Windows 7 RTM Review: Improvements But Security Issues Remain

Local administrators, on the other hand, are presented with several options. They can autofix the same problems scanned in StartUp repair, select from all available System Restore checkpoints, perform a system Image Recovery, run memory diagnostics or access the command prompt.

Credential problems with Recovery Console

The command prompt lay at the heart of an irregularity I found with credentials for the Recovery Console. In tests, I found that I could log into the console as the default local administrator, but only when no other local administrator accounts are present. The problem is that, by default, the local administrator account has no password. This isn’t a problem in Windows proper, as the account is disabled by default, but in these specific instances, the account suddenly activates.

With access granted via the disabled, no-password administrator account, I found I could easily access the command line and copy any data at all on the main partition to a USB stick.

One of the biggest knocks against Windows Vista was that it was a resource hog. Although this abated somewhat as Vista evolved through Service Packs 1 and 2, the perception was common that the operating system used too much RAM by default and took too long to startup and (especially) to shut down.

To see whether Microsoft gave Windows 7 a speed boost, I ran a series of benchmarks against the 32-bit and 64-bit iterations of both Windows 7 and Vista, using both the Dell laptop and Phenom II-based systems described earlier in this review.

With each installation of Windows 7 and Windows Vista, I relied almost exclusively on drivers included with the operating system install disk or via Microsoft Updates. The sole exception: I obtained drivers from Dell and ati.adm.com for the video adapters on both machines. Tests were otherwise conducted on base installations, as no additional software (save the benchmark suite and its dependencies) or operating system patches were installed.

Benchmarks were performed using the latest version of FutureMark’s PCMark Vantage Professional suite, which performs a variety of tests on a system’s ability to record, play back and edit various types of audio and video media, as well as its ability to process large amounts of text and to quickly render Websites – among many other modern usage scenarios.

I used the 32-bit version of PCMark Vantage to test the 32-bit Windows 7 and Vista SP2 iterations and the 64-bit version of the test suite to evaluate the 64-bit systems.

The PCMark score is an aggregate number, reflecting performance on a subset of the tests that make up each of the comprehensive test suites, including Memories, TV and Movies, Gaming, Music, Communications, Productivity, and HDD hard drive tests.

Of the aggregate PCMark scores, Windows 7 scored better across the board. In 32-bit tests, Windows 7 showed a negligible 2.6 percent improvement over Vista SP2 on the laptop (Vista 3,603, Win7 3,698), but a whopping 15.1 percent improvement on the quad-core desktop (Vista 6,096, Win7 7,018). While further testing is necessary to bear this out, the disparity suggests that Windows 7 more efficiently uses 32-bit systems at the RAM ceiling for the architecture.

In the 64-bit tests, Windows 7 showed a 13.6 percent increase over Vista on the laptop (Vista 3,679, Win 7 4,183) and an 8.7 percent improvement on the desktop (Vista 6703, Win 7 7284)

Conclusion

Windows 7 is a modest improvement over Windows Vista in terms of performance, features and security, but it comes at a time when XP is due for retirement. Windows 7 RTM shows some compelling usability improvements and some features that only work with Windows Server 2008 R2. It also has mixed security messages.

Senior Analyst Andrew Garcia can be reached at agarcia@eweek.com.