Does an upgrade to Windows 7 kill a netbook battery life?

One of the most touted advantage of Windows 7 over Windows XP and Linux is improved battery life. This may be true for future netbooks that would be optimized for Microsoft new operating system, but don't expect any gains from installing Microsoft's latest release on your current netbook! Many people have actually reported reduced battery life on their netbooks after an upgrade to Windows 7.

I suspect that the so-called improved battery life of Windows 7 has much to do with better communication between the OS and the hardware, especially the BIOS and graphic chip. This would allow the OS to take better advantage of the hardware's energy saving features. The problem is that you would only get these advantages if the BIOS and the hardware drivers were optimized for Windows 7. When this is not the case (such as with current netbooks designed for Windows XP and Linux) Windows 7 actually has a reduced battery life.

We should keep in mind that even if Windows 7 is more optimized than Vista, it still uses much more resources than Windows XP or even Linux. That it consumes more power than these operating systems should not be a surprise. Some netbook manufacturers have well understood this and intend to stick with Windows XP until the release of the next generation of netbook processors from Intel.

To conclude I would say that installing Windows 7 on current netbooks is a risky proposition: on some machines the newer OS will run fine, on some it will run but with a reduced battery life, and on some it will slow to a crawl once you open a few applications. In my opinion it is not worth the trouble.