Windows 7 Upgrade Risk and Upgrade Benefit Analysis

Windows 7 is accelerating and will be released in a few months after the official version. For the Windows system, many users, especially enterprise users, often form a habit: no SP1 is not upgraded. But from the analysis of the risks and benefits of user upgrades, we believe that Windows 7 will break this practice, and it will take XP out of the altar date, which will be earlier than people expected.

First, the risk of upgrade

The risk after the upgrade is mainly reflected in: compatibility problems with applications and hardware devices; inconvenience caused by changes in operating habits, causing new hardware costs; For enterprise users, the new operating system can cause problems for deployment, training, and network building (multiple operating systems coexisting). In our opinion, although Vista has been criticized for more than two years, it has prepared enough time for Windows 7 to make the above risks greatly reduced.

Compatibility is not good, but enough.

Compatibility is the most critical factor affecting user upgrades. It determines the user's operating environment (applications, development platforms, hardware drivers, etc.) Whether it can run smoothly on the new operating system. It should be pointed out that compatibility is actually divided into two aspects: on the one hand, whether the new operating system can be backward compatible with the old version of the program, and on the other hand, whether the application, the development platform developer and the hardware manufacturer can timely access the software and hardware. The driver is upgraded to work with the new operating system.

Windows 7 does not revolutionize Vista's basic architecture, so there is no qualitative change to the backward compatibility of older versions of Vista compared to Vista. In other words, there are compatibility issues on Vista. The hardware and software, there is still no hope on Windows 7, especially those products that have been old and have not been updated for a long time; on the contrary, the good software and hardware running on Vista, hopefully continue to perform well on Windows 7, even if there is a problem, It is generally not too difficult to solve.

So, why have users who have experienced Windows 7 generally reflect that it is "compatible with Vista"? In fact, this is the second aspect of "compatibility" at work. Because Vista has a major change in the basic architecture and development concept relative to the "predecessor" XP, coupled with frequent VIP tickets, software developers and hardware drivers have no experience, and some products are not fully tested when Vista is released. , let alone upgrade in time. Today, two and a half years later, the main software and hardware drivers have been extensively tested with Vista and have been upgraded many times. Windows 7, which is the same as Vista, is struggling to avoid the relationship with the former while directly enjoying the hard work of the brothers. country.

Hardware Configuration Most users do not have to upgrade

When Vista was released in early 2007, its recommended configuration is CPU: 1GHz, memory: 1GB, graphics card: 128MB memory + DirectX9 support. The typical configuration of the users at that time was 512MB DDR1 memory, DirectX8 or even lower level graphics cards. Many people chose the latter between spending thousands of upgrades and continuing to use the old configuration.

Windows 7 does not improve the hardware requirements of Vista. The price of memory is comparable to that of cabbage. The low-end integrated motherboard can support DirectX10 today. Even if there are very few users who cannot meet the standard, the cost of upgrading hardware is also It is much lower than two years ago. For enterprises, the update cycle of hardware devices is generally 3 to 4 years. Even if the hardware purchased in 2006 does not support Windows 7, it is a piece of cake to deal with Windows 7 after updating hardware next year.

Usage habits to make up for Vista deficiency, more humane

Vista's most notorious place is UAC (User Account Control). From time to time, the dialog box that asks the user to confirm the operation is not only annoying, but also makes the desktop dark for a long time, and often causes the program to stop responding. On Windows 7, Microsoft adjusts the UAC operation, not only can the desktop be darkened, but also User-friendly to let users choose the frequency of UAC, or even turn it off (not recommended).

Vista often lets users go to find a common operation item or interface, which is optimized in Windows 7, such as the steps to find a wireless network is greatly simplified. The "Shutdown" button in the Start menu on Vista is set to "Hibernate" by default, allowing countless users to faint; in Windows 7, the button is restored to the traditional "Power Off". On Vista, system information is presented in a variety of ways, while on Windows 7, it is concentrated in the Action Center. These changes, while subtle, have effectively compensated for Vista's shortcomings; they are not simply retro, but evolved on the basis of taking care of user habits.

When Vista appears, the default installation of IE7 makes many IE6 XP users feel uncomfortable; while IE8 on Windows 7 has less change in usage habits than IE7, and today IE7 has been accepted by people, Whether XP or Vista users transition to IE8 is not a very difficult thing - once again, Vista plant trees, Windows 7 cool.

Let's take a look at the upgrade benefits of Windows 7.

Second, upgrade benefits

If the risk reduction can dispel the user's upgrade concerns, then the greater revenue will be the motivation for users to upgrade. The XP that came out eight years ago still accounts for nearly two-thirds of the market share. This is a true miracle in the IT world, or it is helpless. Although Vista is not praised, many of its development ideas are still commendable. Therefore, after solving many problems of Vista, Windows 7 has many advantages for XP.

Reliable security and no longer bother users

Older versions of Windows have no restrictions on the operation of administrators (regardless of program or user), malicious programs are easy to be unknown to users. Secretly change the system settings to achieve evil goals. Starting with Vista, Windows restricts the operation of administrator rights, which requires the user to manually confirm before executing. The cost of this new idea is that the UAC window pops up from time to time, and when the user performs operations involving system modifications, it is often necessary to manually execute the "Run as administrator" mode.

In all fairness, this design idea is still very desirable. After all, it does add a lock to the system security. More importantly, it can also force programmers to differentiate between administrators and non-administrators. The habit of permissions, which in turn reduces unnecessary administrator privileges in the running of the program. Compared to radically eliminating malware, what is the UAC confirmation window more than a few times? What's more, Windows 7 goes further on UAC's humanization settings.

Of course, not only UAC, Windows 7's new security features can seamlessly connect to corporate networks and protect data in flash memory.

Architecture makes full use of hardware

Now even those entry-level discrete graphics such as ATI 4650 and NVIDIA 9500 have been able to run DirectX10 games more smoothly, not to mention those with 4850 and 9800. Waiting for users of high-end graphics cards. XP only supports DirectX9. Who can bear to make their graphics card investment greatly discounted?

The memory price has repeatedly dipped, but it has brought new troubles to users: buy 4GB or more memory, money is not a problem, but in Under the 32-bit operating system, the theoretical maximum supported memory capacity is only 4GB, while the actual available capacity is only about 3GB. Now almost all CPUs support 64-bit technology, under the 32-bit operating system, whether it is Core, i7 or Athlon, Phenom can only be 32-bit CPU. Nowadays, whether it is 32 or 64-bit applications, their compatibility on 64-bit operating systems is quite satisfactory. In this case, is it to choose Windows 7 that natively supports 64-bit hardware and software, or is it a half-way XP 64? The answer is self-evident.

In addition, when XP came out in 2001, multi-core CPU, multi-threading, virtualization and other technologies have not appeared on the desktop CPU. Compared with XP, Windows 7 has been native to these new technologies since its inception. Support, good and bad, at a glance.

Product Cycle Multi-party Implicit XP Retirement

XP's mainstream support expires on April 14 this year, and free technical support and hot fixes have been discontinued. According to the law, the earliest next year, the latest year, Microsoft will basically stop the development of XP security patches. And various application and hardware vendors will gradually stop product updates for XP from next year. In fact, notebook users should have already experienced the taste of XP being left out. Many hardware drivers only have the Vista version. When Windows 7 goes on the market, this trend will become more apparent.

Software support, XP's major limit will also come within two years. Remember the fact that Windows 2000 was excluded when Office 2007 was released? In fact, many softwares have gradually begun to abandon XP. For example, Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V does not support XP. Symantec's Norton Enterprise Edition has stopped since 10.2. Support for XP. Therefore, XP after 2010 is likely to become the outcast of the industry, like today's Windows 2000, no matter how brilliant it used to be.

Do not have to wait for SP1: Prepare for upgrades during the year

Every generation of classic Windows almost takes about a year or more to create your own era. The Windows 3 series in the early 1