We’ll after reading numerous blog posts and listening to podcasts, I thought it was time I’d check out the release candidate of Windows 7.

The majority of the blogsphere were favouring it after the “cock up” of Vista, so I really to see for myself if this OS would really be a viable step up from XP.

Firstly downloading it was a pretty simple.  Just goto this link from the microsoft windows 7 site.  You can download either 32 bit or 64 bit flavours (I went for 32 bit as I wasnt sure of this laptop  I was going to try it on, the HP 550 – had the 64 bit drivers available).  Note: You’ll need a Windows Live account to download Windows 7 RC and get a product key.

Also worth noting that you only have until August 20th 2009 to get the RC.

The version that they provide is the Ultimate Edition which didnt really matter to me as I wasnt interested in BitLocker and the Multi-Language options.

Installation was a breeze, I opted to wipe the hard disk and do a fresh install as I feel upgrading it from Vista would leave bits of rubbish behind (old .dll files, registry entries etc). (If you’re intrested on upgrading, have a look at this guide from Lifehacker.)

Installation took under an hour and there was very few options to choose during the install which will be a plus to novice users.

After installation was complete and the final reboot took place, when Windows 7 booted up for the first it asks you to setup your first user account (Similar to XP/Vista), select desktop prefernces and if I want to join into a network (which I opted out of as I had nothing to connect to).

Much to my suprise Windows 7 picked up the Wifi Controller on the notebook and said if I wanted to search for available access points.  I selected the access point I wanted to join and provide the usual credentials (wep/wpa key) and then your online!… simple!

Your then finially on the desktop.  Initial impressions?  It looked very clean.  Simple enough to navigate through the start menu if you’ve used Vista.  XP users will soon get used to the interface as it’s really simple and intuitive to use.

The whole operation worked much quicker, not much disk activity either!

I checked the device manager and found that all the hardware drivers were  installed besides the fingerprint recognition device (which I forgive it for as that would be asking a bit too much), but after running a Windows Update (yes you can update in the beta release too) it found the bio-metric reader, installed drivers, rebooted and that was it – worked straight away.

Software Compatibility

All of the apps I use on the regular basis installed and worked without a hitch.  Performance was flawless, alot better than vista.

If you have an application that had issues with Vista, you might now have a chance that it will work under Windows 7 with the use of ‘XP Compatibility Mode’ which emulates Windows XP in a virtual environment.  You’ll need the Professional edition of Windows 7 to take advantage of this.  Click on this post for more info XP Compatibility Mode.

As far as media content was concerned all the common music/video formated played no problem even without the use of third party codecs.

As i’m no longer an avid gamer on the PC, i’m not sure what the performace would be with them under Windows 7 but from what i’ve heard on other blogs and podcasts it does look promising.

Conclusion

I’ve always backed off from using a new operating system straight away that Microsoft release.  I normally tend to wait until they release a service pack.  The strange thing here is that this time I dont need to.  This really is a much improved and polished OS from it’s predecessor.

Microsoft have really pulled it’s finger out and they really had to as users were really jacked off with Vista and some were either going back to XP or moving towards Mac OS and even distro’s of Linux (Ubuntu, Suse etc).

I feel that the RC is ready for prime time. This is my MAIN operating system of use right now.  XP is offically dead for me (sad to say), Vista died along time ago.

Official date of release for Windows 7 is October 22nd 2009.  At the moment there’s some good deals on upgrades, e.g. £50 to upgrade to Windows 7 Home Premium.

You’d be forgiven to think that Windows 7 requires a much faster machine to run.  The system requirements are much less than vista’s were.  It’ll run happily on a 1Gz Processor with 1Gb of ram, which means good news for netbooks users.

What version to purchase/upgrade to? – I would really bothered with the stater or ultimate editions (unless to really need to) Most users will probably be going towards the Home Premium or Professional Editions.  Windows Secrets had a really good article here on the different versions and if they really are worth it.

Also check this page which explains the different versions of Windows 7 with a good product comparison.