Review: Windows 7 Pre-Beta Shows Good Performance, Strong Security

Testing was done using a variety of standard performance and security benchmarking tools. Tests were performed on pre-beta Windows 7 loaded onto a Dell XPS MT330 laptop with Intel Core 2 Duo T9500 @ 2.6 Ghz. Memory specs are 3 GB DDR RAM (667 MHz).

Primate Labs' Geekbench results were 2859, similar to other machines running Windows 7 with the same specs.

Core Security Technologies' Core Impact Professional v 7.6 was used for security testing. Core Impact ran a number of tests for vulnerabilities including DNS exploits, LSASS buffer overflows and DCOM exploits.

Windows 7 was unable to be exploited by Core Impact with or without Windows firewall turned on.

Internet Explorer 8 beta was tested against ScanIT's browser test, which checks for a variety of browser vulnerabilities such as Windows animated cursor overflow and with Microsoft Data Access Components.

IE 8 beta was also checked against live browser exploits. All of these tests, like the Plugin Adobe flash and Real Player tests, passed except for one: the browser did not catch a phishing attempt of a spoofed video Web site.

Microsoft made the claim that this OS was the most secure yet. With initial testing, that seems to be the case. When the final release is available and as Windows 7 becomes more widely used, there is no doubt that there will be those who will put that claim to the test.