Windows 7: Vista without the crap

Is Windows 7 worth the money?

Let's face the most obvious fact right up front: It's still Windows. It's an operating system married to a single, local System Registry for all software executable by the processor, which we have all come to realize is an inelegant model. It continues to depend upon device drivers to be installed from the outside world, rather than being able to receive instructions from the devices themselves -- a feature that device makers would be more than willing to co-develop. Windows spends a great deal of its time making absolutely certain that nothing you're running is stolen, and it doesn't always do a great job of that. Installing the very latest version of Windows Live Messenger still requires you to hack the Registry and/or re-register a DLL from an administrator-authorized command line (and if you don't believe me, here are the instructions to prove it).

At a certain level, building a better Windows would be like Ford building a better Crown Victoria. It's nice, but not worth throwing a party. As my friend and colleague, Betanews contributor Carmi Levy, observed earlier this week, the era when a new operating system makes a direct impact on people's social calendars has long past. (There's ample evidence that this era only lasted about three weeks.) And the era in which the model for software design is based around the operating system as the sole underlying platform is also on its way out, which is grave news not just for Microsoft but Apple as well.

The thing is, though, Windows isn't going away anytime soon. I remember the onset of the era of solar and wind energy too -- I seem to recall it was announced on a one-reel Encyclopedia Britannica film that my fifth-grade science teacher was splicing back together during the height of the Vietnam War. I do foresee the very real possibility that the underlying foundation of Windows could be completely replaced with a kind of operating system layer whose sole purposes are to manage a new class of hardware, and to run a user OS in a virtualization envelope. (Microsoft may not be the only company to produce this.) But that envelope will likely run Windows, so the operating system will probably be known as Windows, and from the user's vantage point, it will be Windows.

New operating systems may no longer be the stuff of rock concerts and Tupperware parties. Neither are new dishwashers, sinks, or toilets. Yet they are all indispensable parts of our lives.

Even after reading this, one question probably still remains on many readers' minds: If Windows 7 truly represents the level of functionality that Vista should have provided from the beginning, then shouldn't Microsoft be paying for it and not the public?

If Vista were an insecure system, then I would say yes. It was not. It was an annoying system, especially with "features" like the Black Screen of Death. But it was not Windows Me, the travesty of code that represents the absolute nadir of Microsoft's development history, the "Disco Era" for Windows.

Even then, however, I said Windows XP was worth paying for. XP -- the first version, the one I said in hindsight was desperately in need of a transplant. The fact that I value my time (with a calculator) is just one reason. The fact that I value the developers' time spent making this work, is the other. Yes, I've said Windows 7 is "Vista Service Pack 3," and I stand by that. But in terms of the work Microsoft's people are genuinely devoting to improving the quality of this product (whose quality needed improvement), I do believe it is worth the investment. Windows Me was not worth the investment; Windows 98 (pre-OSR2) was not worth the investment.

But as anyone who's done the work knows, cleaning up crap is a dirty job. Someone has to do it, and there are days I'm glad it's not me. Windows 7 is cleaner, brighter, and sanitized for your convenience. And that's worth the tip.