The first thing you’ll notice about Windows 7 is that it looks like Vista. It also works like Vista, in the sense that it has the same plumbing underneath, except for a very welcome graphics upgrade to DX11. However, it works much better than Vista, and most of Vista’s annoyances have either been removed, or (mostly) can be changed so the system works the way you like. It takes personalisation to extremes.
Microsoft has analysed the data from millions of user computing sessions to find out exactly what people do with their computers, then attacked the “pain points” to make Windows 7 quicker and smoother. (About 15m people used the Windows 7 beta.)
The most obvious difference is that Windows 7 doesn’t keep annoying you with prompts — though it’s also true that the latest version of Vista is much less annoying than the original…
Continue to Jack Schofield’s in-depth review in The Guardian…