Introduction:

I was at work one day running Fedora 10 on my laptop and needed to be able to work an Office template. I needed some functionality that Openoffice was not providing, certain Macro support with spreadsheets, certain Word features and on another tangent, easier wireless access.

Upon browsing the web, Windows 7 Beta was out, and I was ready to try something new.  Now before we get on the Windows Vista sucks band wagon,  I was using it on very good hardware at the time of its RTM release and all of the hardware had driver support out of the box.

• As far as I was concerned, some apps didn't work.   That was an expected result, did software work great with ME or XP right away or from 95 to 98?  Heck no...
• Was it a bit bloated, not really...  I wasn't running it on Stonehenge hardware and 512 or 1GB of RAM and on a P3.
• I didn't base my opinions on what others said, and I didn't have crappy OEM addons or software other than Macromedia Suite or Zendworks.

The Goodstuff:

So being ready to try something new and try a beta for the first time, I decided to take the plunge.  I grabbed the ISO and burned a copy.  Surprisingly, the installation went like a charm and was much quicker than XP or Vistas install.

For those interested in the details, I was running on an AMD Turion X2, 2 GBs of RAM and a 5400 RPM 200 GB hard drive.  This was all in my work laptop, which is an HP dv2000.

After the installation completed, ALL of the drivers were there and wireless worked.  This was almost the same experience I had with Vista (again I was not using ghetto hardware that I would find in my grandmas computer) except I have no from Beta 1 to the RTM had a BSOD or a black screen.  Windows 7 even found the office HP printers without any additional software!

Without conclusive benchmarks and my own internal timing mechanism, I think Samba and FTP performance has gotten much better.  I can explore the work group faster and transfer the files in an efficient manner.

Windows 7 boots faster, uses less RAM and on this laptop in particular, my battery life is far better than what it was with Fedora or Vista.  Even with the integrated 7200 GO and 64MBs of RAM (before I allowed it to use 128MB)  I had no problem rotating a 3 million polygon teapot in 3dsmax 2010 using Direct X.

Call me old fashioned, but clearly, the Windows API changes to the themes is helping here AND Nvidia did some work for once on cleaning up this particular driver.  The Ford Mustang here was done on this very same laptop on my journeys to BCIT in Vancouver.

Ultimately, Windows 7 seems snappier and more responsive.  Tasks are easier to perform since there are more shortcuts to the tasks and the UI seems more polished.  Programs that had troubles in Vista work without a problem in Windows 7 as well.  Microsoft was throughtful enough to allow Windows 7 to burn ISOs and make the UAC less intrusive by default. 

I didn't exactly have a problem with the original UAC, but it wreaked havok on software installations sometimes and I am used to running su - in Linux if I wanted root access.

The Bad stuff:

95% of my experience with Windows 7 from the Beta 1 to RTM has been nothing but sunshine.  Beta 1 was flawless, but when I installed the RC it felt slower and bloated.  This scared the crap out of me, it was like the nightmare with the "revolutionary" KDE in Linux all over again.  Then to save the day the RTM arrived and I performed a nice upgrade.

Originally outputting 720P movies at 1600 by 1200 from the VGA jack was not exactly flawless and lagged a bit.  Outputting the same movie at that same resolution on my sisters Lenovo Core2Duo with an Intel integrated had great playback in XP.As the nvidia drivers matured, the movies have been getting smoother playback and continue to improve.

The Conclusion:

This has been my journey, and let me tell you, its been like a class A holiday.  Microsoft apparently has listened to the criticisms of the public (most of the public never tried Vista, but that point is moot)  and released Windows 7 - a polished, bored out Vista.

Windows 7 to Vista is like the ME to XP era.  ME was just a way to generate some coin to fund XP and look at the run XP has enjoyed.  7 appears to be the same and I wish everyone to go out and try it for a week or so.

My verdict: 9/10 for Windows 7