I realized that I finally had to upgrade my Windows installation on my laptop in order to debug my upcoming software release.  For the longest time, since the beginning of my summer trip, I was assuming that a problem that I was having with one of my DLLs was due to my piracy protection software corrupting the file.  In reality, it was, of course, some new weird junk security feature that was introduced on Vista.  Back in China, after tracking the problem down, it was undeniable that fixing it would require me to install a new Microsoft OS.  Folks who know me know that I think that Vista was a horrible release.  Horrible, expensive, lengthy…just bad in every way.  In fact, here’s a Microsoft anecdote:  I can recall sitting in on a meeting with the VP in charge of Vista.  He was shouting and complaing and pleading and asking, “Why can’t we do this?  Apple has been doing this for years?!”  When the explanation came, he put his head in his hands and shook his head back and forth saying, “This is so depressing.”

That says it all.  OK, it’s not news that Vista is junk.  However, I have been surprised by Windows 7.  And it only had to do a few basic things much better:

• Improve the wireless connectivity and interface.  It’s way better on Windows 7; in fact, it’s better than the Mac (can you believe I’m saying that?).  Actually, I’m not sure what this was like on Vista, but it was ridiculous on XP:
  • When you type in the Wireless password, you have to type it in twice!  Why?!  You’re not setting the password, you’re just accessing the wireless network!
  • Once you connect to wireless, the UI is out of sync:  Though the machine is connected to the wireless internet, the button at the bottom says “Disconnect”, while the wireless network says, “Not connected”.
• Improve the stupid “Start” menu.  This was an easy fix and much better in Windows 7.
• Improve the speed.  Windows 7 start up time is similar to XP.
• Improve the worst feature of Vista:  the cumbersome security.  Way better in Windows 7; you barely notice it.  UAC will not become a household acronym.

On top of that, the new taskbar is way better.  It looks great, it’s simple, and accessing your open applications is almost as good as Apple’s Expose.

I’m looking forward to upgrading my desktop machine to Windows 7.  I’ll do that as soon as the product is officially released.  I’ve been running XP SP1 (yes, that’s SP1) for a long time now.  When I tried installing SP2, the machine wouldn’t boot.  From that and other lessons like that, I’ve also always turned off system updates.  But, I’m beginning to hope again with Windows 7.