Microsoft Windows 7

 

Well on reflection, its not as bad as it sounds.  Windows 7 in my view is likely to be the most un-exciting version of Windows released for about 10 years.  Why?  Because it is essentially Windows Vista Version 2.  Now I don't actually mean this in a particularly negative sense.  Windows 7 is essentially an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary version of windows; it builds on the foundations that were laid in Vista (and I would guesstimate that about 80-90% of the operating system is identical to Vista) with minor cosmetic changes, a few new features and a large number of security and performance updates.

 

Operating systems go through various cycles in their development.  For Microsoft, Windows 3.0 was their first major breakthrough, followed by Windows 95 which introduced a completely new architechture and user interface.  Subsequent releases such as Windows 98 and Windows Me really built on Windows 95 with minor cosmetic changes but essentially they were similar in many respects.  Windows XP was the next revolutionary release as it pretty much threw away the old 95/98 architecture and was based on the substantially more robust codebase of Windows NT and 2000.  This brought into the mainstream an operating system with a level of reliability and stability that had previously only been enjoyed by corporate users (and, some would argue Mac users!).

 

Windows Vista was the most significant revolutionary step in Windows OS development yet.  Unlike XP which was based to a certain extent on code from other operating systems that already had many years of development and fine-tuning, Vista was the closest thing to a ground-up re-write of the Windows operating system that we are likely to see for a while.  The low-level architecture of Vista is substantially different to any other previous Windows version, and visibly of course the user interface also represents a significant departure from what we have seen before.  Despite the problems that plagued the first few months following it's initial release, Vista has settled down to become the most robust, stable and secure Microsoft operating system ever.  That's not to say that Vista doesn't still attract criticism about certain aspects such as the (some say annoying) User Account Control security feature or its' stringent hardware requirements but that's a topic for another discussion.

Windows 7 then does not represent a drastic change to Vista.  It builds on the architecture and user interface of Vista and will include a significant number of performance, security and hardware-releated updates/fixes.  There will also be tweaks/improvements to the user interface and an increased focus on new input technologies such as touch-screen control and  speech/handwriting recognition.  With Microsoft's Live Mesh platform in mind, I also expect changes that orientate Windows towards being a much more online and "connected" environment which further blurs the line between using desktop-based software and online applications and services, although exactly how this will be achieved remains to be seen.