Improved Fundamentals
The features described in the previous sections might tempt you to doubt the performance of Windows 7. After all, how is it possible to integrate so much additional functionality into the operating system without hurting performance even a little bit? Surely, every additional feature requires another upgrade of your computer's RAM, a faster CPU, and a larger hard drive.
In fact, Windows 7 has the same hardware requirements as Windows Vista, and it runs faster on any hardware. As I write this, I'm running the RTM build of Windows 7 on my 9-inch netbook, which "features" a single, low-end 900-MHz CPU and 1 GB of physical memory. It's equipped with an extremely slow 16-GB, solid-state hard drive, which made even Internet browsing nearly impossible when I had Windows XP installed. This particular netbook has been running Windows 7 since the Release Candidate, and I've never been happier about its performance.
This represents a great effort by the Windows developers to improve the system's performance and reliability with regard to nearly every feature of the operating system. Windows 7 boots faster, enters standby mode faster, hibernates faster, and shuts down faster than ever before. Windows 7 runs for hours with 0% CPU utilization and barely noticeable memory usage, it consumes less power, and it conserves more system resources than its predecessors.
But wait, there's more! Windows 7 supports 256 cores, which gives you quite some time before you need to start worrying about seeing hardware that can't be used to its full capacity by the operating system. Windows 7 takes advantage of the latest advances in CPU and memory architecture-the Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA) paradigm-and it features scalability improvements across the board. Windows 7 also has additional improvements to power management and energy consumption so that your mobile PC lasts an entire day in the field. You'll also find fewer background services running at any given time, and you'll see that some tasks will trigger-start only when you really need them-for example, when connecting to a network or when adding an external digitizer device, a Bluetooth component, or a USB dongle to your system.
Indeed, two of the major requirements of Windows users for the past few years have been for the system to run faster and consume fewer resources. This is impossible to achieve from the operating system end alone-it requires cooperation and hard work from you, developers writing software for Windows 7. Other than the amazing effort put into the Windows kernel to improve performance, there are some things you need to know about to make sure your users enjoy the same experience with your applications as they do with an out-of-the-box installation of Windows 7.
Windows 7 does not leave you alone with this daunting task. There are great tools, that will assist you in profiling, troubleshooting, and monitoring the performance of your applications. Windows 7 works great with the Windows Performance Toolkit, which serves as a profiler and performance analyzer. Windows 7 builds on the foundation laid by Windows Vista with improvements to the Performance Monitor and the Reliability Monitor. Windows 7 supports production debugging techniques that will make it easier to troubleshoot your applications in the field. Windows 7 even features a Troubleshooting Platform to ensure that your users will be able to solve problems on their own-and if they don't, the Problem Steps Recorder will always be there to assist them with reproducing the problem and sending it to you to analyze.
And finally, if you stumble across a legacy application that doesn't work quite right on Windows 7, you can always use the built-in Windows XP virtual machine that is integrated into the operating system. You can have a Windows XP application running on your Windows 7 desktop, with the familiar, working Windows XP look and feel.