I thought I’d give Microsoft’s latest OS, Windows 7, a try. The first thing I noticed was the confusing numbering scheme. It seems to me that there have been more than seven versions of Windows. Windows 1-3 were clearly named, so we can assume those are counted. Then came Windows NT 3.1, so I’ll count it as part of 3 even though it was completely new. I’m counting Windows 95 as version 4 and not version 95, but maybe I should count Windows NT 3.1 as part of version 4 as well. Or maybe Windows NT 3.1 IS version 4 despite the name and Windows 95 is part of that. Then came Windows NT 4.0 so I’m thinking it is definitely part of version 4. Windows 98 and 98SE came next. I suppose we are still counting those as version 4 and Windows ME as well. Version 5 probably started with Windows 2000 and its consumer version, Windows XP, will be lumped in there as well. Windows Server 2003 should also be part of version 5 while we’re at it. Windows Vista probably counts as version 6 although I’ve never used it and it hardly seems worthy of its own version number. Which all leads us to this latest and greatest version, Windows 7 (deep breath intake). The fanboys will notice that I probably left some things out here, but somehow I don’t think Microsoft Bob and Packard Bell Navigator are really worth mentioning.

The second thing I noticed about Windows 7 is that Microsoft is actually allowing people to download and use it free of charge (until June of next year when it will stop functioning until you pay for it). As far as I know this is a first for Microsoft and a good PR move. The only drawback is that they give you the Windows 7 Ultimate edition which is not the Home Premium edition most people will end up with. So there is probably some functionality you’ll miss once you actually pay for the darn thing.

To install Windows 7 you must download an ISO image and burn it to a DVD. This is not a functionality built into Windows XP, so you’ll have to download a third party program to do this. I used Active@ ISO Burner which was second on the list of two programs that Microsoft recommended (ironically, I could not figure out how to use the first program they recommended). Once you’ve made your installation DVD, you just need to open and run it to do the install.

Installation was amazingly easy. I simply ran the DVD, answered a few questions, let it do its thing, answered a few more questions, and it was all done. I don’t know how long it took exactly since I slept while it was copying files, but it certainly takes less that 4 hours which is how much sleep I got. There were some power features that were either missing from the installation or not readily apparent that I would have liked to seen. The first missing item was a partition manager. It gave me no options to create, delete, or reformat partitions. Boo! The second item that wasn’t readily apparent was the ability to create more than one user during installation. It’s not something that I need personally, but it would be nice for people with more than one user in their household.

Upon bootup, I noticed another amazing thing. Windows 7 will actually automagically detect some of your hardware. It detected my faxmodem (big whoop) and ethernet adapter which was a big help in getting the first updates installed. During the first set of updates, Windows 7 also detected my graphics card and wireless card and installed drivers for those as well. The only things that did not work were the sound card and multimedia buttons. I downloaded the Vista drivers for my sound card and it started working (without a restart!). I haven’t tried to get the multimedia buttons working yet. Another thing that is funky is my trackpad. It works using standard PS/2 mouse drivers, but you can’t configure it.

After all that it’s really just a standard Windows experience. I found the interface to be less intuitive than Windows XP. I think in trying to make thing easier to use, they only succeeded in making things slightly harder for the tech savvy. The eye candy is nice, but it’s still just eye candy. Microsoft also failed to include its IM client, mail client, movie maker, etc. in this release. You’ll have to download those in a free package called Windows Live Essentials. They had about 2GB left on the installation DVD so I’m not really sure why they are not including those with the OS. Another disappointment was Internet Explorer 8. While it is much, MUCH better than IE 6 or 7, it’s still bloated with a clunky interface. I downloaded Google Chrome halfway through this article just because I found IE so annoying.