<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial; line-height: 18px; "><div>InfoWorld got their hands on a copy of Windows 7 "milestone 3" (a pre-beta of the upcoming Windows version)</div><div><br></div><div>They ran a slew of benchmarks and tests on the new OS, examined everything from the kernel processes up through overall UI use, and discovered that it was basically identical to Vista. The exact same process lists, running tasks, memory use, CPU use, and benchmark scores. Some changes to the UI to look more like a Mac, and some "under the hood" changes (very minor) that seemed to just make it worse.</div><div><br></div><div>Some choice quotes:</div><div><br></div><div>"In a nutshell, Windows 7 M3 is a virtual twin of Vista when it comes to performance. The few minor variations I observed during comparative testing are easily explained away by slight tweaks to the kernel (such as the aforementioned MDAC changes); they certainly don't indicate a significant performance overhaul. More important, these variations pale in comparison with the 40 percent gap in performance I've observed between Vista and Windows XP SP3. From a raw throughput perspective, Windows 7 promises to perform as poorly as its predecessor. "Pre-beta" notwithstanding, the reality is that any hope for closing of the performance gap with Windows XP is unlikely to materialize in Windows 7."</div><div><br></div><div>"Overall, the changes are mostly superficial. Even the new Task Bar is simply a twist on the existing Explorer UI model, not to mention a blatant rip-off of the Mac OS X dock. Moreover, none of Windows 7's UI goodness is the result of any architectural changes to the OS"</div><div><br></div>"Bottom line: So far, Windows 7 looks and behaves almost exactly like Windows Vista. It performs almost exactly like Vista. And it breaks all sorts of things that used to work just fine under Vista. In other words, Microsoft's follow-up to <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/02/05/06NF-save-xp-vista-hate_1.html" class="regularArticleU" style="color: rgb(37, 103, 160); text-decoration: none; ">its most unpopular OS release since Windows Me</a> threatens to deliver zero measurable performance benefits while introducing new and potentially crippling compatibility issues."</span><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="arial"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><br></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="arial"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><br></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="arial"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">Full story:</span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="arial"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/11/10/46TC-windows-7_1.html">http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/11/10/46TC-windows-7_1.html</a></span></font></div></body></html>