Windows on the World

Looking back at the first blog entries, I've noticed that not one mention has been made about some of the more frivolous features of Windows 7. Things like the introduction of a native sticky notes application for instance, or the slideshow-enabled capabilities of the desktop wallpaper. You know, the sorts of things that add a certain glossy to an otherwise functional but boring interface environment.

Not that Win7's environment is dull. Far from it.

In fact, there are one or rumbles around the office that Win7's visual slickness – of course, in no way linked to Microsoft's ongoing desire to compete with Apple's OS X – gives it (like Vista before it) an air of superficiality. Calls for an interface option that reduces the GUI to more of a Windows 2000 or NT feel would apparently be most welcomed.

The Windows Aero interface, first introduced in Windows Vista two years ago, naturally makes reappearance in Win7. It's glassy translucent effects and 3D flips surround and bind the interface like The Force, but sadly isn't available on the low spec laptop I'm using to test the OS' scalability (see a previous post). Comparing the look of Windows over the years – my first encounter was in 1992 and version 3.1 of the operating system as an 11-year old – it's come a long, long way since then.

Windows 95 and Windows XP set things on the right way, though I still remember disliking Win '95 at first. The change from the grey squares of Win 3.11 to this multi-coloured rainbow of colours, with the blue taskbar, green Start button, and the 'My Computer' shortcut, all felt in my adolescent angst a little too PlaySkool...

...that angst, thankfully, didn't last too many years.

Since then, the Windows GUI has done nothing but improve, with Win '95 surpassing the old-fashioned looks of rival Apple's grey OS9. That all changed in Spring 2001 with the advent of OS X, its dock, and slick 'aqua' interface, kicking off the current GUI-wars. Just months later, in October 2001, Microsoft released Windows XP. It wasn't until the launch of 'RMS Titanic', Vista, that the Redmond company introduced its own visual icing, Aero.

With all of Vista's PR problems since its launch, the addition of Aero betrayed the fact it was more style over substance. Now that Win7 seems to have remedied the ills of predecessor, hopefully Microsoft will have its first complete OS package since 2001...though to be fair, with XP's reliance on three Service Packs in seven years, perhaps Win 7 is the first since Windows 3.1.