GuildCom

About two years and nine months ago, Microsoft released the much-maligned Windows Vista.  I didn’t start using it until nearly a year after it’s release (just a couple of months before Service Pack 1 was released, in fact), and didn’t go to using it full-time until a few months after.  For the most part, Vista ran problem-free for me, and I generally liked Microsoft’s newest OS.  I did have a few problems scattered throughout my year of full-time use (and some before I started using Vista full-time).  in fact, I’ve probably written about some of them here (just checked:  I have, namely the infamous The Long Week & The Longer Post article, which detailed many days of frustration of Games for Windows Live not working…and leading me to discover my .Net Framework was borked.).  There was also the time when Service Pack 1 was first released, I couldn’t get it to install (that was finally fixed by a reformat).  And there’s always little things like video drivers going apeshit and such, but that’s not unique to Vista anyways. 

For the most part, though, I liked Windows Vista, especially when I moved to the 64-bit version of Ultimate last January (I had been using 32-bit Ultimate before that because my upgrade copy of ultimate didn’t come with the 64-bit disk, and MS wouldn’t send me one.  A year later, I finally got my hands on a 64-bit disk, and remedied that problem).  Not everyone was so fortunate, either by genuine Vista issues or their own foolishness/stubbornness in trying to get it to run on outdated hardware.  Vista needs a beefier system than XP did.  When I was buying the parts for my faithful rig Old Blue (a.k.a:  Stormrider) in the autumn/winter of ‘07, I had two main considerations:  building the best gaming rig I could afford and also ensuring it would run Windows Vista happily.  Not only was I using modern hardware, the hardware was all at least six months newer than Vista was!  And since I came to the party a year late, I had missed most of the early problems, particularly the drivers issues that were fairly commonplace.  Most of Vista’s issues have long since been corrected (at least in my experience), but the damage caused by bad press had been done.  Microsoft’s solution?  Windows 7.

Well, not quite.  As had been done in the past, Microsoft actually began development on Windows 7 before Vista was even released (and they are now working on Windows “8″, and have been for several months, presumably even before the Windows 7 code went gold back on July 22).  The beta version of Windows 7 was released on January 9, 2009 to the general public.  I snatched it up and installed it alongside my Vista installation.  I played around with it a bit but didn’t use it heavily (though I could tell even then Windows 7 was going to be impressive; the beta already worked pretty darn well).  On May 5th, the Release Candidate build of Windows 7 was released to the general public and I snatched it up as well, replacing my Win7 Beta installation with it. 

I’ve been extremely impressed with the Release Candidate build:  enough so that in early July, I completely removed Vista from my system and started solely using Windows 7 RC 64-bit as my day-to-day OS (actually, my *only* installed OS).  I’ll make that clear:  I dropped a mature OS in Vista that had Service Pack 2 installed and worked perfectly well and started using a pre-release version of Windows 7.  I was, and still am, that impressed with it.  Its running faster than Vista did, is generally more stable, and I have had fewer driver-related issues.  Virtually all of my software that worked in Vista works in Windows 7 (a small number initially had some issues but have since been fixed with updated versions…and that small number was very, very small).  I love the changes to the taskbar (once I grew accustomed to it), and the new troubleshooting features.  The UI looks slicker and more polished than Vista’s did while still maintaining the excellent Aero look; it simply looks better now. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.  I won’t detail everything that has been changed or improved; that’s easy enough to find elsewhere on the Internet.  I’ll just say that Windows 7 RC is the best OS I have ever used period, and it is just a pre-release version!  I expect the final RTM version to be even more polished and bug-free. 

The finalized RTM version of Windows 7 has been available to TechNet and MSDN subscribers since August 6th, and those eligible for MSDNAA have had access for just about as long.  But today the rest of us can finally start getting our copies.  The pre-orders have begun shipping, you can now buy new computers with Windows 7 pre-installed, and can walk into stores and buy your copy (assuming they have them available) or buy a copy online from Amazon, NewEgg, and the like.

As for me, I’m just waiting for my pre-ordered copy of Windows 7 Professional to get here.