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Microsoft is finally going to take advantage of the best form of advertising for the next release of Windows: word of mouth. The world's largest software maker has partnered with House Party, apparently the world's leading party organizer, to encourage technology enthusiasts to throw Windows 7 launch parties in their communities between October 22 and October 29.

Microsoft won't let just anyone host such a party though; the company is being very selective. If you're interested in becoming an official host, there's an application process you'll have to go through over at houseparty.com/windows7. Furthermore, the offer is only open to residents of 12 countries: Australia, Italy, Canada, Japan, Mexico, France, Spain, Germany, the US, Hong Kong, the UK, and India.

Chosen hosts around the world will be among the first to see, use, and share Windows 7 with their friends, says Microsoft. If you're selected as a host, you'll receive a special Signature Edition of Windows 7 Ultimate. You'll also get a Windows 7 Party Pack (contents currently unknown) to share with your guests, based on one out of four themes that you choose from: PhotoPalooza, Media Mania, Setting up with Ease, or Family Friendly Fun. US residents will also be entered for a chance to win a $750 mini-notebook computer. A total of 64 winners will be notified once all the parties are over (after October 30, 2009).

The first step of the application process is simple: you have to tell Microsoft about yourself, how the company can contact you, where to send the Party Pack, and finally pick a screen name and password (for checking the status of your application). After that, you have to confirm that "by applying for a host spot, you are agreeing to conduct yourself in the spirit of House Party—sharing a product you love with the people you love, through an experience that is fun, free, and exclusive" and that you will abide to five rules:

1. Submit only one application per household (per party)
2. Answer all questions accurately
3. Plan and host the best party you can
4. Share your party package with your guests, as intended
5. Not attempt to obtain extra party packages

Once you've agreed to all that, you have to answer six more questions (are you really surprised there are seven in total?). One of the questions of the survey is worth noting as it asks the participant what they are willing to do for the party. As such, it's clear what Microsoft will ask from party hosts:

• Host a party on any day between October 22 through October 29th, featuring Windows 7 Ultimate Operating System
• Invite at least 10 guests to join you
• Use a free party website to plan your party, invite guests, upload photos, read and post to a party blog, etc.
• Fill out an online survey after the party has happened

The second last step is to confirm a legal agreement, and then bam, you'll get a confirmation e-mail. You must then finalize the application by clicking a link. Now the rest is up to Microsoft and all you have left to do is frequently check the status of your application.

Microsoft has not disclosed how many hosts it plans to pick, but the website does insist that "host spaces are very limited." If this is the type of party you want to host, then by all means, hurry up and apply!

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will be kicking off the official Windows 7 launch at an event in New York City on October 22, 2009, the day of Windows 7's general availability. It looks like Microsoft wants to turn what is normally a single launch day, into a launch week. Since the beginning of 2009, the media has been praising Windows 7, and Redmond obviously wants to keep that momentum going strong.

Get Windows 7 for free by hosting a launch party - Ars Technica

REDMOND, Wash. — July 22, 2009 — Microsoft Corp. today announced the release to manufacturing (RTM) of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, the next versions of its flagship desktop and server operating systems. With the completion of this development phase, industry partners are readying products in time for the Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 worldwide general launches. Windows 7 will be generally available to customers around the world on October 22, and Windows Server 2008 R2 will be generally available on or before that date. As always, current customers of the Windows Volume Licensing program, Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) subscribers and TechNet subscribers will be among the first to get customer access to Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 in the coming weeks.

Microsoft will make the announcement on its Windows Team and Windows Server Blogs later today. More information about today’s news is available via the following links:

•Windows Team Blog, http://windowsteamblog.com

•Windows Server Blog, http://blogs.technet.com/windowsserver

•Partner Web sites, http://readyset7.com and http://talkingaboutwindows.com/Default.aspx

•Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 for businesses, http://www.microsoft.com/windows/default.aspx and http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/R2.aspx

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

Note to editors: If you are interested in viewing additional information on Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft Web page at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass on Microsoft’s corporate information pages. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may since have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/contactpr.mspx.

Microsoft Releases Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2: Industry partners are finalizing new products in time for the worldwide launch.

http://www.guru3d.com/category/rivatuner/
http://downloads.guru3d.com/Rivatune...load-2185.html

Software Description

Vista Sidebar Gadget that uses Rivatuner's low level hardware monitor for stats

This application is a Vista Sidebar Gadget that uses Rivatuner's low level hardware monitor for stats. I've finally released it on Microsoft's site. If your Rivatuner install is reporting back values that you would like to see in the sidebar, then install this gadget and have it easily accessible.

Values will vary depending on the model card you have and its capabilities.

Values capable of being displayed include, but are not limited to:

• GPU Usage
• GPU Temperature
• Core and Memory Clock Speed
• Fan Speed
• Frames per Second
• AND MORE

** Add CPU, RAM, HDD and additional data with RivaTuner plugins

Version 2.0

General options and features:

• Colors: background, border, title text, default monitor title/value/units text
• Title: customize the text and icon
• Filter to remove RivaTuner's monitors from display in the gadget
• Flyout window provides additional information from RivaTuner and WMI
• Ability to reset min/max values
• Celcius/Fahrenheit

You can also customize each monitor's display individually:

• Colors: use default or override title/value/units text
• Bar: specify min/max limits as well as color change limits
• Choose from 10 different display styles
• Choose from 20 different icons
• Change displayed monitor title text
• Add a separator to help group similar monitors
• Copy settings from 1 monitor to another with control over what is pasted

Read the help tab in the gadget config for explicit instructions and configuration information. We have a thread open on this tool (visited by programmer) right here.

Please choose a download location:

Download (External)

Wzor is reporting that Microsoft has finalized Windows 7 RTM at last. After weeks of speculation on the possibility of a delay in finalizing the RTM, Microsoft compiled the final RTM build on July 10th. Windows 7 RTM has the build string 6.1.7600.16384.win7_rtm.090710-1945 which is a major jump from 6.1.7271.0.win7_rtm.090709-1520, the build that preceded the RTM. This build contains a valid digital signature, which cannot be faked.

Sources from China are claiming that they have already got a hold of Windows 7 RTM, and is in the process of leaking it. At the moment we cannot confirm whether the image being leaked is genuine or not. Windows 7 RTM x64 has been leaked but there is no word of an x86 leak. We can expect many sources claiming to have the genuine Windows 7 RTM leak in the coming days. Please make sure to use a hash checker such as hashtab to ensure your image has not been tinkered with.

Microsoft is expected to unveil the finalized version of Windows 7 tomorrow at the Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans.

Stay tuned to the site and providing instant updates as news comes in. To be notified of future leaks and build updates right away, Subscribe to our RSS feed (What is RSS?) feed or Email Subscription newsletter.

Windows 7 RTM Screenshots:
Click on the screenshots to view them in full size.

Windows 7 RTM finalized at Build 7600 - Download Leaked | Windows 7 Center

Recently in my Windows Live group , LIVESOAPBOX we have all been discussing the new Windows Security Essentials beta which will now provide the only missing part of the security measures already built in to Windows 7. Those of you who haven’t yet downloaded and tried out Windows 7 will not be familiar with how ALL aspects of your computer including SECURITY and MAINTENANCE are now all taken care of by the ACTION CENTRE therefore leaving only ANTI-VIRUS as the only security feature not actually built into the Operating System and which therefore needs to be additionally installed.  I will attempt here to explain to those of you who aren’t familiar with Windows 7 how to make full use of the ACTION CENTRE.

You can think of the ACTION CENTRE as a complete ‘all round’ maintenance and security feature that only requires you the user to set up just once in order to keep the whole of your computer running smoothly and safely, and as far as setting up the ACTION CENTRE to suit yourself is concerned,  the default settings will probably be more than adequate for most average users of Windows 7.  The only thing that you will  have to set up will be your own choice of schedule for Windows Defender to carry out a scan of your computer including whether or not to do a quick scan or a full scan, and when to schedule any backups of your system and your files including where to place those backups.  As an ordinary user you don’t really have to know HOW it all works, but I will try and show you the parts of the Action Centre that you will no doubt notice the most as you use Windows 7 especially how it Alerts you to either problems or requests you to perform certain tasks in order to keep everything running smoothly.

On the Windows 7 taskbar you will see a small white FLAG icon to the right hand side next to your Internet connection icon and the Speaker icon.  If all is running smoothly with your computer, this white flag icon will remain white so you have a very prominent reminder right where you can’t help but notice it that all is well.   If something is amiss however, the white flag icon will have a red cross through it as shown, which again you can’t help but notice easily.  If you then click on the flag icon you will receive a ‘pop up’ window informing you of any problems OR outstanding actions that you need to take in order to keep everything running smoothly but unlike some security programs this window will not pop up or bother you until YOU click on the flag when it shows a red cross.  If you just ignore it, it will just remain a warning, so it is not obtrusive at all and its entirely up to you when to actually instigate any action.  Of course if the ACTION CENTRE does require your attention because there is something seriously amiss, then a small balloon will pop up just above the taskbar informing you of this, but this only occurs when there is a serious security problem for example, such as the Windows Firewall being disabled.

These alerts can range from informing you that Windows Defender has not done a scan of your computer yet and therefore needs to do so, to reminding you that some security updates need to be installed and will do so automatically when you next ‘log off’.  It will also warn you when you first install Windows 7 that there is no ANTI-VIRUS program installed and that you need to install one.  But the ACTION CENTRE is far more versatile than just acting as a warning and alert service!  If you click on the white flag to open the actual ACTION CENTRE itself, you can then see just how comprehensive and far reaching this part of Windows 7 actually is.

(View full-size image)On the left hand side in the sidebar area, you can change the ACTION CENTRE settings to suit yourself, Change the USER ACCOUNT control settings, view any archived messages made by the ACTION CENTRE about your computer and also view your computers PERFORMANCE information.  For now we will just take a look at the main window choices. This is divided into two main areas, SECURITY and MAINTENANCE. You will notice that each area has a drop down arrow to the right, and if you click on the SECURITY arrow, you will then be able to access the SECURITY list.

(View full-size image)

As you can easily see, this is pretty comprehensive and let’s you know just what has been enabled on your system. If you aren’t sure about a particular setting or how you should have these settings configured then you can click on the blue helpline at the bottom of the list to find out more information to help and guide you in how to have the settings configured.  As you can see, I don’t have NETWORK ACCESS PROTECTION  enabled, so let’s just find out more about it and whether or not I ought to have it ‘switched on’ So if I now click on the blue ‘WHAT IS NETWORK ACCESS PROTECTION’ another ‘help’ window will open which explains what NEP is and who it is useful for. As I am not a NETWORK ADMINISTRATOR nor do I have a NETWORK as such, just one computer, then I now know that I can safely leave this feature switched off without putting my computer into any danger. So now let’s take a quick look at MAINTENANCE.

(View full-size image)

First in the list is CHECK FOR SOLUTIONS TO PROBLEM REPORTS. What does all that mean? Well, whenever the ACTION CENTRE reports any problem with the running of your computer, it first tries to find a solution to the problem. Lets say that you were having problems connecting up your printer, then ACTION CENTRE would first of all try to find a solution, perhaps by searching online for a new driver for example. However, if it couldn’t find a solution, then that problem would be logged as not resolved but in the meantime a new driver might come available later,  so by asking ACTION CENTRE to recheck for solutions to any previous problems that may have manifest themselves in the past, those problems can then be resolved.

Following that there is the BACKUP schedule and the date and time of the last back up made followed by CHECK FOR UPDATES which also will report if there is any action you need to take regarding that area.  At the bottom of the SECURITY list is TROUBLESHOOTING SYSTEM MAINTENANCE. Again, if there is any problem here you will be informed.  Notice that Windows is ACTIVELY checking your system for maintenance problems. This means in essence that the ACTION CENTRE is continually monitoring the whole of your system to make sure that it is working at its best.  You can change the TROUBLESHOOTING settings here if you wish by clicking on the blue sentence underneath.

Obviously this post only covers the surface of the ACTION CENTRE but tries to give those who have not yet tried out Windows 7 an inkling as to just how everything to do with the SECURITY of your system and also its MAINTENANCE for optimum running have been incorporated right there inside the operating system so that you can relax and feel safe and secure. Next post about the ACTION CENTRE I will try and dig a little deeper into how to set it all up to just to suit you.

TG

Windows 7. The Action Centre, an introduction.

After weeks of scratching our heads as to why Microsoft would potentially leave thousands of customers browserless. OEMS would be able to install IE8 via a feature pack on pre-built PCs, but what about those who wanted to purchase a standalone copy of Windows 7E? CNet and Arstechnica originally speculated that Microsoft would offer IE via CD, FTP and retail channels.

But Paul from Geeksmack managed to get a hold of a Windows 7E Build and the feature pack for IE8. Turns out that the feature pack was actually a KB968771 standalone update. He also revealed that IE8 will be offered via a CD that will be bundled with Windows 7E.

In June, Microsoft announced that European copies of Windows 7 will not contain IE8 as a response to the criticism coming from EU antitrust regulators. A browser-less version of edition called Windows 7E will be shipped instead. However, this has forced Microsoft to not allow its customers to perform any in-place upgrades from Vista, which would leave some version of IE on the computer.

Windows 7E to come bundled with IE8 CD | Windows 7 Center

Microsoft have made the final Release Candidate available for download from either MSDN or the Microsoft Technet Beta Program. They even provide new product keys for you to use.

Well… what are you waiting for.. GO GO GO.. get downloading..

(Windows Live ID Required)

Windows 7 RC 32-bit

Windows 7 RC 64-bit

Xbox.com | Wonderful World of Reals

When Windows 7 is released later this year or in early 2010, many PC users who upgrade will be coming from Windows XP. Unlike Vista users, they can't do an "in-place upgrade," in which the new OS overwrites the old one, preserving their installed applications, preferences, and data. Instead, they'll have to do a clean install, which means they have to back up their data, install Win 7 (either deleting or XP or installing as a separate environment), reinstall their apps, restore their data, and re-create their preferences.

For Windows XP users who avoided Vista because of its many problems, that upgrade work may seem as adding insult to injury, making it harder for them to finally adopt a new version of Windows. Through its PR agency, Microsoft confirms to InfoWorld that there will be no "in-place upgrade" option for XP users, but it declines to explain why not. "More materials on your question are in the works," the spokesman says.

[ Can your PC run Windows 7? Find out with InfoWorld's free Windows Sentinel compatibility checker. | See our experts' first looks at Windows 7. ]

Why a clean-install requirement may make sense

But there may be good reason not to support an in-place upgrade, suggests Michael Silver, a Gartner analyst who follows Microsoft technologies. That's because viruses, registry errors, and other performance-sapping flaws in the user's Windows environment would be carried over into Windows 7; something that would not happen with a clean install.

Business IT typically does clean installs on user systems to avoid these issues, Silver notes, so the lack of an in-place upgrade will be a nonissue for most enterprises.

Consumers and small businesses are the ones who tend to prefer the in-place upgrade option, Silver notes, and they're the ones who may be annoyed by the clean-install requirement if coming from XP. "Microsoft is in a bit of a no-win situation here: Support the upgrade and live with whatever bad experiences users have or don't support the upgrade and make it harder for people to do it," Silver says.

"Most users will be better off doing the clean install anyway," he says, so he recommends that even Vista users avoid the in-place upgrade and proceed to the clean install.

Silver also notes that users who did not upgrade to Vista often have hardware that can't run Windows 7 or Vista (typically, PCs from 2006 or earlier), so they would likely get a new computer at the same time with Windows 7 preinstalled, which means reinstalling their apps, preferences, and data anyhow.

A precedent for providing in-place upgrades for earlier generations

When Microsoft shipped Windows Vista, it offered XP users the choice of an in-place upgrade or a clean install, but users of earlier Windows versions could do only a clean install. So the requirement for Windows XP and earlier users to do a clean install of Windows 7 follows that precedent.

But when Microsoft shipped Windows XP in late 2001, it gave not only users of the predecessor Windows 2000 but also users of the earlier generations (Windows 98, Windows Millennium, and Windows 98 Second Edition) the in-place upgrade option. In some ways, the situation then was similar to that situation today. Microsoft Millennium was a technical failure that customers avoided, causing Microsoft to issue Windows 98 SE. Then came Windows 2000, replacing the OS kernel and much of the architecture, which meant it needed newer hardware and was incompatible with many peripherals and applications. So most users stuck with Windows 98 or 98 SE, and Microsoft eased the path to XP by allowing in-place upgrades for them all.

Technically, the shift from Windows Vista to Windows 7 is small, so it should be easier to support an in-place upgrade from XP to Windows 7 than it was from Windows 98 to Windows XP. But Silver cites the performance and security issues that an in-place upgrade preserves as a reason that Microsoft may have chosen not to do so this time.

Silver contrasts Microsoft's situation with that of Apple, which lets users do an in-place upgrade three versions back (from Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar, 10.3 Panther, and 10.4 Tiger) to the current Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. "This is an area -- efficiency, ease, and success of upgrade -- where Apple has an edge," he notes, due to its greater control over the hardware and the more focused reach of the OS.

Is Jumping from XP to Windows 7 too Complicated? - Business Center - PC World

Today Microsoft confirmed the six flavors of Windows 7—here's the rundown of the packages, plus some insight as to why it's better than the Vista jumble.

At first glance, the version breakdown does look a lot like Windows Vista. There are five six SKUs of Windows 7: Starter, Home Basic (developing markets only), Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate. But there are a couple reasons it's less horrendous than the Vista situation.

• Consumers are really only picking between Home Premium and Professional. There's no more Home Basic in the civilized world, which was a gimped version of Vista that didn't have Aero or Media Center that a lot of consumers unwittingly got stuck with. Ultimate, for the most part, won't be very visible to the average guy says Microsoft. So you'll only get Ultimate if you know that's what you want from the start (meaning you're likely tech savvy enough to wade through the SKU muck). Regular people won't ever see Starter or Enterprise. Basically, you'll walk into Best Buy and pick either Home Premium or Professional, whether you're buying a new PC or a copy to install. It's a lot more like the Windows XP Home and Professional dichotomy.

• Professional has all the same media and entertainment features as Home Premium. With Vista, if you wanted the pro-class OS and needed media features like Windows Media Center, you had to buy Ultimate. Now, it works more like a true hierarchy—Professional and Enterprise have every feature that's in Home Premium, plus the business-y features. And then Ultimate is a step above them.

The Upgrade Question
Microsoft wouldn't discuss pricing, but the general sense was that there will be full retail packages of Windows 7 alongside upgrade editions for Vista users. While they didn't come out and say it directly that XP would require a full retail package, Microsoft said that, as in the Windows 7 beta, going to Windows 7 from XP will require a clean install and "that will be reflected with the packaging." There will be migration tools and stuff, but it looks like they'll be paying more to upgrade than Vista users. Update: Mary Jo Foley confirms XP users can buy an upgrade license, even though you'll need a full install.

Now for a quick runthrough of every version.

Windows 7 Starter is for emerging markets mostly, but also for some netbooks as an option. It's pretty gimpy, and only runs three apps at a time, though it'll have the new taskbar, Device Stage and jump list. Since Home Premium (and even the Ultimate beta) runs pretty well on netbooks, most of them are probably going to stick with that, so don't worry too much about it.

Windows 7 Home Basic is for developing markets only, and Microsoft didn't even tell me anything about it, so forget about it. [This info was added in an update.]

Windows 7 Home Premium is the standard consumer offering of the OS with Aero Peek, Media Center and all the other cool features we've been talking about, and what most people will be running, whether they're on a desktop or a netbook. It's better at media than Vista Home Premium, since it ships with DVD playback and codecs like DivX out of the box. In case you're wondering why Microsoft kept the "Premium" tack-on despite the extinction of Basic—it's because in market testing, Vista users thought they were getting downgraded, going from Vista Home Premium to Windows 7 Home.

Windows 7 Professional has everything that Home Premium does, but with business and "enthusiast" features like file encryption, location-aware printing and advanced backup.

Windows 7 Enterprise is for businesses buying OS licenses in bulk, so you probably won't have to worry about it (unless you're paid to). It's got everything Professional does, but with a few additions like BitLocker full-disk encryption and direct access capability, so you don't have go through a VPN for remote access.

Windows 7 Ultimate is, as you might have guessed, the ultimate version of Windows. Unlike Vista, where it was the combo of Home and Business with a couple added features, this time, it's like the end user version of Enterprise—in other words, the Enterprise version that regular people can buy. It has BitLocker, notably, and a few other advanced features. It seems like visibility of this will be low, outside of a few "special promotions" from vendors occasionally, to minimize confusion.

Not quite as clean as we'd have liked it, but if Microsoft does a good job with education and people really only have to pick between Home and Professional, it'll be a lot smoother ride this time around. Since they're keeping the upgrade vs. full version setup intact, hopefully they'll follow our advice and sell it to Vista users very cheaply. We'll find out when they reveal pricing in the coming months.

Source : Windows 7: All the Flavors of Windows 7 Explained

Windows 7 BETA vs. Windows Vista SP1 SSD Performance Compared

Continuing on with our early Windows 7 beta coverage, we move onto Solid State Drive (SSD) performance.
The topic of SSDs itself is rather interesting, but when you team up the increasingly popular flash memory technology with Microsoft's next operating system, Windows 7, things move up to the next notch on the excitement level - for us around here, anyway - but probably you too, if you are reading this.
&lta href='http://www.tweaktown.com/phpadsnew/www/delivery/ck.php?n=a695f25f' target='_blank'>&ltimg src='http://www.tweaktown.com/phpadsnew/www/delivery/avw.php?zoneid=186&ampamp;n=a695f25f' border='0' alt='' /></a>Microsoft made some fairly bold claims during its WinHEC conference last year that Windows 7 (W7) would include optimizations that are designed to improve the performance and reliability of SSDs. The operating system is supposed to be able to detect the use of SSDs and once identified, change some settings, compared to the way traditional magnetic hard disk drives are handled.

One of the first changes upon detection is turning off defrag. Because SSDs store data differently, defrag tools will have little to no effect on performance improvements. This is also especially because SSDs are much faster than normal hard drives. The second optimization is the "Trim" feature, which is designed to keep the SSDs unused storage area as free as possible, hence creating more room for device wear leveling. There are probably other subtle tweaks under the hood of W7 as well, but we haven't got all the details in as yet.
We have gotten hold of the Windows 7 BETA and today we are going to compare the performance of single SSD as well as RAID 0 SSD in W7 and Vista SP1. Keep in mind this is just a first look; Microsoft may still and probably will provide further performance optimizations for SSDs under the final shipping version of W7 and this is merely a look at the performance difference so far. We didn't even install any new drivers on our W7 beta install - just ran with what was built-in, so it is a good raw look at things currently as they stand.
Read on and find out if your SSD experience is going to be improved or not under Windows 7. It has been a hot subject in the storage world lately and hopefully we can find out some answers today!

Test System Setup
Processor(s): Intel Q9450 quad-core @ 3.2GHz
Motherboard(s): MSI X48 Platinum (Supplied by MSI)
Memory: 2 x 2GB Patriot DDR3 1600MHz
Hard Disk(s): 2 x Western Digital 300GB VelociRaptor in RAID 0 (Supplied by Western Digital)
Operating System: Windows Vista SP1 64-bit and Windows 7 BETA 64-bit
Drivers: Latest Windows Updates (Vista), Intel INF 1.1.15 (Vista)
We installed Vista SP1 with all the latest updates and Windows 7 BETA (stock standard - no driver changes from install) on a more than capable system, which is ready to compare SSD performance.
We would have preferred to use a standalone RAID controller, but the one we have here from Areca did not work properly under Windows 7 with the standard Vista drivers. Instead, we plugged the drives directly into the MSI X48 motherboard and they were powered by the Intel ICH9R Southbridge chipset.

This chipset is far from ideal when it comes to SSD, since it is not able to show the maximum potential of the Patriot Warp2 128GB SSD SATA drives, which we used for testing in this article. On the other hand, though, not everyone can afford a separate high-end RAID controller worth around the four figure mark and this will give us a look at what the more-average Joe consumer will be using hardware-wise.
We also wanted to note that testing was completed on a fresh install of each operating system and no SSD specific performance tweaks were applied at all. There are a bunch of Vista SSD tweaks out there, but we wanted to provide a raw look at SSD performance on each OS.
Let's move on now and examine the results.

HD Tune Pro - SSD Read Performance

Our first test puts HD Tune Pro into action and we look at read performance.
Starting with single drive performance, we can see that Windows 7 has the edge over Vista in all tests besides minimum read speed, which slipped for some reason. Burst speed is a good deal quicker and we can see the average speed manages to edge out Vista by a little.
When it comes to RAID 0 performance we can see that the ICH9R controller struggles to support the SSD drives properly, since it was designed for slower mechanical hard disk drives. Nevertheless, we see Windows 7 well out in front here, beating Vista SP1 in every test.
The results are close, but it is important to remember that Windows 7 is still in BETA and that we are using early drivers. As the official launch of W7 draws closer, we will see actual W7 drivers released and they should improve performance, as well as other changes Microsoft make under the hood of its OS.

HD Tune Pro - SSD Write Performance

Now we come to SSD write performance and starting off with RAID 0, you can see the ICH9R really struggles with minimum write speeds, hitting 0MB/s - ouch.
Besides that, though, Windows 7 has another good jump on Windows Vista here and things are looking positive for Windows 7 and SSD.
Moving on to single drive performance, the results are closer, but Windows 7 still has the edge; this is more great news for SSD users.

A note on Access Time and CPU Usage

The above result from HD Tune Pro is of the SSDs in RAID 0 under Windows 7.
We wanted to note that every single configuration (read and write) saw an access time of 0.2ms and that is a great result.
When it came to CPU usage, however, Windows 7 was all over it. In every test under Windows 7 we saw CPU usage of -1%. This may be an error, or it could be the correctly reported numbers. Under Windows Vista, CPU usage ranged from 2 - 4%.
That is more good news on the W7 + SSD front!

Final Thoughts
Today we have provided a quick and simple look at SSD performance in Windows 7 BETA and Vista SP1. It is far from conclusive, we know, but it was only designed to be a quick look at the numbers so far and what users may be able to expect from a standard desktop system.

Based on our testing, we can see that obviously Microsoft have spent some time improving SSD performance under Windows 7, as it managed to beat out Vista in all but one test and that might have only been a slip up.
Access time is also very impressive under W7 and when it came to CPU usage, W7 blew Vista to pieces scoring -1% usage under every test. Again, this might be a reporting error; but if it was, the results were very consistent.
We hope you enjoyed the quick look at SSD performance under Windows 7 so far. We will be back with more at a later date as new drivers and so forth come out.

Windows 7 BETA vs Windows Vista SP1 SSD Performance Compared :: TweakTown