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After the frustration of Windows Vista, Microsoft has finally got it right. Windows 7 is here and people are lapping it up.
So what if Microsoft has stolen some ideas, especially the taskbar, from the Mac OS X? Everybody steals ideas and betters them. Microsoft too has done it. No harm in that as long as you have a smooth experience operating your PC.
When Microsoft boss Steve Balmer made the presentation for Windows 7, it booted in 15 seconds flat. That is the fastest I have seen any Windows computer start up. The secret was that he was using a solid state drive. This is a new kind of hard drive that does not keep on writing data continuously. So it spins less often and tasks are faster because it has a flash memory. Only when the task is complete does it write to the hard drive from the flash memory. A look at the seven wonders of Windows 7:
* Plug a camera into a Windows 7 PC and import the pictures. With Windows Live Movie Maker just press a button and your movie is ready.
* Get a touch-capable HP desktop PC; sweep your finger across the screen. The image ripples. It’s a pond filled with fish.
* You can see live TV on a PC. A deal struck with CBS will not require you to have the need of a TV tuner card. Netflix movies will stream into your PC too. But both these features may be limited to the US only for now.
* Amazon has created Kindle reader for Windows 7. If you want to read a book on your PC, you can do it, turning pages by swiping your finger on the touch screen.
* A key feature is Home Group. All you have to do is join the PC to the home network. It requires entering a password, and that’s it. Two PCs are now sharing music, video and pictures.
* With Windows Live ID, you can connect a PC on the go with the PC at home, on the same home group. You can load a movie and it starts playing, albeit a little slow.
* The seventh wonder is called “Play to”. With this you can send media to a picture frame, set-top box. The Windows 7 PC is serving four separate streams with pictures, videos and music to various devices.
Windows 7 is definitely an improvement on Windows Vista, but it is not necessarily better than Windows XP. But stick with the latter and you will miss out all the much-improved security features of Windows 7.
Windows 7 has much better search facilities. But there are some hassles too.
Upgrading from Vista is easy, but upgrading from Windows XP involves a “clean install”: moving your programs and files off the hard drive, installing Windows 7, then copying everything back again. Why couldn’t they make the update smooth like from Leopard to Snow Leopard in a Mac?
There is another unpleasantness; there are five versions of Windows 7 — Starter, Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate — each with its own set of features, each in 32-bit or 64-bit flavours (except Starter), at prices from Rs 5,899 to Rs 11,799. These are Windows 7 Home Basic (Rs 5,899), Windows 7 Home Premium (Rs 6,799), Windows 7 Professional (Rs 11,199) and Windows 7 Ultimate (Rs 11,799).
According to CNET, the prices are significantly lower than in the US. So far, the cheapest way to get Windows 7 seems to be in Indonesia, where the Home Basic package costs Rs 4,400 approximately. But be careful that you do not pick up a pirated copy of Windows 7.
There is also good news for those who bought Windows XP or Windows Vista after June 26, 2009. Microsoft India has a Windows 7 Upgrade Option Program (www.microsoft.com/India/upgradeoffer) for such consumers at no additional cost. The Windows Upgrade Option Program is available to Indian consumers and businesses with fewer than 25 PCs, through participating original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). They are Acer, Dell, HCL, HP, Lenovo, Sony, Toshiba and Wipro, as well as channel partners for assembled PCs. The upgrade to Windows 7 is globally available from June 26, 2009, through January 31, 2010.
Send your computer- related problems to askdoss@abpmail.com. The solutions will appear soon
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