Graphics Beast :: Creative design blog by Steven Till

Okay, so the title of this post might be a bit deceiving, as I would never imply that the fine folks out in Redmond, WA have decided to make an open source operating system. I will however, imply that Microsoft is finally starting to take some cues from their Linux-minded competitors.

With the official release of Windows 7, many PC users will now flock to upgrade to the latest incarnation of the Windows OS. Admittedly, I myself have obtained a copy of “7″ and am running it within my VirtualBox machine. I’ll be the first to concede that my initial impressions are favorable. Installation went smoothly and I was able to get set up without any issues. Having never made the upgrade to Vista, it was a big change for me, having worked with XP for so long. I was pretty surprised at the desktop upon my first boot up in the fresh new 7 install. I was amazed at how similar the Windows 7 desktop looks and behaves like the Linux desktop that I normally use.

Kubuntu 9.04 with KDE Desktop

The Windows 7 Desktop

It certainly looks like somebody at Microsoft looked at how many Linux distributions approached usability. The biggest similarities that I saw centered around the Start Menu and task bar. The new task bar of Windows 7 is more dynamic, allowing you to “pin” different types of shortcuts to it, allowing you to utilize the task bar as an application launcher. The Start Menu is also very similar to that found in Linux, allowing users to see favorite applications used, as well as expanding folders of Applications right in the menu, as opposed to expanding folders in fly-out windows as was the standard in the old XP model.

The system tray has also been cleaned up in Windows 7, having done away with many of the  unnecessary icons that used to be an annoyance to users. This prevents long strings of icons that usually ended up accumulating in the system tray as applications got added. Windows 7 now uses what it calls “Libraries” for personal folders such as My Documents, Music, Pictures, etc. I haven’t played in Windows 7 for very long, but it seems as though this works in much the same way as the Home folder works in Linux, organizing all of a user’s personal folders in one location.

I’ll still never use Windows as my go to operating system, mainly because it will never be as secure or stable as Linux, however; it’s nice to see Microsoft take some usability hints from outside sources. Perhaps they aren’t as closed minded as they seem?