Seventh Heaven?

Good news about Windows 7 then. The consensus is that it works with none of the sluggishness that got Vista such a bad name in such a short time. Some useful innovations but not a sea change - and none of the ‘in your face-ness’ of the previous operating system. For example it doesn’t keep floating word balloons at the user.

It’s important for businesses that MicroSoft doesn’t take inbuilt obsolescence to extremes. In many companies machines are cascaded through the ranks and retain the operating systems they were sold with. If I swap work stations with a colleague it can hamper my productivity when I encounter an unfamiliar system. They’re not as intuitive as the designers would have us believe.

One thing I like about Windows 7 is Aero Snap - comparing the contents of two windows is made much easier. If I shove a window into the left or right edge of the screen, it expands to fill half of the desktop. Then by nudging another into the opposite edge of the screen, it occupies the other half. Click here for a nice overview from engadget.

By the way, Christian Science Monitor reports that compared with Vista and XP, W7 is the quickest to shut down. I can see what they mean but it’s not a reason in itself to crack open the champagne just yet.