For many Microsoft Windows users, Vista will fade into the obscurity reserved for other misbegotten products like Windows CE and ME. Good riddance to bad rubbish, right? Not so fast. The much-awaited Windows 7 is built on the Windows Vista chassis, and will likely be around for awhile. The biggest complaint that Microsoft heard regarding Vista was its lousy, mangled driver support for common hardware.

Microsoft Has Heard The Complaints About Drivers

Cynics may find this hard to believe, but Microsoft heard the complaints. As in, did something about them. Microsoft has toughened up its standards for hardware manufacturers. This stance should improve things not only for Windows 7 adopters, but also for Windows Vista users who won’t be upgrading right away. In order for manufacturers to keep their Vista-compatible logos, they’ll need to demonstrate that their drivers also work with Windows 7.

Microsoft is also spending its summer vacation cleaning up the drivers that will be released with Windows 7. Microsoft can’t afford two OS disasters in a row, and it’s going the extra mile to make sure Windows 7 doesn’t get clotheslined with the same issues that brought down Vista.

Microsoft thought enough of the development it put into Vista to rework it into Windows 7. Though few people have seen the actual product yet, the Windows 7 Release Candidate has been exceptionally stable – a considerable improvement over early Vista implementations. You won’t find a lot of new development in Windows 7, but you will find that many of the services Microsoft built into Vista have been improved.

The difference between Vista and Windows 7 reminds me of an adage an old teacher of mine used to drag out regularly. “If you can’t find the time to do a task correctly, how are you going to find the time to do it over?” Microsoft seems to have taken this to heart. Windows 7 is more than a “do-over” for Windows Vista. Provided that Windows 7 has learned to make nice in the networked environment, you can correctly think of it as a proper evolution of the operating system, though incrementally, it’s not a major shift from Windows Vista.

For its part, however, Microsoft must consider its user base and the costs they incur to upgrade to a new operating system. Many costly enterprise-level applications are at the center of a business. Expecting these businesses to chase after a half-baked OS at their own peril is asking too much. Hopefully, if a lesson has been learned in Redmond, it’s this: when you introduce a new OS, make sure it represents your “A-game.”

Photo Credit: Ernie Bello, via Flickr