It can be argued that Microsoft's main focus with Windows Vista was security. While sceptics try to claim that there has not been much improvement, Vista does appear to be Microsoft's most secure OS to date.

Nevertheless, it's far from perfect, and not only on the security front. While many tests show that Vista outperforms XP on some high-end computers, the average computer system does not run Windows Vista as well as it does Windows XP. This will of course change as the average computer becomes more powerful and as Microsoft tweaks the operating system (SP1 already offers some help), but the fact of the matter is that Vista is recognized as a slow operating system.

Many have therefore turned their hopes to Windows 7. Maybe, just maybe, Microsoft will not increase the minimum requirements as it did from Windows XP to Windows Vista. Considering that Microsoft hopes to get Windows 7 out the door faster than it did with Vista (which came out six years after XP, compared to the typical three) this is entirely possible, and Bill Gates has all but confirmed that Windows 7 will focus on performance improvements:

We're hard at work, I would say, on the next version, which we call Windows 7. I'm very excited about the work being done there. The ability to be lower power, take less memory, be more efficient, and have lots more connections up to the mobile phone, so those scenarios connect up well to make it a great platform for the best gaming that can be done, to connect up to the thing being done out on the Internet, so that, for example, if you have two personal computers, that your files automatically are synchronized between them, and so you don't have a lot of work to move that data back and forth.

One must remember though: Windows 7 is still in the development stage and Bill Gates touched upon a lot more than just performance improvements for Windows in his high-hopes speech at the Windows Digital Lifestyle Consortium in Japan.

Windows 7 will undoubtedly have problems, but for some reason (crazy optimism? lack of sleep?) I have much higher expectations for this release than I did for Vista. That might be because Steve Sinofsky, who previously headed up the Office 2007 project, is in charge.

Further reading: