Windows 7 in the Enterprise

Confirming what everyone already knows, a recent study by Forrester showed that only 10 percent of businesses have adopted Windows Vista, calling Vista "the New Coke." That's not entirely surprising considering that Microsoft marketed Vista almost solely to consumers. Microsoft assumed that as people adopted Vista at home they would compel their businesses to adopt Vista as well. However, we all know it didn't turn out that way. Consumers found that they couldn't get drivers to make their devices work and couldn't get many of their old applications to run, which left such a bad taste in their mouth that they weren't about to recommend Vista to anyone. Meanwhile, businesses were put off by the hardware and software costs required for the upgrade. The ROI just wasn't compelling enough to justify the high upgrade cost.

Coming quickly on the tails of Vista, Windows 7 possess an array of new features designed to make it more attractive to enterprise customers. Is Windows 7 the desktop OS that both consumers and businesses have been waiting for? Is it compelling enough to entice businesses to shell out money for a desktop upgrade in these tight economic times? I'll tackle these questions and more as I take you on a guided tour of Microsoft's new Windows 7 release.

The first thing to understand about Windows 7 is that it essentially is the next version of Vista. Windows 7 isn't something entirely new and different. Rather, the core Windows 7 OS is a direct descendant of Vista. All the main Vista features—such as the Aero UI, User Account Control (UAC), the revamped Windows Explorer, IPv6, and Windows BitLocker Drive Encryption—are carried over to Windows 7. Arguably, Windows 7 could be thought of as Vista R2. Like you might expect with an R2 release, Microsoft has addressed a lot of the problems present in the initial Vista release. Windows 7 offers better performance, fewer UAC hassles, and improved application compatibility. In addition, Windows 7 has a simpler set of editions than Vista. (For more information about the Windows 7 editions, see the web-exclusive article "Windows 7 Editions".)

New OSs always excite me, so I was eager to toss Vista out and give Windows 7 a try. Truthfully, my early experience with Windows 7 has been a mixed bag. On the positive side, I found Windows 7 to be noticeably quicker than Vista on the same hardware, which for my system means it performed roughly equivalent to XP. I did much of my early testing on an older desktop system, which previously ran XP Professional x64, then Vista x64. This system has a 2.5GHz CPU and 1.5GB of RAM. This system ran well under XP, was ponderous under Vista, and was quick again under Windows 7.

On the negative side, I ran into unexpected driver problems. Surprisingly, several of the x64 drivers for my NVIDIA nForce3 motherboard that worked on Vista didn't work on Windows 7. In all fairness, this hardware is a generation old but that doesn't bode well for customers who might be considering using Windows 7 on existing XP systems that run on hardware from the same generation.

Overall, I liked Windows 7 way better than Vista. But is Windows 7 good enough to entice XP users to upgrade? Let's dive in and take a closer look at some of the main features in Windows 7.

While some skeptics say that UI enhancements are just eye candy, it's not that simple. The UI makes or breaks the OS. XP's UI enhancements made it the corporate standard for years. Conversely, Vista's Aero hardware requirements hindered its adoption. UI improvements can also affect productivity—big changes can cause a steep learning curve. The Windows 7 UI provides many benefits over the UI in XP and Vista.

The Windows 7 Start menu is a lot like the Vista Start menu. However, one really nice change is that the shutdown and power off options have been simplified. While it can be customized, Shut Down is the default option. Clicking the arrow on the right displays the Switch User, Log Off, Lock Restart, and Sleep options. The eye candy is that the Start button shines when you move your mouse over it.

Another really nice change in the Windows 7 desktop is its support for Gadgets. Vista requires that all Gadgets run in the Sidebar. However, the Sidebar took away an annoying amount of screen real estate. With Windows 7 the Sidebar isn't gone but you're no longer forced to put all your Gadgets in it. Gadgets can run directly on the desktop, so you can move them where ever you like.

AeroSnap is also a cool desktop feature. When you drag a window to the left edge of your display and another window to the right edge, AeroSnap automatically aligns and resizes the windows so that they each fill half the screen. This feature is handy for comparing documents and directories.