A look at the utilization and performance numbers of Windows 7 and Windows Vista on the same hardware A couple of weeks ago I wrote that Windows Vista is not slow on the right hardware. I showed you three screen shots that told some of the story: the system information, the experience index, and the task manager performance tab.Here are the corresponding three screens for the Windows 7 beta on the same hardware. As always, click on the small image to open the full-size image in another window:That doesn’t seem much different than Vista did. But have a look at the components of the experience index: As discussed here, maximum scores have been raised to better reflect the capabilities of new hardware. What about memory?Shortly after boot, Windows 7 for x64 uses 1.24GB of RAM out of 8GB. Windows Vista for x64 used 1.34GB at roughly the same point. The difference may not be significant, but it’s consistent with what the Windows 7 managers have been saying about tightening the memory profile.[ For more early impressions of Microsoft’s next operating system, see InfoWorld’s special report: Early looks at Windows 7 ] Similarly, this snapshot shows lower total thread count (555 versus 812), fewer handles consumed (14K versus 17K), and fewer processes running (38 versus 56) in this particular instance of Windows 7 than I had in an instance of Windows Vista in the same hardware under roughly the same conditions. They aren’t directly comparable: I didn’t control the experiment well enough, and Windows 7 is just a beta. But it’s still encouraging; up until Windows 7, every time I did this experiment I saw growth in all of those metrics from one OS revision to the next.This hardware is so fast that both systems feel the same. I’ve heard from some of you that Windows 7 feels faster on your hardware; based on these metrics, I’m not surprised.Gather the post-boot metrics yourself if you like, and please tell me what you find out. One data point isn’t enough to draw conclusions. Software Development