Evaluation of Windows 7 RC
Build 7100
By
Muswera Walter
Supervisor: Mr John Ebden
Consultants: Billy Morgan and Jill Japp
Background
• Vista was not received warmly due to bugs, crashes,
poor performance and software incompatibility and
demand for system resources
• Microsoft has been working on a new Operating System
(OS)
• Available release at time of evaluation was Windows 7
RC Build 7100 (May 2009)
Motivation
Claims have been made about improvements that have
been made on Windows 7 since the XP era and the ill
fated Vista era:
 Security
 Software compatibility
 Enhanced performance (graphics, disk I/O, robustness etc)
 Ease and speed of installation
 Fast start-up and shutdown time
 User friendliness
This assessment was carried out to validate some of
these claims
Importance of this Research
Every new OS should be tested/evaluated before being
deployed at full scale to allow for:
 Planning of transition (upgrade and training)
 Avert loss of time and revenue through crashes and incompatibilities
 Evaluate availability of system support
Features Evaluated
• Security
• Virtualisation
• Software compatibility
• Performance benchmarking
Minimum System Requirements for
Windows 7
•
1 GHz 32-bit or 64-bit processor
•
1 GB of system memory
Specifications of Experimental
Machine
•Intel Core 2 Quad processor (Q9400 2.66GHz, 6MB L2 cache)
•4GB RAM
•
•
•
16 GB of available disk space
support for DirectX 9 graphics
with 128 MB memory (to enable
the Aero theme)
•500GB SATA hard drive with 32MB
cache
•256MB graphics with DirectX 10
support
DVD-R/W Drive
•DVI and VGA connector
•
Internet access for updates
•DVD writer with LightScribe
Same as Vista
•G45M Digital motherboard with 1GB
network port
Testing Conditions
• The same computer hardware was used for all tests
• Both OS were installed fresh in a dual boot setup
• Results obtained reflect what you get when you install a
plain OS without any tweaks or configuration changes
(standard install)
• Install time was measured from the moment the option to
boot from CD/DVD was chosen until the point where the
desktop reached.
• Windows 7 Ultimate (32bit RC Build 7100)
• XP Professional (32bit SP3)
Security
• Bitlocker and Bitlocker To Go




100MB partition
TPM and PCR
Usability on other PCs running other Oses
Bitlocker To Go Reader
• UAC
 Implementation of the 4 new levels
 Is it really secure?
Virtualisation
• Windows XP Mode
• consists of two things:
 the Windows Virtual PC engine
 a licensed copy of Windows XP SP3
• System requirements

2GB of memory

15GB disk space/virtual machine
Software Compatibility tests
•
Successful Installations
•
Compatibility issues

Drivers (TPM)

Nero 7 (program has known compatibility issues)

Daemon Tools (program blocked due to compatibility
issues)
Tests carried out on XP SP3 and
Windows 7
• Performance benchmarking
• Installation time for each operating system
• Logon, boot up and shutdown time
Performance
• Passmark PerformanceTest version 7.0 was used to
assess perfomance
 CPU test suite is designed to measure CPU operations
 Memory test suite is designed to exercise the memory sub-system of
the computer.
 Disk test suite is designed to measure the rate at which files are read
and written from and to disk
 2D Graphics test suite tests of standard two dimensional graphical
functions
 3D Graphics test suite measures the performance of the 3D graphics
CPU Tests
Windows XP
Units of Measurement
6062.06
Windows 7
5984.44
7000.00
5000.00
•Floating Point - Millions of operations per
second
4000.00
•Find Prime numbers
Thousands of Primes per second
1979.82
230.52
229.30
Random String Sorting - Thousand
Strings per second
0.00
Integer Math
Floating
Point Math
Compression - Kilobytes Processed per
second
Physics - Frames per second
1095.22
518.04
1000.00
516.98
2000.00
1101.22
1982.40
3000.00
2955.70
•Integer - Millions of operations per second
2930.10
6000.00
Find Prime Compression
Numbers
Physics
String
Sorting
3000.00
2547.76
Windows 7
2727.20
Memory Tests
Units of Measurement
1961.10
1924.24
1924.14
2000.00
1907.24
2077.64
2077.50
2500.00
•Cached - Megabytes transferred per second
•Uncached - Megabytes transferred per second
•Write - Megabytes transferred per second
1000.00
1061.90
910.48
1500.00
•Allocate small block - Megabytes transferred
per second
•Large RAM - Operations per second
500.00
0.00
Read Cached
Read
Uncached
Write
Allocate
Small Block
Large RAM
Disk Tests
120
Windows 7
Windows XP
•Disk Sequential Write - Megabytes transferred per
second
97.14
100
Units of Measurement
93
84.9
81.2
80
•Disk Sequential Read - Megabytes transferred per
second
60
•Disk Random Seek + RW - Megabytes transferred
per second
40
20
3.22 3.25
0
Sequential Read
Sequential Write
Random Seek + RW
2D Graphics Tests
450.00
Units of Measurement
386.12
386.82
Windows 7
Windows XP
400.00
•Solid Vectors - Thousands of vectors
drawn per second
278.78
274.56
350.00
300.00
250.00
•Transparent Vectors - Thousands of
vectors drawn per second
•Complex Vectors - Complex vectors
drawn per second
100.00
137.86
•Fonts and Text - Operations per second
•Windows Interface Operations per
second
66.28
91.16
150.00
112.64
109.18
124.80
200.00
•Image Filters - Filters per second
1.33
2.98
1.36
8.98
50.00
•Image Rendering - Images per second
0.00
Solid Transparent Complex
Vectors
Vectors
vectors
Fonts and
Text
Windows
Interface
Image
Filters
Image
Rendering
3D Graphics Tests
450.00
Units of Measurement
Windows 7
400.00
Windows XP
394.18
•Simple - Frames per second
376.62
•Medium - Frames per second
350.00
•Complex - Frames per second.
300.00
250.00
200.00
150.00
100.00
•DirectX 11 issues on complex graphics
test
82.18 80.72
50.00
14.74 15.00
0.00
Simple
Medium
Complex
Summary of Findings
• BitLocker Drive Encryption and Bitlocker To Go in Windows 7
require special hardware
• XP Mode also requires special hardware
• BitLocker Drive Encryption and Bitlocker To Go are only
available in the Ultimate and Enterprise Editions
• XP Mode is available only in the Professional, Ultimate and
Enterprise Editions
• Windows 7 is incompatible with some software
• Windows XP dominated most of the benchmarks run
• Windows 7 performs better in the 3D graphics
Conclusions
• XP still remains a better desktop OS since:
– it has few application compatibility issues
– works on ordinary hardware and
– has a better performance.
• disadvantage of “black box” benchmarking is that it
cannot conclusively explain all of the performance
differences
– it merely exposes the differences