Microsoft hopes Windows 7 makes you forget about Vista

Microsoft Corp.'s new Windows 7 computer operating system hopes to pull off a major trick with memory.

Not computer memory, but ours.

It's supposed to make us forget Vista.

The Vista operating system, which Windows 7 will officially replace later this month, had a terrible reputation almost from the time it debuted in 2007.

Because of Vista's technical foibles, sluggish operation and inability to play nicely with some other programs, consumers and professionals shunned it in droves, refusing to update from Microsoft's old, reliable XP operating system.

Apple Inc. made fun of Vista in a set of hilarious TV commercials, and Microsoft struck back meekly with ads that proclaimed Vista wasn't as bad as you thought.

The Windows 7 upgrade, which will sell for $119 for the Home Premium consumer version, is a chance at redemption. But it's also a campaign to head off the first real competition Windows has ever had in the PC field.

Next year, Web giant Google Inc. will introduce its first operating system, Chrome OS. Because it will be a so-called cloud computing system -- with many of its operations living on the Internet -- it's already hyped to be extremely fast, with the ability to constantly evolve.

Like Windows, Chrome OS will work on PCs. But unlike Windows, it will be free.

At first, Chrome OS will be just for the small laptops known as netbooks. But if it is successful and is expanded to full-size laptops and desktop computers, it could be a formidable challenger.

Which is perhaps why, although there is nothing revolutionary about Windows 7, Microsoft has striven mightily -- and in some ways successfully -- to at least catch up with and foresee the competition when it comes to user friendliness.

A prime example is its computer search function, which is frustratingly slow on Vista and previous Microsoft operating systems.

The new search on Windows 7 is a tremendous improvement in that it can almost instantly find a word or phrase anywhere on the computer, whether in documents, e-mails or even the names of photos and songs.

But outside of Microsoft, that kind of search is nothing new. Google Desktop gave PC users the ability to do it starting in 2004. And Apple made lightning-fast search part of its operating system in 2005. Finally, and perhaps not coincidently, Windows has gotten up to speed.