Windows 7: “what Vista should have been”

Wondering what the upcoming Microsoft Windows 7 operating systems has to offer? Well-known Australian technology journalist Alex Zaharov-Reutt gives us an overview of the highlights of the new operating system in this short, but informative BLORGE video.

Key features highlighted by Alex include: multi-touch support, better security and hardware compatibility, Windows XP compatibility mode, and  lower hardware requirements.

Transcript from the video:

Hi, I’m Alex Zaharov-Reutt and you are watching me on BLORGE.com, and today I want to talk about Windows 7.

Now, what I have in my hands here is a Toshiba tablet PC: it’s both able to use a stylus, so a pen, but you can use your fingers as well.

Sadly, it’s only single touch, not multi-touch like the Apple iPhone, but multi-touch screens are coming and Windows 7 will be big on multi-touch and, in fact, the reason that’s the case is because multi-touch is something that has become quite natural with computer screens and you sort of wonder why you haven’t been able to do it for years on our computers and one of the reasons why tablet PCs never took off was because, not only was the tablet interface not quite as polished as it could have been – something that has had big changes in Windows 7 – but we lacked the ability for the most part to actually use our fingertips as the most natural pointing mechanism of all, rather than having to use a stylus, which is not as natural.

If you have to put your hand to the screen to do things, it’s just not as natural as putting your hands on a sheet of paper.

So, you are going to see big, big changes in the way that people are able to interact with their computers and Windows 7 packs it all together.

It’s got the solid foundation of Windows Vista in terms of greater security and better hardware compatibility for the latest gadgets.

Obviously, earlier gadgets are going to have issues if they are only XP compatible, but, of course, Microsoft has the XP mode, which deals with a lot of those problems. But, we’ve also got the ability for Windows 7 to work better on older hardware.

Windows 7 is the first version of Windows that requires less memory and less processing power to run.

That’s almost unbelievable and revolutionary and, whilst Linux fans will laugh and say that Linux has done this for years, the sad reality for Linux people and Mac people is that the majority of the world, 90 percent-plus, uses Windows.

So, you can go and be as happy as you want about Linux and Mac and use them, but chances are that most of the people you come across are using Windows and they are going to want to upgrade to Windows 7 when they see it.

I mean Microsoft, when they launched Windows Vista, the campaign was “the wow stuff now” and I remember writing an article saying ” the ow starts now” and it really did because Windows 7 was the version of Vista that should have been available from day one and there are many exciting things, but if you are going to play with it, the release candidate will be available for all on May 5 and, if you have got a spare computer it’s well worth having a look at.

• Windows 7 to one-up Vista, literally
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• Dell tablets to save Vista
• Microsoft’s Vista Plus expansion pack aimed at Vista Basic users
• Windows 7 to have same hardware requirements as Vista