Windows 7 Revelations and Pitfalls – What you Need to Know
Window 7 Beta – Awesome Potential, Key Issues. If you’re like me, you’ve been stuck in Windows XP for a few years and have avoided Vista based on all of the bad press it has received since it was initially launched. I have friends that have been using Vista for a while and have made peace with it, but the Microsoft OS I’ve been most interested in is Windows 7. I finally took the plunge, and have some key findings for other super “power users” like me.
Why do I care about Windows 7?
I’m an open source fan stuck in Windows XP because of…
- The need to support a lot of Windows users
- The need to efficiently run key application software (like MS Office, Adobe CS, Quickbooks Premier, etc.)
- Access to key shareware and freeware that is Windows only
- The desire to sneak in the occasional game without time wasted closing tons of apps and rebooting
Sure, I know that most of my software can run on a Mac or even Linux with VMware, but I’ve found that I am very sensitive to UI latency and application performance. Running these programs under VMware on a daily basis simply requires more patience than I can muster, and I can’t afford to spend several thousand dollars to buy Mac versions of my apps right now. After much testing I have grudgingly found that a Windows desktop with VMware running Linux (and other guests) gives me the best mix of convenience and productivity.
The problem: Simply put, 32-bit Windows XP had begun to really blow in terms of performance. I frequently had my entire 3GB of memory used up (and a substantial amount of my page file) with dozens of large applications loaded. My laptop (Lenovo Thinkpad T60) can hold up to 4GB, but not with 32-bit Windows XP. Even before I launched a single client app, my Windows XP workstation took about eight minutes from hitting the power button to having all drivers and startup applications loaded and the hard drive idle (That’s with a Seagate ST9160411ASG 160GB 7200 RPM boot drive which was the king of mobile drives on Tom’s Hardware just a couple of years ago). Once everything was loaded, I had frequent multi-second pauses that made day-to-day document editing, mail checking and Eclipse compilation a real chore. I knew that I needed to look at an SSD to fix my IO performance issues, but if I was going to go through an OS reinstall, perhaps it was time to look at a new 64-bit OS to unlock some more memory. Windows 7 seemed to be the perfect choice.
The good (aka Windows 7 is FAST)
Windows 7 installation is quick. I installed the core operating system on a new Corsair S128 SSD I purchased in about 15 minutes. After becoming accustomed to the 30-45 minute installs for prior versions of windows, this was a real treat.
Windows 7 Installation Screen
Windows 7 startup and shutdown performance is amazing. In my testing, I was getting from power button to a usable desktop in under 20 seconds and shutdowns just as fast or faster. Apparently the startup performance is due to optimizations of things like parallel driver loading/unloading, etc, but I can say Windows 7 screams on startup and shutdown.
The UI and usability tweaks are quite nice. Compared to Vista, there are far fewer of those annoying “do you want to do the thing you just tried to do?” modal confirmation dialogs. All UI operations seem to be instantaneous with no lag or delay, and application launches are much more “snappy”.
The Bad
Windows 7 is not currently compatible with VMware networking 
For me, this was the deal breaker. I use VMware almost constantly for remote access to our production environment(s) and to test other guest operating systems that our customers are using. Regardless of whether I’m browsing or in an xterm using SSH, networking is a critical. Because I tend to be in a variety of places (in my office, in a coffee shop, at a pub) using a mixture of hard wire and public wifi, I need NAT to keep my networking configs portable. This workaround allows you to use a hacked version of host-only network sharing, but it was sadly not adequate for me. If you need VMware with networking, you can:
- Stick with XP or Vista
- Use the ugly hack above and live with the limitations of a static IP
- Wait for a future release of VMware or Windows 7 (or both) with compatibility issues addressed
Windows 7 ran really hot on my Thinkpad. When docked, my laptop would occasionally go to sleep because it was getting frying-pan hot. In retrospect, I think this was primarily due to the fact that I never got all of the drivers installed (some chipset, video and other drivers and patches would probably have made a big difference here).
Conclusion
Windows 7 is very stable for a Beta, but it’s beta software. No complaints from me – It’s a great beta, but not be used for your primary desktop (if I ever expected otherwise, it’s mea culpa). If Windows 7 keeps its current performance chops and VMware becomes compatible with it, I’ll be upgrading ASAP. The OS bloat may still be there, but you certainly don’t see it in Windows 7 – The performance improvements are huge and would save somebody like me literally hours a week. If you need a new operating system immediately, you will probably need to make the interim jump to Vista (64-bit in my case), but you’ll want to put some money back for a Windows 7 upgrade shortly thereafter (as I am).
