The newest Microsoft Operating System is more than one year old and has been an amazing success. In the short course of one year, Windows 7 holds 14% of the market share for all desktop operating systems. This is more than double all Mac's combined. Windows 7 is secure, stable and easy to use.
Product details
More details will be made available as I have them but I can tell you that from what I have seen and experienced, this product is a winner, HANDS DOWN!
- 7 is faster than Vista while retaining the security and features you have come to trust and enjoy with Vista. I use a Dell XPS M1530 with 4 gigs of DDR2 RAM and an Intel 2.1 Ghz processor. The approximate time to get to the desktop is 45 seconds. Nice!!
- I still use all of my legacy programs with ease (Office 2007, Quicken 2010, WinZip 10, iTunes, QuickTime (however I am quick becoming a fan of the new Windows Media Player with the ability to stream content between Windows Live Accounts) and many more.
- The dreaded UAC (User Account Control) is now scalable and not nearly as intrusive! Thank you Redmond!!
- There are many third party programs available for free to help you make a transition to Windows 7. Google is your friend so do not be timid.
15 months and all is well
I took the time to install RTM in mid-2009 and the goal was to see no significant changes from the RC and that is what I got. Other than a few cosmetic changes from the default desktop background, I was back up and running within an hour with all programs installed.
The base installation found all my drivers with the exception of an nVidia driver which I had previously downloaded for the RC. I am a firm believer of clean installs and this time was no exception. I always create three partitions for my installs
OS - 30 to 50 gigs (Windows 7 was allowed 50 gigs for growth while a typical XP install would be around 30 gigs)
Data - 50% of the remaining space
Backup - 50% of the remaining space
This setup regiment allows for a permanent data location not affected by reinstalls or a corrupt partition and the Backup allows for criticla data backup or downloads. Note: All data will be lost if you experience a drive failure so backup your data to an external drive and possibly somewhere in the "
Cloud" so you can always access it.
Installation Notes:
- Upgrades from XP are not possible unless you want to upgrade to Vista and then perform an upgrade to 7. This is not a wise choice. Backup your data, grab your installation sources for you programs and spend a leisurely couple of hours installing everything.
- Side Note: You can use BelArc Advisor to run an inventory of your system which will show all installed programs and product keys.
More External Windows 7 Resources
More to come......page under construction.