinations directly from the taskbar icon in the form of a mini start menu.    When Office 2007 shipped Microsoft introduced us to the Ribbon control, and with Window 7 Microsoft is expanding their use of the Ribbon control to include NotePad and Paint. 

In addition to UAC, Vista also shipped with a whole host of other new security features and among them was the ability to encrypt your whole hard-drive using BitLocker.  This ability was useful when it came to ensuring that even if someone stole your laptop they would not be able to access your data.  The version of Bitlocker that comes with Windows 7 will add the capability to encrypt your USB flash drives  which is important for those of you that need to securly move files between computers using USB drives.

There are lots of other new features coming in Windows 7 that I have not discussed here such as AppLocker, Windows Live Essentials, Power Management, Windows Touch and many more.  You can find more information about these new features and others on the official Windows 7 website: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/default.aspx

Will all of my old software still work?

For those worried about the ability to run older software programs, Windows 7 is going to provide something called XP Mode.   XP Mode is really just the ability to transparently run an application under windows XP on Windows 7.  However to use this functionality your computer must meet certain hardware requirements.  Specifically your computer must have virtualization assist built into the chip (AMD-V or Intel VT).   Since both Intel and AMD do not include this feature in all of their chips enabling this functionality in Windows 7 could require purchasing new hardware.  Also you must purchase at least the Professional version of Windows 7.

Does it require purchasing new hardware?

In general if your computer can run Windows Vista then it will be able to run Windows 7, but this is not a guarantee.  Microsoft has published the official system requirements needed to run Windows 7 here:  http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/products/system-requirements.   However for a lot of people the soup of three letter acronyms found on this web page does not really help in determining if their computer has what it takes to run Windows 7 or if they need to purchase new hardware.  So to simplify answering this question Microsoft has released a beta of the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor.  The Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor will scan your computer and determine if it is capable of running Windows 7.  You can download a copy of the Upgrade Advisor from here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/get/upgrade-advisor.aspx

When Vista was released some people choose to simply stay on Windows XP because of all the frustrations that came with Vista.  If you are one of those people then there is one other factor that you need to consider when determining if Windows 7 is the new operating system for you.  That factor relates to the support Microsoft provides for Windows XP.  Windows XP left what Microsoft calls “mainstream support” on April 14, 2009.   This means that unless you purchased “extended support” from Microsoft within 90 days of April 14, 2009, you will only receive security bug fixes.  However if you did purchase “extended support”, then it will continue through April 8 2014.

While I am sure you still have many questions about the soon to be released new version of Windows and its impact on your business, hopefully I have provided you with some useful information to help out in your decision making.  On a more personal note I have had the advantage of being able to check out many of these new features in the beta versions of Windows 7 that Microsoft has been releasing this past year.  Based on my experience with the beta versions I think Windows 7 is everything Vista should have been and is certainly worthy of your time to consider the upgrade question.