Windows 7 Performance Guide
by Ryan Smith and Gary Key on October 26, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
What’s New since Win 7 RC
Unlike Vista, which was furiously being developed right through SP1, there’s very little to report for Windows 7 when it comes to what has changed between the release candidate and the final version.
Internally, the issues we encountered with the RC and mentioned in our RC article have been resolved. Our stuttering HTPC no longer stutters, and Windows 7 now recognizes the JMB363 drive controller in one of our test systems correctly. At this point we have yet to encounter any issues that we can chalk up to a bug in Windows 7, which is a very promising sign.
There have been no notable changes to any of the programs or components of Windows 7 compared to the RC beyond simple bug fixes, so if you’ve use the RC then you’re going to find that the release version behaves the same way.
The only new bit of information we have is that last month Microsoft revealed that Windows 7 has greater CableCARD support, which we believe is a product of the new Protected BDA driver subsystem. Unfortunately the Digital Cable Advisor tool needed to enable this feature, and the associated firmware for the ATI Digital Cable TV Wonder (the only CableCARD tuner currently on the market) missed their release date of the 22nd, so there is no way to use this functionality at the moment. We don’t have any idea of when these will become available.
Externally, Microsoft’s hardware and software partners have been getting their houses in to order. Since the driver model s aren’t changing this time around there’s not nearly the kind of churn we saw with Vista. AMD and NVIDIA are the outliers here: they have been pushing out new drivers to support DirectCompute, Media Foundation Transcode, and the other features that are coming with 7 and/or DX11. Anti-virus vendors are the other group that stand to be most affected by the launch of 7, as they have been publishing new versions of their suites that include official support for Windows 7.
Finally, battery life, one of the sore spots with the RC, has finally gotten the kick in the pants we were expecting to see. We’ll get deeper in to this later when we look at benchmarks, but for the time being we’ll note that while the RC offered a battery life similar to Vista, the release version of Windows 7 offers battery life well ahead of Vista in all cases, and depending on the exact hardware used similar to if not better than battery life as compared to XP. It looks like Microsoft and driver authors have finally come through on significantly improving Vista’s lackluster mobile performance.
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jay401 - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
awesome, thanks for the update!MadAd - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
I must have missed that in the feature list- how stupid.6 years of incoming and sent mail history in OE and MS are forcing me to consider alternatives such as thunderbird by not including one.
What strange marketing ideas they have.
BPB - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
Why is downloading it for free such a big deal? This way you aren't stuck with whatever version came with the OS. This way MS can upgrade it and make it easier to stay with a frsh mail client. I really don't get the complaints about that here. It also makes it easier for MS to avoid lawsuits. Can you really blame them for wanting to do all this? Besides, I don't know 1 single solitary user who uses Outlook Express, not one. They all use either Outlook or webmail. Personally I love using plain old Gmail. It's simple to use, and travels with me everywhere I go.7Enigma - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
I missed out on the $50 upgrade deal a couple months ago (literally forgot by 1 day) but since I have Vista and my parents really don't want/need to upgrade their systems I think we could all swallow $150 for the 3 user license (my mom's laptop would especially benefit).My question is since we don't live in the same house/town is that in violation of the family deal? I'd use one license for my computer and the other 2 for my parents computers.
Thanks for this likely simple question, but I'm not about to read a EULA!
nafhan - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
If you know someone with an email address at a university or college, I think you can still buy the student upgrade to Win 7. That's $30.strikeback03 - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
Is an email address all that is required? I have a university email address.Matt Campbell - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
A .edu email is all you'll need. Iirc the terms also stipulate you have to show you're enrolled for at least 0.5 credit hours if Microsoft audits you in the future.strikeback03 - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
lol, I wonder if it would count if I audit a session or two of the class my boss teaches.Matt Campbell - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
The $30 student deal is a great one. However, I would caution people against using the Digital River purchase, it's not a downloadable .iso but rather a "box" file that can't easily be made into a bootable DVD. It's a particularly poor choice for those migrating from a 32-bit OS to a 64-bit as the files often can't even be unpacked. There's more info. online at sevenforums, slickdeals and elsewhere. Microsoft offers the deal directly by calling 1.877.696.7786 (mailed DVD for $35 plus tax), this is probably a better option for most to avoid the hassles.The0ne - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
The files unpack when you run the setup. Windows setup then runs for the unpacked folder. You can quit setup and the folder will be there, ready for you to create an ISO with.