Brad Westness.com

Make no mistake: Windows 7 is the most important piece of software of the decade. All the more so now that it’s been revealed that both XP and Vista users will be able to upgrade for $50. (For Home Premium. An upgrade to Professional costs $100.)

This release has everything going for it. It’s coming at a time when many corporations are still running incredibly outdated hardware for their workstations. The first office I worked at (which was mostly a data entry job for a local supermarket chain) was running Windows 98 when I started working there. This was in 2004. No machine in the building was faster than 800mhz and maybe 128mb of RAM. The big deal during my time there over the next two years was the transition to XP. They finally finished the transition just as Vista was released (which was also around the time when I stopped working there).

You could see why they didn’t just wait and upgrade to Vista. It wouldn’t have run on any of the machines in the office and they couldn’t afford to upgrade to machines that could run it. At the time, only fairly high-end rigs (think around a grand per workstation) could run it as fast as they could run XP.

I never had that much hatred for Vista, and I think it’s funny how most people with unreserved hatred for it have mysteriously also never used it. The major performance problems were fixed within a couple weeks of the launch and it was fine from then on. Also, Aero looks good. Using XP after being used to Vista is like playing with a candy-colored child’s toy compared to the understated elegance of Aero. Still, Vista is unrepentantly a bit of a resource hog, and for all it’s under-the-hood and visual overhaul, still had some rough edges (it’s hyper-sensitive UAC dialogs for example).

Windows 7 does an impressive job of sanding those edges down and polishing every aspect of the operating system to a high sheen. As I get farther into software and web development I’ve found myself becoming less and less interested with the sort of OS hacking and customizing that used to swallow up my evenings. As I have more and more actual things I need to accomplish on the computer, I find I just want the OS to show me what I need to see and otherwise stay out of the way.

Windows 7 is a completely different animal than any other PC operating system I’ve ever used as far as out-of-the-box experience. It just works. Every machine I’ve installed it on, including two laptops have had every device driver accounted for upon first boot (in both the 32 and 64 bit versions). It’s incredibly intuitive: everything is where you expect it to be. Little things like Aero Snaps, Aero Peek when switching windows, and taskbar previews just make sense, and actively increase productivity and reduce (one could almost say eliminate) the frustration that comes from having too many open windows.

Pundits have tried to posit that XP is “the last OS” but they have clearly not used 7. It’s kind of silly how much better it is. I don’t really intend to compare it too heavily to OS X, because they are different animals. OS X is nice. It’s an elegant operating system that Apple can afford to take risks and innovate with, since they completely control the environment and don’t have to kowtow to a thousand different OEMs or retain backwards compatibility for decades. However, it’s a niche product that only really applies to the richest 10% of consumers.

The amazing thing with Windows 7 is that it presents the opportunity to bring the enterprise and small-business world into the 21st century. Is it feasible for the small grocery store chain I worked at to deploy Macs to all their workstations? The cheapest Mac available right now is the Mac mini, which costs $600.  Not to mention the fact that their custom accounting software runs on Windows. Meanwhile Dell workstations that would be perfectly capable of running Windows 7 can be had for $280.

The fact that a perfectly usable PC can be had for well under $500, coupled with this new incredibly stable, easy-to-use, compatible and cheap operating system means that this thing is going to be ubiquitous. Even today’s cheaper Dells and HPs are essentially overpowered for everything outside of 3D gaming and video editing. Everyone and their mother can afford to run this thing, and it’s going to be everywhere in the business world as well.

Windows 7 is going to change the world. The UI presents what you need to see at any given moment, and nothing more. It’s fast, stable, intelligent and attractive. It may look a lot like Vista, but all the little tweaks and improvements add up to something greater than the sum of its parts. People are going to spend time actually working, playing and communicating, rather than spending time tweaking and fixing their OS. You’re going to take it for granted. And that’s what an OS should be.

I’m not naive enough to proclaim that Windows 7 will be “the last OS,” but it’s going to be around for a good, long while. It’s an OS that encourages you to take it for granted, which is just what you’ll do. The age of the PC as an enthusiast hobby is ending. With Windows 7, the PC is a commodity, a tool that delivers on the promises of increased productivity and usability that we’ve been hearing for the last twenty years. Microsoft’s vision of “A PC on every desk, running Microsoft software” is about to become reality.

I’m not a Microsoft apologist, nor do I benefit personally in any way from these views. I’m just calling it as I see it, so that in five years I can show people this post and say “I told you so.”

Bonus tip: Put the Windows 7 taskbar on the right side of the screen. It’ll be weird at first but trust me. It focuses your attention on the application at hand and gives you more vertical space. The reduced horizontal size actually makes reading text easier on your eyes, and the only time you really make use of that widescreen monitor is when watching full-screen video anyway.