Windows 7 beta uses trickery to fix Vista compatibility
Microsoft is determined to make Windows 7 a much cleaner upgrade than Vista, even if it has to tell a few lies to do it
Follow @infoworldThe latest beta of Windows 7, released to TechNet and Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) subscribers in early January, fixes some significant low-level compatibility issues with software targeted to Windows Vista. Windows 7 does this by masquerading as Vista with software installers and applications that check for a specific Windows version ID before running. This white lie is that the behavior that Microsoft designed is with Windows 7, but which was apparently only partially implemented in builds preceding the latest public beta.
This was brought to my attention when I ran Lenovo's Software Update tool on a ThinkPad X300, the notebook that Microsoft loaned to some attendees of the Windows 7 reviewers' workshop. The original Windows 7 beta that Microsoft pre-loaded on the machines and supplied as a backup on an external USB drive would not install several ThinkPad drivers and utilities. Lenovo's System Update feature, which searches out and installs hardware driver, firmware, and Windows updates, formerly failed to run to completion, in part because it attempted and failed to install several Microsoft updates issued for Vista. A handy administration tool, ThinkVantage Productivity Center, failed to install at all. Audio drivers were among basic peripheral drivers that Lenovo's Software Update couldn't install.
[ Windows 7 takes better advantage of multicore systems than either Windows Vista or Windows XP. See InfoWorld's analysis "The generation gap: Windows on multicore" ]
As of the current Windows 7 beta, Lenovo's System Update and ThinkVantage Productivity Center function perfectly. I might credit this to Lenovo, but its System Update hints otherwise. As before, Lenovo's System Update identified as necessary a number of Microsoft-issued Vista updates, but instead of reporting installation errors and leaving hunks of ThinkPad software not running and peripherals dead, Windows 7 allowed Lenovo's System Update to think the Vista updates had installed successfully. The updater even notified me that a reboot was required even though no system software was actually altered. Several subsequent runs of Lenovo's System Update flagged the same Vista updates as necessary, and it repeatedly downloaded and "installed" them without complaint, requesting a reboot every time.
