The Verdict

Whether you’re coming from XP or Vista, Windows 7 offers a massive leap forward in usability, security, and support for new hardware and technology, especially for enthusiasts and power users. For anyone who regularly keeps many windows open at once time, the new Taskbar is worth the price of admission alone. For XP users, the security improvements are equally worthy of praise, while Vista users will be thrilled with the much improved, much less annoying UAC. Add in support for new hardware technologies, more new features, and the kernel improvements that should allow you to get more from your multi-core CPU, and Windows 7 becomes a tidy, compelling package to all Windows users.
Best of all, the new OS simply feels faster than Vista or even XP. As one editor said after a session testing the OS, it’s the best of both worlds—the user interface speed of XP and the features and security of Vista and more. That’s something to be lauded.

We’re happy with the changes Microsoft has made to Windows 7 as a product line. By making the more expensive SKUs supersets of the less capable versions, choosing the right version of Windows 7 is as simple as it was picking a version of XP (and exponentially easier than navigating the almost incomprehensible SKU structure for Vista). However, we still don’t see any benefit to Microsoft fielding more than two SKUs of Windows—without Aero, Starter edition is unnecessarily crippled, as it was with Vista. Who should buy Ultimate? In our eyes, no one should, unless you desperately need multiple language support in the UI. As with Vista, the extras in Ultimate don’t justify the added cost. For most of our users, we’ll simply recommend Windows 7 Professional if you need to connect to a domain or use XP mode, and Home Premium if you don’t.
As with Vista and XP before it, we remain unhappy with the activation process. As enthusiasts who frequently upgrade hardware and reinstall our operating systems, we’re tired of being punished with increasingly obnoxious reactivation processes. As paying customers, we shouldn’t have to get on the phone every time we need to reinstall Windows, whether our behavior triggers piracy flags or not. The music industry has already figured out that the best way to drive your paying customers to thievery is to treat them like thieves. Hopefully, Microsoft will get the memo between now and the launch of Windows 8.
Moral objections to product activation aside, Windows 7 is unquestionably the best version of Windows that Microsoft has ever released, and is the true successor to Windows XP. If you’re an enthusiast or power user, Windows 7 is well worth your money, whether for an upgrade today or on your next new machine.
We expect that this new OS will mark the beginning of the end for Windows XP, which is highest praise we can give the latest version of Windows.

 

Windows 7

Double-hung Unquestionably the best version of Windows to date. Snappier UI and kick-ass new features.

Bay Activation process continues to suck. Multiple product SKUs create unnecessary confusion.

Microsoft