Maybe I was one of the few, but I didn’t get why everybody hated Vista so much…until Windows 7 appeared. I was one of the few that liked Vista despite its many faults. The glass windows and renewed UI was welcome after staring at the bright blues and greens of XP for so many years. Other than the many changes in appearance, perhaps the biggest area for improvement in Windows Vista was in system performance. We’ll take a quick look at a few areas where Windows 7 makes Vista look like a 300 pound man trying to run a marathon.

Installation – Windows installation has been given a boost in speed when compared to both XP and Vista. On most systems, you can expect a 20-30 minute installation. Installation had been consolidated in Vista and even more so in Windows 7. Only a few setup options to click through and now you can make lunch while Windows loads.

Startup & Shutdown – The first thing a user notices when booting into an OS is the amount of time it takes to be on a working desktop. No one wants to sit there and stare at a Windows loading bar for 2-3 minutes while their hard drive clicks and spins its way to a half-loaded desktop only to watch an hourglass do somersaults for another minute. This has been greatly improved in the new OS. Startup times have been cut in half in most cases. On newer hardware, it’s not unusual to experience a 30-40 second startup time and once you hit the desktop, you should be ready to hit the ground running.

Hibernation and Sleep – If you were a lucky user, in previous installations of Windows, your computer might wake up from its sleep or hibernation state. I cannot recall how many times I left my computer only to return to a black screen and blinking power light. I would eventually have to turn off the computer entirely or turn off the sleep feature in order to avoid this. It is time to say goodbye to the forever sleep of Windows past. Windows 7 not only returns from sleep and hibernation, but it does so with the quickness of a Leopard or “Snow Leopard”.

Overall system performance – There are so many areas where Windows 7 has improved its performance over its predecessors that it could be an article in itself. Program installation, file manipulation, video encoding, USB devices, networking and Aero have all seen their fair share of speed increases. How Windows was able to increase the speed of everything across the board and decrease resource usage and the Windows footprint is a technological miracle in itself, but to create an improved version of Windows that performs even better on older hardware seems like an act of God.

Windows 7 faster than a Snow Leopard? Maybe. Only time will tell, but it’s not a bad start.

One more thing:

I Installed Windows 7 on my brothers 8 year old Compaq PC whose only upgrade was a Nvidia 6800GT graphics card. Needless to say, months later he is reporting that the system runs much better than it did with XP and plans to purchase the full edition once his trial runs its course.

How about you? Any remarkable stories of Windows 7 reviving a dead PC.