Benchmarks Show Windows 7 Pre-Beta to be Bloated, With Compatibility Issues

jmke · 13th November 2008, 17:45 [**jmke**]

One key Windows 7 feature driven home again and again by Microsoft's Windows team is the superior system performance with respect to Vista. The team, at the recent Professional Developers Conference (PDC), showed off a netbook apparently running the OS smoothly, leading many to hope that their prayers of a smaller-footprint Microsoft OS had been answered.

Unfortunately, it seems the rosy picture painted by the development team at the WinHEC and PDC conferences might have been a bit overly optimistic. InfoWorld has done some extensive early testing on the pre-beta of Windows 7 and the results aren't very impressive in terms of improvement over Vista.
http://www.dailytech.com/Report+Benc...ticle13405.htm

jmke · 13th November 2008, 17:51 [**jmke**]

A followup was posted:

Quote:

Initial reaction to an early report that Microsoft's Windows 7 might share similar performance and compatibility issues with Windows Vista was mixed and heated. Some lamented the inability of running Vista adequately on netbooks or older work computers, while others pointed to the OS's track record.

Due to the strong response, it certainly seems worthwhile to dig into this topic and offer some second thoughts, as well as get some second opinions, to ascertain if InfoWorld's Randall Kennedy was off base, or possibly onto something when he called Windows 7 a "virtual twin of Vista when it comes to performance."

First, let's examine two other early reviews of the pre-Beta of the OS. These reviews come from the blogging staff of PC World and PC Pro, two publications which typically use and appreciate Windows, despite giving it criticism where criticism is due (though both also feature numerous columns from primary Mac and Linux users).

http://www.dailytech.com/Windows+7+B...ticle13406.htm

wutske · 14th November 2008, 09:36 [**wutske**]

It's a pre-beta ... why do they expect it to run without problems ?
I also don't understand why people think a smaller windows kernel improves performance ... what they don't inlcude in the kernel will be available as a dll or service

Kougar · 14th November 2008, 10:54 [**Kougar**]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wutske

It's a pre-beta ... why do they expect it to run without problems ?
I also don't understand why people think a smaller windows kernel improves performance ... what they don't inlcude in the kernel will be available as a dll or service

The smaller kernel is mentioned becaues many people mistakingly thought the "MinWin" kernel project was either the basis of or directly related to Windows 7... when in fact it was nothing of the sort and just an experiment. Quite a few people were hoping to see it meant Vista was going to be thinned down a bit and that was why kernel size was brought up.

As far as bugs go, yeah I'll wait until launch to see how that turns out.