Windows 7 chokes interweb tubes

Australian Internet traffic spiked when Windows 7 RC became available earlier in the week. Overall traffic was up 12% with Akamai (Microsoft's download partner) traffic up by 10% to 50%. After the initial surge, and struggles for Microsoft Servers, things are now back to normal. But no doubt, Senator Ted "tubes" Stevens is looking on in horror at how people downloading Microsofts are jamming up the tubes and holding up his internets.



As normal, a new round of scare stories have emerged over Windows 7, most taking aim at the Windows XP Mode feature, ranging from borderline insane rantings, to general confusion over the "special CPU" requirements. It is always fun to see the shake-out from any new feature, but sometimes you wonder exactly what people are smoking?

Performance wise, there aren't many tests for the RC code available yet. One that has been published finds it only marginally faster than Windows Vista. However, that doesn't take into account desktop performance and file copy features where Vista was found seriously lacking. Another reckons that performance is vastly improved over Vista on netbooks, something that is pretty essential to Windows 7's success if Microsoft hopes to remove Windows XP from the sector.  Hopefully there is room for further performance increases before final code.

Certainly, owners of newer PCs will be pleased to hear in the Micosoft engineering blog that performance for solid-state drives is being improved in Windows 7. With new USB and Bluetooth technologies headed our way, you have to wonder what else can be tweaked or added by launch.