Before publishing stories on my website, I wrote for my high school’s newspaper. I went even as far as becoming the Editor my Senior year. During that time, I wrote two stories that pertained to Windows XP. One was the history of its development, and the other explained why so many people still use the operating system. Both articles mentioned the development history of Microsoft’s new operating system back then but didn’t necessarily go into detail about it. Looking back on the days when using a computer was still new to me, I recall migrating from Windows XP to Windows 7 in middle school. So it seems appropriate to explain why so many people, including myself, value Windows 7. Additionally, I’ll explain its development history as a tribute to the early days when I started writing.
Windows 7 was an operating system Microsoft released in 2009 that has widely been considered the best version of Windows ever made. While that might seem to be overrated, several factors contribute to its popularity. One prominent one is nostalgia. Many critics praised the OS for its slick design, easy-to-use desktop interface, and its implementation of features that made it much more similar to competing operating systems at the time, such as Apple’s macOS 10. NBC News columnist Gary Krakow described his first experience with Windows 7 as “clean, clear, and just a pleasure.” He went even further explaining that Windows 7 was a “Terrific, terrific, operating system.” and that it apparently “…took Bill Gates leaving the company for [Microsoft] to get it right.” If you have previously read my other articles on Windows, you may recall this statement is in reference to Microsoft’s previous OS release, Windows Vista. I mentioned in my story why so many people stayed with Windows XP due to the negative reviews Vista was getting. Furthermore, when Windows 7 was released, many people were hesitant to upgrade. This was because both operating systems were identical to each other. Even the famous Aero Theme can be seen on both desktops. Three years prior, Krakow had described Windows Vista as one of the worst operating systems experiences that he’d ever encountered. Calling Windows 7 a rebranded Windows Vista would be very reductive in not telling the full story, but the failure of Windows Vista plays an integral role in Windows 7’s success. But at the same time, looking at it, it’s hard to see why that’s the case. When looking at an operating system such as Windows Vista in retrospect, we can appreciate the features introduced at the time that we now take for granted. When Windows Vista was released in November 2006, Windows XP was the most commonly used operating system. Vista was able to solve several problems that Windows XP had. We were introduced to a more contemporary design, navigation included in the Start menu, and a better File Explorer. Yet Vista has become an object of mockery in ridicule while Windows 7 which possessed all these features, would be met with unanimous praise two years later. Not only will this article explain the history of Microsoft’s most beloved operating systems, but it’ll also explain how the design set the foundation for all future Windows operating systems we use.
The History & Success of Windows 7.
In the simplest of terms, the success of Windows 7 relied on three components. It came out at the right time, made Windows easier to use, and nostalgic memories. However, this leaves out important information. In order to fully understand how these three factors come into play, this requires general knowledge of the development process of Windows 7. This not only started before the release of Windows Vista but even before the release of Windows XP in 2001. Windows 7’s development started at around the same time as Windows Vista’s development started. But at the time, Microsoft wasn’t aware of this. In a lot of ways, Windows 7 was created by accident. Back in the 90s, Microsoft had a different vision for Windows, and what direction they had for Windows for the next decade. At the time, they were going to release three different versions of Windows. Windows Whistler, Windows Longhorn, and Windows Blackcomb. As you may already have noticed, Windows Vista has been mentioned several times. This is because of the overlap between Windows Vista and 7. In short, there were several factors that interfered with this vision for Windows that Microsoft put together, primarily that was bad planning and perfectionism.
First off, two of these releases were meant to be big, entirely new versions of Windows. Whistler and Blackcomb. Windows Longhorn essentially was going to be an incremental update, like the equivalent of Microsoft releasing Windows 98, then releasing Windows 98 SE a year later. They’re different, but more or less the same. Whistler would be released in 2001 as XP. Now the next big version was going to be Blackcomb. Scheduled for release later in 2002, but Windows XP had just come out. Microsoft realized its plans were way too ambitious and that they were moving way too fast. So it was decided to postpone the release of Blackcomb and focus more on their smaller release, Windows Longhorn, which led to their next problem. Keep in mind that in the 2000s, computer software was advancing at an alarming rate. So Microsoft had a lot of fun coming up with new innovative features for Longhorn. Over time, however, Longhorn essentially became a pet project for the company, the version of Windows that would encompass every digital trend. Word was now getting around about Longhorn and even some leaks of it surfaced online. As new features were added, this would only continue to push Blackcomb’s release date further until it remained uncertain whether it would be released. Ultimately, this also happened to Longhorn as well. As more features were added, more time was needed to complete the development.
Windows Vista.
The project for Longhorn was too ambitious to the point where Microsoft didn’t know what direction they wanted the OS to take. The project was even restarted in 2004 this time leaving in some of its features and changing its name to Windows Vista. It would finally be released in January 2007. Given that it took Microsoft five years to release what was supposed to be a small update for Windows only for the project to be dumped altogether and then release something that barely functioned on an average PC in 2007, it’s no wonder why people hated Windows Vista. The entire ordeal was a disaster for Microsoft, and now nearly a decade later, people were still using an operating system from 2001. Microsoft had to figure out a way to reverse this before they fell behind with the times. It was finally time to start working on Blackcomb, which had just been renamed to Vienna a year prior, but the project was canceled later. Microsoft felt that the project included way too many features for it to be realistically released on time. So it was then replaced with a new project code named Windows 7. It would later be confirmed by Microsoft that this would be the official name of the operating system, not just the code name. Bill Gates emphasized that Windows 7 would be designed to be a user-centric operating system, meaning that the OS would be much cleaner, and easier to navigate. It was also going to be much faster than Windows Vista, even if you run it on the same hardware. Most importantly though, it was just going to be better. Your overall experience with Windows 7 would be superior to any other Windows before it because these are the exact things that end-users want. Microsoft was already heading in the right direction, rather than just arbitrarily adding new features to see what would work, they instead focused on features that they knew would serve their overall goal for the operating system. As usual, Windows 7 would continuously be improved upon with new builds that would be created over time during its development. Many early builds look strikingly similar to Windows Vista, and that’s the way it usually works when a new version of Windows is created. Early builds of Windows XP resembled Windows 2000, early builds of Windows Vista resembled Windows XP, and especially the case, early builds of Windows 7 resembled Vista. A beta version would officially be released by Microsoft, giving the public a general view of what the next Windows could be.
Everything was finally ready. On July 22nd, 2009, Windows 7 was released. It did extremely well, to say the least. In fact, sales for Windows 7 were 234% higher than Windows Vista during their first weeks respectively. Microsoft was obviously hoping for Windows 7 to do well, but they were not expecting it to do this well. From looking at the development of the operating system, we can see why this was the case. The development of Windows 7 after Vista’s release was much faster than Vista’s development after Windows XP was released. It didn’t take five years. Time like this makes a huge difference for people. By late 2006, or early 2007, because there had been no big releases of Windows at the time, people were already very accustomed to Windows XP. Additionally, Windows Vista did not follow the best marketing during its pre-order period. Many of those who were following the development of Longhorn and saw the negative reviews that were coming out about Vista’s beta release didn’t think that purchasing the OS was worth it, and the rest of the public who actually wanted a new version of Windows and wanted to pre-order Vista, couldn’t. This is because Microsoft stopped pre-orders for Windows Vista. Microsoft argued they wanted to hold off on pre-orders of Vista so they could level the playing field for other competing vendors. The fact that Windows 7 had a much more elegant entrance into the computing world and was being offered for pre-order at a discount, it’s no wonder why pre-orders did so well. Windows 7 would quickly surpass Windows Vista in market share and even surpass Windows XP in just two years.
Windows 7 in Retrospect.
Looking back at the OS in retrospect, you can make the argument that Windows 7 would not have succeeded in the way that it did if it hadn’t come out at the time that it did. As mentioned before, Windows Vista absolutely did have its problems, but a part of its legacy was bad luck. In my personal opinion, Windows Vista was both ahead of its time and behind it. When comparing the hardware requirements for both operating systems, Windows 7’s requirements are only marginally higher than Vista’s. When comparing Vista with the hardware requirements for XP, an astronomical difference can be seen. For example, 64MB of RAM is required for Windows XP, whereas 512MB of RAM is required for Vista. The point is that in 2007 when buying a computer with these bare minimum requirements was much more expensive considering that the majority of users at the time were still on XP, they likely still had systems much weaker than the requirements. In reality, not a lot of people spend time researching what hardware they need before upgrading their software. So when they upgraded their incompatible machines to Vista, it was a disaster. However, technology advances exponentially with the times. So three years later makes a difference. In 2009 systems with these specs are not only much cheaper but a lot more common. The idea of an operating system like Vista doesn’t sound as impractical anymore, but its reputation is way too ruined for it to recover. So people just simply bought Windows 7 instead.
Something that’s obvious, is that time was on Windows 7’s side. But Windows 7 did solve very real problems that only existed in Windows Vista by the nature of its design. Vista was a byproduct of the Longhorn project, which made efforts to change computing. This alone gave Vista a rough start on what exactly it was trying to be. Windows 7, however, was built on the sole mission of solving Vista’s problems.
Fixing Windows Vista.
Windows 7 fixed several problems that Windows Vista had. One notable problem was User Account Control, which is a feature that was designed to prevent malware from infecting your system by giving users direct consent to run a program. But it was considered very annoying because of how many times the UAC prompt popped up notably all the time. Windows 7 fixed this by giving users more options for how often and when they wanted the prompts to come up. Because of this, these prompts only occurred a third of the time within Windows 7 compared to Vista. But this by no means made Windows 7 less safe.
If something malicious did pass through, you had Windows Defender. Windows Defender is considered to be the default antivirus program on Windows that would prevent any further malicious actions. Keep in mind however that Windows Defender only monitored spyware during the days of Windows 7. Users could always install antivirus software such as Avast, Malwarebytes, Bitdefender, and many more to monitor files on their computers.
Giving users an option to adjust their User Account Control might not be considered a big deal. Of course, it is safer to keep the always notify setting on, but at least users now had more of a choice. Although Windows Defender was technically introduced with Windows Vista, given everything we’ve just covered, Windows 7’s much bigger presence was what ultimately introduced it to the masses. Many people for the first time had access to features that would otherwise be typically found behind a paywall with your typical antivirus program.
Another great feature was Libraries. Although it was a pretty small change, it would prove to be extremely helpful in the long term. Libraries was simply a page in Windows File Explorer that contained your Documents, Pictures, Music, and Videos folders. Users could also add their own folders to this page as well. This made organizing and navigating files easier than before. On Windows 10, Libraries work similarly to folders, but they have been designed to organize files and folders into containers, even when the content isn’t stored in the same physical location. In addition, Libraries are also on Windows 11. But are hidden by default. While I don’t use Windows 11, it goes to show how time has changed.
Another feature that can be found is Gadgets. Gadgets allowed users to gain access to Widgets where they could view their calendar, check the weather, etc. Users could also manually install their own third-party Gadgets. Windows Vista had similarly introduced something called its “Sidebar.” But users found this more distracting and not as customizable. Instead of having to find these programs individually through the Accessories tab, you simply just go to their Gadgets and it would show up.
One appreciated feature of Windows 7 is its Taskbar. The Taskbar in Windows 7 made navigation easier by simply showing your program’s icons rather than in text form. This made it easier to find things if you have several programs running. In addition, Windows 7 would introduce the “Pin to Taskbar” feature.
Reviewing and seeing the striking similarities between Windows XP and 7 at the time was a big deal and made using Windows much easier than before. While this is all purely anecdotal, I would not be surprised if this prolonged exposure to a 2001 operating system and the lack of exposure to Windows Vista caused many people to embellish the features of Windows 7. It basically just got all the credit for the stuff that Vista already had. Consequently, people perceive Windows 7 as a much more amazing operating system than it really was. But nostalgia contributes to that.
It may not feel like it was that long ago, but Windows 7 is already developing an aura of nostalgic sentiments around it. Maybe not at the same level as Windows XP, but it is there. There is a new generation of people that are getting older and do feel that way. For some of them, using Windows 7 might be one of their earliest memories, and any kind of reminder of it just takes them back to simpler times and in some ways, they literally were. Windows 7 was pretty much the last version of Windows from the “PC” Era as around six months after its release, we would be introduced to the iPad. As a result, tablets had officially entered the scene by a large degree, and so all versions of Windows after that were built to be more tablet and mobile-friendly, and a lot of people did not like that. It’s a big reason why Windows 8 failed and even Windows 10 had a rough start. While there were Tablet S Computers that ran Windows 7 and even XP in some cases, the point was still made clear that these were PC operating systems. Ones that require a keyboard and mouse. But now that dynamic was beginning to change. Because of that and the fact that Windows 7 was built to last a long time like XP, a lot of people just stayed and didn’t really worry about it until support ended in 2020. That’s when people started to realize that they had no choice but to upgrade, and had to learn something completely new. Because they were accustomed to Windows 7, a relationship was developed with it and this signified the end of an era. For most people, it was a bittersweet feeling. Yes, it’s an opportunity to learn something new in life, but it’s now also the time to let go of the past. So in short, what made Windows 7 so great was that it was similar but also distinct and had its own merit. It took something people were vaguely familiar with and re-transformed it into something so much better. Microsoft created what Vista was supposed to be, and just the name Windows 7 alone was powerful enough to make that happen. If Microsoft had released Windows 7 as just another version of Windows Vista, without changing anything about the OS, sales undeniably wouldn’t have been nearly as high. That’s because Vista’s reputation was already damaged beyond repair, no matter how capable it actually was. Under the name Windows 7, Microsoft got people to think that this was a new Windows when in some ways, it was really just a rebranding of Windows Vista, just with most of the problems fixed and new features added. It was difficult, but Microsoft finally got what it wanted. Simply put, Vista paved the path for Windows 7’s success.
Wow Thanks for this posting i find it hard to get a hold of great tips out there when it comes to this subject material thank for the thread site