Last month, just a few days after Microsoft made the beta of Windows 7 available [1], I downloaded and installed it on a virtual machine in my Ubuntu installation. I don’t need all those stupid fancy graphics (Aero) or to play video games, so this was to me an acceptable means of testing W7. Installation was a breeze, and once I had the VMWare tools installed in W7 I was ready to go.
First impressions are nearly everything in this game, and two things jumped out right away. The first was, WTF is with the fish? The second thing was, “Hey, they’re using GNOME!”.
Now, while the latter may not be true (as for the first – seriously, WTF is with the fish?) it sure looks like it wants to be. The toolbar is chunky, maybe 36 or 48 pixels high. The way that icons are divided on it is blocky – each icon, no matter what its shape, it fixed inside a rectangular box whose border become apparent when you put the mouse over them. Icon layout on the desktop is blocky. It really reminded me of GNOME 2.4, or thereabouts. In fact, let’s look at some side-by-side screenshots:
The GNOME 2.4 desktop shown is from RedHat linux, many years ago. The behavior of the desktop – making helpful suggestions about installing software, etc. – is more parallel to Ubuntu linux. Really, the other way around – Windows has been making suggestions to the user for a long time (too many, by most accounts). Ubuntu takes the minimum helpful number and makes them, and Windows 7 seems to have been created with a more gentle level of persuasion in mind.
Some have jokingly called for W7 to be “freed” – that is, this beta is so much better than Vista that it should be shipped immediately so that people can get off Vista and onto W7 officially [2]. Whatever. Ubuntu is already released, already actually free, already something you can provide constant feedback on, and something which works reliably for all my day-to-day activities.
Microsoft may be working hard to make a less “in your face” version of Windows, and Windows 7 is definitely a step in the right direction. But making Windows more like the Linux desktop is not going to make me switch to Windows. I’m glad that Windows users will finally have something that works for them, though.
[1] http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/beta-download.aspx
[2] http://www.releasewindows7.com/ and the rebuttal from Paul Thurrott
