Windows 7

It is way more expensive than Windows Vista, but it can make your PC experience better.

It is good to see a large company like Microsoft listen to its partners and customers say that maybe Vista was a mistake. After running the longest ever beta test in the history of an infotech product, on 22 October 2009, Microsoft launched Windows 7 worldwide.

Priced at Rs 5,899 for the Home Basic, it is more expensive than Windows Vista, but it can make your PC experience better. Vista was slow, so what you immediately notice is that start up, shut down and copying files is much faster with Windows 7 on a machine which was previously running Vista. The Windows taskbar is redesigned and is more Mac-like, so you can drag and drop programmes or documents to it. Those pesky balloon with messages, which keep coming up with messages, have largely been done away with. Now they will all be queued up in the taskbar, for you to see later, and only urgent messages will be displayed. Those familiar with the Apple Mac OS Expose will find the Aero to be very similar. You can move your mouse on the taskbar to see a live preview of all the open windows of the programme. What was surprising was that Microsoft decided not to ship a mail client. They want you to download it.

Though Windows 7 is very refreshing, we still have to see what bugs it springs forth. As for me, I am still on a Mac. But for my office I have already asked the people on Vista to move to Windows 7.

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