Fewer than three years after Windows Vista was completed, Microsoft finished work on the most significant release of Windows in years. The development of Windows 7 was very different from its predecessor because the development team was under new management: Windows division president Steven Sinofsky. New features were kept secret until a quality benchmark was met and Microsoft was certain that the features would make it into the final product. Public deadlines were never provided. When asked when Windows 7 would be completed, Microsoft would only provide a vague two to three years after Windows Vista, followed up by, “When it’s ready.”

Clearly, a response to the public relations problem caused by the numerous features dropped and deadlines missed with Windows Vista, the change in style also allowed the developers to focus on writing high quality code rather than rushing to get new features into the release. Microsoft was very focused on reliability and performance data provided by every pre-release version of Windows 7. The millions of beta and release candidate installations provided an enormous amount of valuable data, such as how long it takes your computer to start, what applications are crashing, what device drivers are missing, and how you perform common tasks. Microsoft knew exactly what code needed to be optimized, what drivers were not performing well, and even where to improve the user interface to make Windows easier to use.

The end result is an operating system that was developed with quality performance as the goal. Windows 7 is fast, reliable, and easy to use. No wonder many are calling Windows 7 the best version of Windows to date.