Apple is getting a lot of media and online love today, especially as rumors circulate about possible updates to the iPod and iTunes store. But until Steve Jobs and company actually unveil something at today's "It's Only Rock and Roll" media event, I'm going to save my loving for Windows 7, the next version of Microsoft's operating system. It ships Oct. 22, and the buzz is already building around this new OS, and rightfully so. I've been using Windows 7 for several months, first in its "beta" form and then in the "release candidate" form, and you know what? It's nice. It's really nice. I think it's going to give Microsoft and its PC maker partners a huge boost this holiday season.
Windows 7 is fast, and has a great new user interface. I liked it when I was running it on a pair of older machines that used to run Windows XP. But when I ran it on a brand new machine I was blown away. With that machine hooked to my 28-inch monitor, the effect is spellbinding.
Put it this way: I'm a pretty hardcore Macintosh fan, and ever since I got this AMD machine hooked to my big monitor, my 15-inch MacBook Pro just sits there on the desk, looking kind of tired and sad. That MacBook Pro was a sexy machine when I got it just over a year ago. And it has been great: solid, dependable, reliable, trustworthy. But now it sits on my desk giving me dirty looks, as if I'm cheating on it with this sexy high-powered PC. I want to say to it, "Hey, it's not you, it's me. Seriously."
I can't begin to tell you how upsetting it is to have my world turned upside down like this. Sure, Apple's got Snow Leopard. And Apple fans aren't going to leave the Apple fold just because Microsoft has put out a nice new version of Windows.
The real impact of Windows 7 will be felt by the 90-plus percent of the people on the planet who don't use Apple computers. Those folks, trust me, are in for a treat. The machine I'm using right now has one of AMD's fastest quad-core processors, plus 4 gigabytes of RAM, and AMD's fastest graphics card, and it runs a 64-bit version of Windows. Maybe because I spend so much time in Apple-land, I figured this thing must cost a few thousand bucks. But according to the folks at AMD, it would sell for about a thousand dollars. That kind of price-performance blows my mind. It would have been unthinkable only a few years ago.
Better yet, it's the nature of the computer industry that today's "high end" configuration is tomorrow's standard machine. Pretty soon, the power I have here in this PC will be selling at big box retailers for five hundred bucks. When that happens everyone will have a rocketship like this sitting on their desk. And that, my friends, is reason to keep on living.
Nevertheless, some people are griping. Walt Mossberg, tech reviewer for the Wall Street Journal, says it's going to be a pain in the neck for Windows XP users to migrate to Windows 7.
That's kind of like criticizing a new BMW by saying that people driving 10-year-old Subarus will need some time to adjust to all the snazzy electronics. I mean, okay, sure, there will be some migration issues. Moving from Vista, the current version of Windows, will be a piece of cake, and hallelujah for that -- because honestly, if you're one of the poor souls who are running that god-awful abortion of an operating system, you deserve at least an easy way to get rid of it. (Frankly I think you deserve a free copy of Win7, but don't hold your breath on that one.)
But yes, if you're running XP -- an OS that was first introduced eight years ago, in 2001 -- then migrating to Win7 won't be easy. You can't just pop inthe disk and upgrade the OS and leave everything untouched. You have to do a "clean install," meaning you have to wipe everything off your computer's hard disk and then install Win7, and then replace all the stuff you had on there before -- all your apps, all your data.
But so what? For one thing, if you're a little bit tech savvy you'll be able to do it yourself in a couple of hours. If you're not tech savvy,you can hire someone to do it for you. There's this place called Geek Squad. Have you heard of it? Bring your old mangy PC to a Best Buy store and take it to the Geek Squad desk. Buy your copy of Win7 and pay a little bit extra to have the nerds there install it for you and put back all your data.
There's also another option, which I pretty much recommend if you're running XP: Do nothing. Leave XP on your machine and live with it. XP worksfine. Don't bother trying to jam Win7 onto that machine. For one thing,if your PC is more than two years old, it probably doesn't have enough processing power and memory to really run Win7 very well. Also, if your PC is more than two years old, well, shame on you. Go get a new machine, with Windows 7.
Ah, but what about the netbook owners? Mossberg points out that there are millions of folks who have just recently bought brand-new netbooks with Windows XP, and those people will have an extra challenge when it comes to migrating to Win7 -- because most of these netbooks don't have a DVD drive, so the only way you can load in the Win7 installation disk is to go buy an external drive.
But listen up: If you're running some puny, underpowered netbook, you're probably not the migrating type. What you are, in fact, is a cheapskate. You bought a machine that cost $399. You did this knowing there were many things this machine can't do. Like watch movies on DVDs. Or install software. Or do anything that requires a little bit of processing power. So what do you care if there's some snazzy new OS out there? It ain't for you. Deal with it, cheapo.
The fact is, the migration issue is besidethe point. Sure, Microsoft goes to great lengths to talk about backwardcompatibility, but the reality is, this is an operating system that islooking to the future. It runs well on hardware that's less than twoyears old. But where it's really going to shine is on new machines thatare built to run it and ship with it pre-loaded.
Thegood news is, your next PC is going to rock. That's something thatMicrosoft and its PC-maker partners haven't been able to say since, oh,January 2007, when Vista -- codenamed: "Vistaster" -- made its debut.And that alone is cause for celebration -- not just for the folks inRedmond, Wash., but for the rest of us, too.
