The much anticipated release of the newest Microsoft Operating System is in the final stages of being released to manufacturing (RTM) which means the final product is not that far away. There was speculation the entire GUI would be replaced before the final version was released but that is not very likely with the RTM date of late July 2009.
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 2008, 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!!
- More to come!!!
RTM is installed.....
I took the time to install RTM this past summer 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 rpgrams installed.
The base installation found all my drivers with the exception of an nVidia driver which I had previosuly 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.