Windows 7 Search

One thing which always bugged me about the Windows Search technology in Windows Vista was the unintuitiveness. Don’t get me wrong, I think integrated search is clearly one of the best features of Vista and I use it constantly – I would hate to have to go back to Windows XP even with Windows Search.

What I found lacking however was the ‘semantic’ aspect of the search technology… the ability to know what it was someone, particularly a non power-user, was looking for. Take for example something as simple as wanting to uninstall a program from your computer.

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A Tight-Lipped Interview with Steven Sinofsky

After reading Ina Fried’s interview with Steven Sinofsky I have one recommendation. Don’t bother.

Sinofsky, head of Windows engineering over at Microsoft, gave the most corporate, double-talking interview I have ever heard. In a discussion that must have taken ten minutes, Sinofsky took questions about the secretive nature of Windows 7 development, the timing of the release, and new features to expect out of the box.

By “took questions,” by the way, I mean he allowed them to be said in front of him. Sinofsky answered virtually none of the questions of any importance to those watching the development of the new OS. Much of the interview was spent identifying why his division has been so tight-lipped throughout early development. His reply to that went mostly along the lines of “we’re talking to people…hardware developers…software developers…our other friends…just not you.” It seems Microsoft’s formula for sucess with Windows 7 is to produce no expectations whatsoever, so when it finally appears its mere existence will constitute a salable feature.

Even on points of general philosophy about the release, Sinofsky dodged with comments about “making the best product they can” and so forth. On their direction with growth to new user groups he said,

“…I think what I would say is that we’re talking about different types of customers, and different types of customers have different needs for information and are able to absorb it in a way that I think is mutually responsible.”

If you can get anything out of that vague mess it might be “different strokes for different folks.” Either their new philosophy is still in the works or they don’t have one at all.

He did confirm that the target release date is still the end of January 2010. In most of the commentary I have seen, this release date is a terrible choice for the consumer market because it (just as with Vista) bypassed the entire holiday buying season. A release around September 2009 would be much more reasonable for said buying season, but clearly they do not believe it will be ready. If this is the case, why pick January? Wouldn’t June or September 2010 be much more reasonable times to push Windows 7 into the marketplace?

One of the bright spots of the inteview is that upon release, Windows 7 shouldn’t be fraught with the same issues that Vista had. Electronista points out that, based on what Microsoft has indicated, the drivers and features of Windows 7 will be readily available to developers so that it will be more reliable and noticably better than Vista out of the box. Many of the best features of Vista, like DirectX 10, have yet to be seriously implemented by software developers.

For further reading on the Sinofsky interview check out Ina Fried’s own take on it as well as the aforementioned Electronista article.

There is definitely a possibility that we will hear at least a little more about Windows 7 soon though. The D6 conference (tonight as I’m writing this) will feature Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates on stage and the All Things Digital blog confirms that Windows 7 will not only be discussed, but some of the user interface will be demonstrated as well. Definitely check back with Shipping Seven later on today and tomorrow for coverage of any announcements regarding Microsoft’s next racehorse.

• Jimmy Rogers is a freelance technology blogger and the author of his own blog, Mason Tech Beat.

Windows 7 Transformation Pack

Oh boy.

I knew it wouldn’t be long before some people began doing this stuff. I’ve compiled together these few downloads so you too can have the almost-Vista experience of Windows 7.

Visual Theme:

Windows Seven Theme for Vista by ~vistaaero on deviantART

Sidebar Gadgets:

Windows Seven Gadgets by ~vistaaero on deviantART

Build Number on Desktop

Windows Seven Build in desktop by ~vistaaero on deviantART

Windows 7 About Box

Windows Seven M1 AboutBox by ~vistaaero on deviantART

Windows 7 Animated Logon

Windows Seven Animated Logon by ~vistaaero on deviantART

Feedback Report

Windows Seven Feedback Report by ~vistaaero on deviantART

Windows 7: Radical UI Change

My previous post provided showed some of the subtle visual style changes to the Windows theme that have been revealed in the Windows 7 Milestone 1.

The theme is simply a part of the Graphical User Interface of an operating system. The theme is what affects aesthetics and makes the system more appealing to use. It is a part of the User Interface. The complete UI is the system by which users can execute actions and interact with their computer.

The theme itself actually has little or no bearing on productivity. For example Windows XP can be used in either the Luna interface or Windows classic. They look different but function in exactly the same way.

The question then isn’t really about what Windows 7 will look like… as clearly there will be various cosmetic changes, but wether it will additionally feature a complete new UI.

Some have suggested that the news of Julie Larson-Green joining the “Windows User

Experience” and of Steven Sinofsky being in charge of the Windows 7 interface indicates a dramatic change for the UI of upcoming operating system. While this is somewhat likely, the main cause of this conclusion is from the following Microsoft advertisement:

“Come lead the effort to update the Windows 7 platform with the latest advancements in User Interface design. Bring the Ribbon, Jewel, and other new UI concepts to the Windows platform.”

This advertisement for software engineers and programmers is fairly good reason to believe Windows 7 will incorporate a number of changes to the UI, but not in a ‘tear up the guidelines’ kind of way as has been suggested in this article and here:

We knew that Windows 7 would look different from Vista and its other Windows ancestors. Now it’s becoming clear just how different that will be. The next generation of Windows, due around 2010-2011, will sport a radical facelift that borrows elements such as Office 2007’s ‘ribbon’ toolbar and the orb-like ‘jewel’ application menu. More than that, the UI will be based on XML and what Microsoft describes as “a small, high performance, native code runtime” rather than the Win32 framework, in order to deliver a “rich, graphical, animated user interface”. In shorthand: think functional, flashy and fast.

Well I’m sorry but before we get too excited over this maybe we should think for a moment about certain user interface revisions of late that didn’t go down too well. Vista had integrated search, a streamlined start menu and numerous other changes which merely resulted in a general “so what?”

If you have the idea that Windows 7 will be a radical departure from everything that we have known then I would suggest instead it will be a consolidation of the changes that occurred in Vista and the major UI refresh will be for Windows 8.

So with Windows 7 don’t expect something like the fake screenshots below. It’s nice to think of Microsoft secretly working away on some killer productivity boosting UI, but I doubt very much in this being a reality.

So what is Sinofsky referring to then?

Well Windows 7 will be a continuation of what Vista has started. Vista already began an “advancement” of the user interface design and already incorporates elements of these concepts. Looking at it from the point of view that it would seem Windows 7 is a minor update to Vista then it would make sense.

More details on this soon with part 3, subscribe to our feed to get the latest news on Windows 7.

Windows 7: Some Visual Changes

The Graphical User Interface (GUI) is the system that allows anyone to interact with a computer or device. The aspect of the GUI that most average users are aware of is predominantly the themes and skins that make up the look and feel of an operating system.

A Short History

Windows 95 introduced the interface that would become the default Windows theme for the next 6 years. A few changes were made here and there such the addition of shadows under mouse pointers in Windows 2000.

However the next major change was with Windows XP which introduced a significantly different interface that was much more graphically focused. Sometimes derided for having the “Fischer-Price” look, XP was the first real attempt Microsoft made at making Windows more attractive appealing for the consumer.

5 years later Windows Vista introduced a brand new interface named Windows Aero. Aero was the name of both the theme and a completely rewritten graphical system to control the composting drawing of windows. Aero featured transparency, vector based icons, animations and a 3D interface which was much more aesthetically pleasing, but also required more system resources

Much of the criticism has been of the perceived slow-down due to Aero requiring much more system resources. although in reality it often has less of an effect then is often suggested.

Windows 7

Windows 7 is likely to be an evolution of the interface rather then any kind of dramatic change. Considering the 6 year gap between the introduction of Windows classic and Luna, and the 5 years between Luna and Aero we can assume that Windows 7 will have some minor changes including a number of tweaks and refinements.

Vista provided the necessary technology with its new graphical system for Windows to be capable of taking advantage of the generation of hardware.

In Windows build 6519 a number of small visual style changes where picked up on by Raiker, a Russian blogger who wrote a detailed review of the leaked operating system. You can see some of the examples below:

As you can see from these two screenshots; the Windows 7 taskbar to the right is significantly more transparent then in the Vista screenshot.

Another change is the addition of a new blue aurora style background to some of the windows. The green window on the left is a screenshot from Vista on my computer, the blue window is from the Windows 7 screenshots.

Vista switches between solid colour and transparency depending on wether the windows is maximized or not. You can see in the screenshots below that Milestone 1 remains transparent when maximized, although wether this is simply a bug or deliberate remains to be seen.

These are, as has been said, very minor visual style changes. In a future article we will be going into a great deal more depth on the Windows 7 UI and some of the more major changes that may be coming and have already been released.

An anonymous poster going by the name MSBob made the following comment on istartedsomething:

“The thing to remember, however, is that this is the end of M1 (i.e. milestone 1), and there are three milestones. There won’t be any major visual refresh until after M2 (i.e., everything will be implemented with the Vista look-and-feel until after M2). Whatever the new visual look of Win7 will be will be kept under wraps for quite a while. This is no different from Luna for XP and Aero for Vista.”

So It’s worth keeping in mind that nothing you see in these early builds has any permanency or guarantee of making it to the final product. However there are a great deal of other interesting changes, so subscribe to our feed and check back soon.

Sources:
Wikipedia images: 95 desktop, XP Desktop, Vista Desktop
istartedsomething
What’s Next?

Windows 7 Release Date

This debate has died down somewhat in the last couple weeks, but I think it’s necessary to bring this blog up to speed.

“When will Windows 7 be released?”

It’s a question everyone has been arguing over for months. “Will it be early?” “Will it be late?” Can Microsoft keep to a deadline?”

Now personally I really don’t care. Late 2009, 2010… whatever, it makes little difference to me, but it does matter to the big businesses who run Windows.

Why does it matter?

It matters because Vista, the operating system fresh in everyone’s minds, was plagued by countless delays and setbacks before eventually being released 5 years after Microsoft’s previous major release; Windows XP.

The issue with this is that the large corporations that make up much of Microsoft’s annual revenue have strict upgrade cycles. If Microsoft cannot guarantee OS deadlines then this creates a number of issues for rolling out new systems.

Should companies upgrade now? or wait for the next OS? Will the next OS even be worth upgrading to? These are not questions businesses purchasing millions of dollars worth of computers and software want to be worrying about.

Aside from being late Vista also set a bad precedent for both stability and performance. Vista may have been no buggier then the initial release of Windows XP, but businesses don’t want to rolling out systems they then have to spend more money trying to get running correctly.

So when will it be released?

Microsoft has not made any confirmations or announcements concerning the Windows 7 release date no matter what you have heard.

Bill gates made an offhand comment that Windows would

“Arrive in the next year or so”

Which of course immediately got the tech world buzzing about Windows 7 arriving in 2009 sometime, ahead of schedule. Microsoft’s response was both generic and meaningless:

“We are currently in the planning stages for Windows 7 and development is scoped to three years from Windows Vista Consumer GA. As is standard with the release of a new product, we will be releasing early builds of Windows 7 prior to its General Availability as a means to gain tester feedback. We’re not sharing additional information at this time.”

In other words Microsoft is following the same development pattern as it does for all its major OS (Vista an exception) and will be releasing early builds… earlier.

However… January 2010 is unlikely to be a potential release date for a number of reasons as outlined by Ed Bott. It makes sense of course, because releasing Windows in January will completely miss the holiday season.

That leaves 2 options… a later release (not a good idea) or an earlier release; in time for the Christmas season. An earlier release however leaves the chance of increased bugginess and compatibility issues, which after Vista Microsoft has to avoid.

Add to this the fact that Vista is not a major OS release like XP and Vista where. Instead it will essentially be a minor upgrade similar to Windows 98. There will be some new features, better performance and none of the compatibility issues that dogged Vista at its release. This means a 2009 release should be quite achievable.

But, really…who knows?