I will admit that I love Windows 7 so far. It has been absolutely rock-solid, nice to look at…but most importantly, it has corrected most of the issues I had with Vista. I also work in the IT-field and know computers inside and out, for the most part, and like to keep up with all the “latest and greatest” software. When Microsoft offered their “half-off upgrade promotional pricing” some months ago, I jumped on it to pre-order my copy of Windows 7.
My issue, at the time, was that I had Vista Ultimate…and the comparable version of Windows 7 was inexplicably not offered at any discount. I had felt that Microsoft was giving their biggest enthusiasts (or fools, depending on how you look at it) that bought a license for Vista Ultimate the shaft by not offering them promotional pricing on Windows 7 Ultimate (especially when one considers that Microsoft did not live up to their promises of the “Ultimate Extras” in Vista Ultimate). What appeased me at the time was when I compared the features in each version of Windows 7. I noticed that Ultimate had two features over Professional; two features I wouldn’t miss. So I ordered the upgrade for Windows 7 Professional.
At the time, I was not warned that you couldn’t upgrade from Vista Ultimate to a “lower” version of Windows 7. I found that out when trying to actually do the upgrade…and I was furious. As another reviewer put on here, you are absolutely allowed to upgrade from ANY version of Vista to Windows 7 Ultimate. That being the case, there is NO reason why one shouldn’t be able to upgrade from any version of Vista to ANY version of Windows 7. It’s a higher OS version no matter which way you look at things. And for those who would argue that the reasoning behind the upgrade-paths is based on architecture and whatnot, that all goes down the toilet when you consider you can upgrade from Vista Home Premium to Windows 7 Ultimate. Since Windows 7 Professional now goes back to the way the versions of XP worked (Professional includes ALL of the features of Home Premium), this becomes even more unacceptable.
In the end, I did a clean install of Windows 7 Professional because I had no intentions of spending over $100 more for the Windows 7 Ultimate upgrade. I was able to get the OS and all programs, files, and settings installed within a day and things are working wonderfully. During the install, I was not asked for a single driver, although I did update to more current versions after the install of the OS.
Windows 7 is quite a bit faster than Vista. The boot time for my machine has been reduced by 1/3 and I now notice that my memory and CPU usages are both lowered by 25-40% vs. Vista. I love the new task bar styling and how you can easily pin items to it. I love the Jump Lists that allow you to easily pick common tasks or open documents you’ve recently used by right-clicking a program in your task bar. The Start Menu search bar is now much more useful in that it finds everything matching your search criteria very quickly. Another favorite of mine is Windows Snap. As a programmer, I often have to have two windows side-by-side for comparison purposes. Now, making them line up on the sides of my screen is very easy. Windows Shake is fairly useless…I honestly have no idea where that feature would actually be useful.
To summarize, I feel that Windows 7 is a terrific Operating System and one of the VERY few that I actually recommend upgrading to prior to the first service pack release. However, Microsoft and all retailers selling the Windows 7 line need to make it abundantly clear as to what “upgrade” truly means to the end-user. Sure, any license of XP or Vista will allow you to use the upgrade versions of Windows 7. However, the majority of casual users will assume the word “upgrade” means that they can pop the disc in and, when all is said and done, have all of their programs, settings, and files intact. Windows 7 is an awesome evolution of Vista (and what Vista should have been!), but those upgrading need to be better informed of what could be a painful upgrade process, especially if they are currently running XP.