Top 7 Differences Between Windows 7 and Vista

Windows 7 has upgraded the pop-up message when connecting a device, as more drivers will be supported. The new operating system will have more device specific options including links to manufacturer's website which will allow you to see additional related software that supports the device.

Of course, the biggest difference between Windows 7 and Vista has got to be the User Access Control. More particularly, Windows 7 will no longer display a blank screen whenever you are installing a new program, requiring user action before it executes the command. It will only display the message without asking for your action. This would also apply when changing user settings.

Another annoying feature of Windows Vista is the taskbar located at the lower left side of your screen. Whereas before you couldn't select which icons to display on this taskbar, Windows 7 will now allow you to do so. You can disable any of those program icons at will leaving you with less annoying notifications while working. Even the arrow that expands the list when you click on it will be changed to a pop-up message that appears when you mouse over the area.

My favorite Windows 7 improvement has got to be this one - a lesser storage space requirement. We all know that Vista eats up a huge amount of space on your hard drive, something around 13.3GB. With Windows 7, the storage requirement has been reduced to around 7.4GB. In addition, the program files folder was significantly reduced in size. Less storage requirement equates to faster performance.

Boot animation may not concern many Windows users, but to some this is an all important improvement. The Pearl animation was totally taken out. The new boot animation sequence will start by displaying four colored dots that combine together to form the Windows logo which, incidentally, was greatly improved as well.

One problem that we found with Vista, of course, was with performance. Vista loads so many programs at start-up that it creates an annoyingly slow boot-up sequence. Windows 7 will address this Vista flaw with fewer services that will launch at start-up, and these services will run in parallel. Hence, this results in a faster boot-up sequence leading to a more compact and yet very efficient Windows 7 OS. Microsoft also promises fewer system crashes in Windows 7 than in Windows Vista.

Other new features of Windows 7 include multi-touch capability for all supported hardware, improved transparent Aero Peek, and an enhanced Media Center. Windows 7's multi-touch capability is what's going to define the OS from previous Windows operating systems while the enhanced Media Center will feature Internet TV that is capable of telecasting MSN channels by default.

It's still not the right time to judge whether Windows 7 will totally erase the blunder made by Microsoft with Vista. Windows 7 is still in beta test mode and the full version is yet to come. But one thing is for sure, Windows 7 will definitely create a craze once it is released for public consumption. Microsoft has found a very strong ally in the PC market - the netbook industry. With full support for netbooks, Windows 7 is assured of a captured market. The rest will just have to adapt to the changes created by Windows 7 in the computer OS industry.