Comparing Windows 7 and Windows Xp Professional Series on the Effects of Usability Enhancement and Security Enabling Greater User Adoption

Comparing Windows 7 and Windows XP Professional Series on the Effects of Usability Enhancement and Security Enabling Greater User Adoption

Situational Analysis

The usability of operating systems has often been one of the top impediments to their adoption through corporations. The recent prioritization of security within operating system design has continued to amplify this issue (DeWitt, Kuljis, 2006). Operating system designers are forced to often make trade-offs between the usability of the next-generation operating systems on the one hand, and the need for augmenting security significantly on the other (Furnell, 2010). This paradox of usability, and its implications on operating system adoption throughout an enterprise, is the basis of this comparative analysis of Windows XP Professional versus Windows 7 Professional. Both operating systems today enjoy broad adoption throughout large, enterprise-level accounts (Wildstrom, 2009). The design objectives of Windows 7 Professional are prioritized in support of intensive security first, followed by greater usability second (Bradley, 2009). Windows XP Professional’s top design objectives included more of a focus on integration, backward compatibility to Win16- and Win32-based applications designed for the widely adopted Windows NT and previous generations of Windows operating environments (Bradley, 2009). The progression of Windows NT, to XP and finally to Windows 7 Professional has been one where Microsoft transitioned away from integration and backward compatibility to embrace usability and security as equally high priorities in the development (Wildstrom, 2009).

State of Problem

The paradigm of relying on operating systems as the basis for personal productivity applications is today going through a revolutionary change. This is forcing the existing desktop operating system market to achieve only single-digit levels of growth while also bringing about saturation in the highly profitable enterprise...