Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium

My first ever Ciao review.

In July, I downloaded the Release Candidate of Windows 7 to evaluate the new operating system and I have to say it's the best version of Windows yet! It surpasses Vista in every way. Windows 7 is not available yet but I'm encouraging all Vista uers to upgrade in October as soon as the software is released. In the rest of my review I will outline some of the key features.

For starters, the toolbar has been changed dramatically. In previous versions of windows, the active windows (i.e. open programs and applications) would appear seperately as tabs with the symbols and titles of the programs (with the option to group similar windows together under one tab, such as all the internet explorers open). In Windows 7, the toolbar features the start button (the windows logo), followed by programs pinned to the taskbar and open programs, then the notification area and time/date (both of which have featured on all previous toolbars). In the far right corner of the toolbar is a small button which reveals the desktop when pressed.

My favourite part of the toolbar is the way the programs are set out. As I mentioned earlier, programs can be pinned to the toolbar which allows you to quickly access them. When it's first installed, the programs pinned to the toolbar are Internet Explorer, Windows Explorer and Windows Media Player. I am a keen programmer with little use for Windows Media Player so I've removed it from the taskbar and replaced it with Visual Basic and Visual C++ as they are two of the programs I use most often. The programs appear only as icons (i.e. Internet Explorer only appears as the "e" icon and doesn't have any description of the open application). This means more items will fit onto the taskbar so if you're like me and have loads of applications running at the one time, you can easily get to what you want without having to search for it. All open windows of the same program are grouped together under the one icon. However, with internet explorer and other tabbed programs, you are shown which tabs are open, not the windows. I'm not sure if I've explained this as well as I could have but believe me it's one of the best new features.

Another excellent feature of the new operating system is the level of personalisation available. I like things kept simple - I can't stand some of the desktop images you see in some of the previews of Windows 7 but I discovered that the images are really quite simple and the screensavers are very basic - nothing flashy or extravagant. The best part of personalisation is themes. Remember the wide variety of themes in 98? Well, some of them have made their way onto Windows 7. I am told some computers came with themes in both XP and Vista but of the 4 PCs I've had on both platforms, none have had themes. My favourite theme is the United Kingdom one. It has an assortment of UK landmarks for the desktop image which rotate every 30 minutes so the desktop doesn't really get boring (unless, like me, you spend every spare moment in front of a computer screen).

One thing I dislike about Windows 7 is that it is basically just the same as Vista. Apart from a few name changes and completely new layout, there aren't many differences. If you have got Vista, it's a bit of a waste of money upgrading when you've already got all the features. You'll notice this is only a small paragraph as I can find little else to fault Windows 7 on.

I love the new design of Windows 7 - it's much tidier than Vista and far more efficient. I'd recommend anyone who's on XP or earlier to think about upgrading but if you're using Vista, you've got all the features of 7 already so you may want to think twice before investing fortunes in the new operating system.

13.09.2009: I've added some screenshots of Windows 7. Not all of them have something to do with my review but they do illustrate my point that Windows 7 is an excellent operating system.