Now less than two months from world-wide release, Microsoft’s Windows 7 is bound to make the legions of existing Windows users wonder whether they should upgrade. And it will make those who have put off hardware purchases in anticipation of the new operating system wonder whether the time is right to hand over their hard-earned cash. Windows 7 has already won over the majority of those who have been beta testing the product for over a year now. So there’s really just one question that remains: will it impress you? To give you a head start on deciding, here’s an overview of what are likely to be the most talked-about new features of Windows 7.
Speed and Stability
Promises of greater speed and stability are likely to interest the majority of Windows users. But it’s helpful to remember that every major release of Windows in memory has arrived with similar assurances. And each time, the reality of the operating system, once unleashed onto the millions of computers around the world, has fallen short of expectations.
Will Windows 7 actually be different? In terms of performance, most benchmarks put the release-to-manufacturing version of Windows 7 roughly on a par with both Windows XP and the first service pack release of Windows Vista. But Windows 7 is noticeably speedier in areas that matter a lot to most users: startup is faster, as is Windows shutdown, and most disk-intensive tasks are at least on a par with the speed of Windows XP.
In terms of stability, only time will tell. Anecdotal reports of Windows 7 running nonstop for a month or more without requiring a reboot are rampant around the Web, which is good. But there are also plenty of reported incidences of Explorer crashes and other glitches occurring in the new operating system, just as with…