Windows 7: Vista without the crap

Do you need a new computer for Windows 7?

No.

One of the most common questions I've received from everyday computer users since January 2007 has been, "How do I know when I've got all of Vista?" For most users, what ruined the entire Vista "experience" from the very beginning was its convoluted OEM logo compliance program, which left them with the sinking feeling that, no matter what SKU they chose, their OS would be incomplete. On top of that, the whole "Windows Experience Index" concept only served to remind them they were never getting as complete a package as some enthusiast someplace was enjoying -- some Tom's Hardware guy (someone like me) with dual graphics cards and eighty-six cooling fans. As a result, users instead complained about owning "half a computer."

The original intention of the WEI, I was told at the time, was to give folks incentive to upgrade. But since when does anyone, after being given a score revealing how much of a machine he doesn't own, rush to the store to fill the gap? "That's a nice Camaro you've just bought, Jack! Did you know it was exactly 0.65 of a Corvette?"

Microsoft does not actively publicize this little-known fact, but from a technical standpoint, Windows 7 is a more suitable candidate for an XP replacement than Vista. It's leaner, it's better with memory, it takes fuller advantage of multicore processors, and it doesn't inundate the user with nonsense.

Any computer that was "ready for Vista" is effectively just as ready, if not more so, for Windows 7. While Vista's engineers created barriers that precluded XP users from upgrading, for fear of missing the whole "experience," no such barriers exist between Vista and Win7. Unfortunately, though, the lack of a direct migration path between XP and Win7 is both intentional and artificial.

It is technically feasible for you to upgrade from XP to Windows 7 using a borrowed copy of Vista. We've done it in trials, with minimal cuts and bruises. That said, there are excellent reasons for you to avoid that course of action for yourself. Due to less standardized and less secure practices employed by software manufacturers including Microsoft during the XP era, the XP System Registry is an unfathomable hairball of convoluted associations, many of them broken. A set of XP Registry files can swell to several gigabytes of database code, although like DNA in the human body, only a part of it is actually usable -- the rest lies dormant. Recreating the sensible part of the Registry even on Vista, let alone Win7, would require mere megabytes by comparison.

After I wrote our story about XP-to-Win7 upgrades, I received numerous inquiries boiling down to: "You idiot! Why would you ever suggest anyone do this?" The answer at the time was this: There may be numerous instances where users simply cannot re-install all their working applications, for reasons including loss of the original CD-ROM, and my personal favorite, the inability for older apps to be installed in Windows given its new and more secure permissions structure. Since that time, XP Mode has been introduced to give folks who do have the old installer discs a way to re-install their older, less secure software in a secured XP virtual envelope (at least for users of Win7 Professional and Ultimate).

Granted, not everyone is pleased with Windows 7's current "SKU-ing" of its retail line-up, which isn't much different from Vista's. But the streamlining of the meaning of the Windows 7 compatibility logo, for both OEMs and customers, is most welcome: If there's a Windows 7 logo, it runs Windows 7. Not half of it, not the half that's minus the Aero "experience," but all of Windows 7.

Meanwhile, many very intelligent XP users who skipped out on the whole Vista debacle, may be considering whether to purchase a Windows 7 "upgrade" package, or a new computer with Win7 already on it. The dilemma for them has less to do with the operating system than with the state of their computer: Too many 2002-era single-core PCs out there have a single hard drive that's littered with media files and documents that have never been offloaded, perhaps never even backed up. Many are running Office XP, because their businesses run Office XP (on Windows 2000), perhaps because they can't install a newer version of Office without breaking their VPN software. Like bacteria cultures, their computers have become mossy, overgrown hives of inactivity, where sometimes the Internet works and sometimes it doesn't.

For these folks...it's time already. The world has evolved, and it's a lot nicer out here now. It's time for that long-overdue visit to the toxic waste disposal facility.

On the other hand, if you are running Windows XP on a modern, multi-core system, that's well-managed with its data files on an independent drive from the system device, whose networking is fast and crystal-clear, whose media files are all well organized, and that's secured by hardware and software firewalls along with non-intrusive anti-malware utilities, then is there a compelling reason for you to consider keeping the hardware and upgrading the operating system to Windows 7?

I say there is: The genuine advances that the Vista kernel (especially the 64-bit kernel) made to system security are all present in Windows 7 (which even technically speaking is really Windows 6.1). The truly good ideas that Vista advanced, especially with regard to software access policies, are all present in Windows 7. But you're not paying a significant performance penalty for them.

In fact, with proper self-administration, you may be able to overcompensate for any performance hit: The poor performance with which many XP users are typically plagued, on account of lousy security software whose cost in aggravation and lost productivity is greater than any harm that malware could intentionally inflict on your computer, can be remedied with Microsoft Security Essentials. Although it's basic, it's free. And in Betanews tests of Security Essentials on a quad-core Win7 system, there was no performance hit. None. In fact, some of our apps were mysteriously faster with anti-virus turned on.

How come? Windows 7 is better at managing parallelism than Vista, which is probably the biggest reason its speed is best appreciated on quad-core (or AMD triple-core) systems, and Microsoft (once again) knows the secret. It knows how threads can be used to better prioritize running applications, and that anti-virus does not have to be run with high or even regular priority. This is also why Security Essentials may have an architectural edge even against some commercial anti-virus products.

Recently, some independent sources have claimed that the Windows 7 speed delta over Vista they observed is less than 17%. However, their tests were said to be run on single- or dual-core systems upgraded from Vista, with all applications intact. Possibly among those apps are third-party anti-malware utilities, whose working relationship with Vista has been poor enough. Break your dependence on bad anti-virus software (especially the brands pre-installed by dealers) and you'll gain more than six weeks of your life back, easily.

There will be some who will remain quite comfortable in their XP-driven environments for the next few years, and with good reason: It's a pretty decent OS, when it's well-maintained and well-secured. Nonetheless, the principal reason for users to consider replacing their old computers is because they're old, tired, and single-core. The multicore era is upon us, and Windows 7 takes better advantage of multicore than its predecessor.

Next: What Windows 7 doesn't give you...