I’ve mentioned before that I’m playing with the Windows 10 Technical Preview. There is really no reason for me to do it other than curiosity, and because of that, poking around the parts has been very much not a priority. (For example, it made no difference to me that it took Microsoft about 6 weeks to follow up the January build that I had initially installed with Build 10041 because I hadn’t had time to do anything with the January build other than install it. My laptop then went under the couch for the next month-and-a-half.)
I found a couple of hours this weekend, though, and from what I’ve seen, I feel very confident that people using traditional keyboard-and-mouse/trackpad interfaces will find that Windows 10 is going to be much easier to work with than Windows 8.x. Sure, there are issues galore from a fit-and-finish perspective (fonts are huge in some places and the Control Panel is still straight outta Windows 7), and scrolling doesn’t work properly with the standard trackpad drivers that get installed. But from an interface perspective, Windows 10 will at least be more intuitive for people who aren’t coming at it touch-first.
My Setup
I’m using a Toshiba laptop from 2010 or so, with a Core i5 M460 (which Intel’s ARK website calls the “Previous Generation,” which I’m pretty sure means “First Generation”) running 64-bit Windows 7, 4GB of RAM, a 500GB hard drive, and a 14″ screen running at 1366 x 768 resolution. It has a Blu-Ray drive, and while it’s lighter, cheaper, and more powerful than the laptop I had in law school, it’s no Ultrabook. In other words, it was a basic middle-of-the-road machine that cost $500-600 depending on when it went on sale. It’s no speed demon, and had been sidelined because it had become almost unusable; that’s why I used it to play with Windows 10.
I partitioned off part of the hard drive to allow me to dual-boot into the Windows 10 preview, keeping my Windows 7 side largely untouched. The Windows 10 partition is only about 30-40 GB in size, and as such, I’m not trying to completely overhaul the machine.
System Requirements
Windows 7, being based largely on Windows Vista, which itself was a bloated successor to Windows XP, has a lot of fancy visual effects going on. Not as many as Vista, which would allow you to use a video as a background image if you wanted, but it still has a lot of transparency effects that chew up resources. Vista, and to a slightly lesser extent, 7 were based on the notion that computing was going to happen on multi-core powerhouses and we were going to have plenty of power to spare for neat visual effects. That trend is stepping back as the computing needs of the populace has changed quite a bit. Portability–and battery longevity–is seen as much more important, and, as such, processors have become far more efficient. Likewise, fancy visual effects require more computing power and so companies like Microsoft, Google, and Apple have begun implementing what has been called “flat” design. Gone are the smooth, softly colorful, 3-D-textured edges introduced by XP and early OS X, being replaced by sharp angles and monochromatic lines.
These design cues mean that the processors needed to run modern operating systems don’t need to be quite so robust. Windows 8.x can run just fine on an Atom processor (it runs my 1+ year old Venue Pro 8 in a perfectly acceptable manner) and the system requirements for Windows 10 are pretty surprising when compared to the system requirements for Vista, which came out for consumers at the beginning of 2007.
According to Microsoft, to run versions of Vista SP2 (non-Basic) you would need, at a minimum:
- 1-gigahertz (GHz) 32-bit (x86) processor or 1-GHz 64-bit (x64) processor;
- 1 GB of system memory;
- Windows Aero-capable graphics card (DirectX 9-class graphics);
- 128 MB of graphics memory (minimum);
- 40-GB hard disk that has 15 GB of free hard disk space (the 15GB of free space provides room for temporary file storage during the install or upgrade.)
- Internal or external DVD drive;
- Internet access capability; and
- Audio output capability
Windows 7, which came out in the fall of 2009, cleaned things up a little:
- 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor;
- 1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit);
- 16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit);
- DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver;
- Everything else is depending on your use case:
- Internet access;
- Depending on resolution, video playback may require additional memory and advanced graphics hardware;
- Some games and programs might require a graphics card compatible with DirectX 10 or higher for optimal performance
- For some Windows Media Center functionality a TV tuner and additional hardware may be required;
- Windows Touch and Tablet PCs require specific hardware;
- HomeGroup requires a network and PCs running Windows 7;
- DVD/CD authoring requires a compatible optical drive;
- BitLocker requires Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 1.2;
- BitLocker To Go requires a USB flash drive;
- Windows XP Mode requires an additional 1 GB of RAM and an additional 15 GB of available hard disk space;
- Music and sound require audio output
Windows 8 came out in 2012, and its requirements are largely similar to the requirements for Windows 7:
- Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster with support for PAE, NX, and SSE2;
- RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) (32-bit) or 2 GB (64-bit);
- Hard disk space: 16 GB (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit);
- Graphics card: Microsoft DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM driver;
- Everything else depends on your use-case:
- To use touch, you need a tablet or a monitor that supports multitouch;
- To access the Windows Store and to download and run apps, you need an active Internet connection and a screen resolution of at least 1024 x 768;
- To snap apps, you need a screen resolution of at least 1366 x 768;
- Internet access;
- Secure boot requires firmware that supports UEFI v2.3.1 Errata B and has the Microsoft Windows Certification Authority in the UEFI signature database;
- Some games and programs might require a graphics card compatible with DirectX 10 or higher for optimal performance;
- Microsoft account required for some features;
- Watching DVDs requires separate playback software;
- Windows Media Center license sold separately;
- BitLocker To Go requires a USB flash drive (Windows 8 Pro only);
- BitLocker requires either Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 1.2 or a USB flash drive (Windows 8 Pro only);
- Client Hyper-V requires a 64-bit system with second level address translation (SLAT) capabilities and additional 2 GB of RAM (Windows 8 Pro only);
- A TV tuner is required to play and record live TV in Windows Media Center ( Windows 8 Pro Pack and Windows 8 Media Center Pack only);
- Free Internet TV content varies by geography, some content might require additional fees (Windows 8 Pro Pack and Windows 8 Media Center Pack only)
Windows 8.1 came out in 2013, and its requirements are essentially the same, though there are some additional requirements for few of the enhancements 8.1 brought, such as Miracast and InstantGo.
The Windows 10 Technical Preview has the same core requirements as Windows 8 and 8.1 ( Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster; RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) (32-bit) or 2 GB (64-bit); Free hard disk space: 16 GB; Graphics card: Microsoft DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM driver; and a Microsoft account with Internet access.)
Think about that: the newest and latest operating system doesn’t require any more robust hardware than a system from 8 years ago, and yet it’s faster and is better at conserving energy.
Speed Improvements
Where things get interesting, though, is how much less time things take in the newer machines. Booting my laptop into Windows 10 is drastically faster than booting into Windows 7. Some of that, no doubt, is because there isn’t anything installed in the 10 partition other than 10. But Techspot.com took a look at the difference between Windows 8 and Windows 7 back in 2012, and Windows 8 is noticeably faster across the board. Windows 10 seems to improve on those gains.
Other Improvements
In addition to speed improvements from the system update, there are other improvements that Windows 10 brings to the table. A hybridized Start menu returns, which combines the active tiles of Windows 8.x and the vertical application menu found in all versions of Windows since 95. I like the combination, and my brain has not really been able to grasp the lack of the menu while using Desktop mode in Windows 8.x. I don’t really have a problem with the Start Screen in particular; when I’m just doing stuff in what I call the “Start” environment, flicking and swiping makes total sense. But when I’m in the Desktop environment, my brain wants a menu to pop up when I press the Start button. I really like the implementation in Windows 10, though, and if you want the full Start screen experience, it expands, which is what it should have been doing all along, honestly.
Other nice improvements are the removal of the Charms bar (which isn’t a very great feature on a tablet to begin with, and must be infuriating on a desktop); an improved notification area called Action Center; virtual desktops; and the ability to run Metro/Modern/Unified/Start Apps in windows on the desktop.
All in all, Windows 10 looks to be eminently usable (of course there’s still time to mess everything up), and the fact that it’s a free upgrade the first year of its release is a nice touch.
This isn’t to say that there aren’t problems with the current build, which I will get into in the next post in this series.
